by Joshua Bettleman
Learning the secrets behind classical music can help speechwriters to create masterpieces that truly "resonate" with their audiences.
My first formal assignment as a speechwriter came in 1990, when I worked in Britain as an exchange officer to the Royal Air Force. I was approached one day by a British Air Commodore who had been asked to speak at a reunion of D-Day veterans. He knew I could write, for he had read several of my articles that appeared in defense publications. He was more interested in discovering whether I could write speeches.
At the time, I didn't know there was a difference. I quickly discovered how different writing for the eye is than writing for the ear.
A week later, the commodore returned my draft with a single comment written in red ink:
"Clean, informative, stylistic, with nice flow. Now, make some of it sound ugly, please." Confused, I returned to his office for further direction. The commodore merely handed me a CD containing several of Bach's most famous compositions. "These are the sounds that define what western audiences consider 'good'," he said. "Master the secret behind the music, and you will master any audience."
Naturally, I didn't have a clue what the man was referring to. I thought this was yet another exercise in High English esotericism, like that endured by legions of Kentish schoolboys at the hands of their erudite headmasters. But as I began to listen to Bach, and to study the theory behind his music, I gained a new appreciation for what the officer was trying to teach me.
As it turns out, good speechwriting - like good music - is all about tonality.
Sometime in the early Renaissance, a convention developed in Europe that has governed the production of music ever since. Termed tonal music, this convention is based on a sequence of 8 notes, or a key. Most tonal music is written in major keys - C and G, for instance - with melodies and harmonic chords derived from the seven notes that follow on the scale. The object of a tonal compositon is to create consonance in the ear of the listener - to combine notes in series and in harmonies that literally sound good together.
It is tempting to believe that what sounds good is entirely dependent on individual tastes - or on cultural conditioning. But in reality, there is a great deal of acoustic science behind what pleases the ear. Notes in a particular key work for the listener because their frequencies resonate. Likewise, notes that sound "off key" create discomfort or dissonance simply because their frequencies conflict.
Leonard Bernstein believed that the human preference for tonality came not from "a set of inventions and decisions," but rather from "the fundamental nature of sound." Human beings appear to have an innate ability to discriminate between consonance and dissonance, and a natural preference for the former. Studies of infants show they are more likely to become agitated when exposed to excessive dissonance (random piano banging, for instance) then when exposed to orderly, tonal works. The practice of playing Mozart to infants in order to accelerate their IQ's may be well grounded.
This is not to say that dissonance has no place in music. To the contrary, dissonance is what keeps listeners engaged in music. In his otherwise smooth and melodic "Aire on a G String," Bach uses occasional sequences of strained chords and disharmonies to build a level of anxiety in the "aural mind" of the listener. He resolves this anxiety by bringing the listener back to the music's major scale - in other words, back to tonality. It is the masterful journey from consonance to dissonance and back again that accounts for the enduring appeal of Bach's masterpiece.
It is my personal belief that the development of tonal music had a profound influence on all forms of western writing. When we teach students of composition to develop a cogent theme, to incorporate ideas or statements that support that theme, and to summarize that theme in the final paragraph, we are really teaching them to mimic the construction of tonal music.
When it comes to writing speeches, the connection to music is even more obvious. We use expressions like striking the right tone to describe the way a speaker attempts to harmonize his message with an audience's expectations. A successful speech is said to have struck a chord with that audience. A sales presentation is called a pitch, and the lead speaker at a conference is tasked with delivering the keynote address.
Like good tonal music, a speech must also contain elements of dissonance so that it is truly engages an audience. That was precisely what my English boss meant when he told me to "make some of it sound ugly." My speech draft consisted only of celebratory prose. Paragraph upon paragraph praised the bravery of those soldiers who rushed up Omaha Beach. Nothing in the speech gave them a contrast - something that highlighted what it meant to be brave on June 6, 1944.
So I incorporated a little known story of a soldier whose courage utterly failed him on D-Day. After hitting the beach, this young infantryman burrowed into the sandy bluff, paralyzed with fear. No one could coax him out of his hole, and his fellow soldiers just gave up on him.
As I watched from the back of the conference room, I could tell that the commodore had succeeded in galvanizing his audience. At first, they shifted in their chairs with discomfort, precisely the way a concert audience reacts when a symphony shifts into dissonance. They became uneasy with a story that seemed so out of place with the main theme of the speech. "Where are you going with this, Commodore?" they seemed to ask. "And how long will you take us there?"
Finally, my boss relieved the tension by telling the second half of the story. Something sparked inside that soldier as the battle raged. Summoning the courage to fight, he was among the group that finally broke out from Omaha on the longest day. The young private would go on to be decorated for his bravery under fire
As he finished the story, I could see smiles breaking out on the faces of the relieved veterans. The speaker had returned to his theme, now reinforced by such a gripping allegory. Tonality had once more been regained.
Alan Bloom once wrote that "music is the soul's primitive and primary speech." It is a form of communication that probably predates both spoken and written language. And it has a far greater capacity for stirring emotion and memory. People who routinely forget their PIN numbers have an easy time remembering the exact words to a song they learned decades before. For speechwriters, mastering the secrets of tonal music will help them to master the hearts and minds of any audience.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Joshua Bettleman is a freelance speechwriter residing in Collegeville, PA. He is founder of PitchProfessor, a speechwriting and public relations company.
Contact: Joshua Bettleman, dbettleman@yahoo.com, PitchProfessor.com, 132 Spruce Lane, Collegeville, PA 19426, (610) 420-2479
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