Marion Brachet

Dans cet article, je montre comment et pourquoi les chansons populaires peuvent être perçues comme narratives, mais aussi que ce processus de narrativisation obéit aux mêmes principes qu'il soit enclenché par une mise en scène sonore immersive, une composition multimodale, et/ou la création d'un monde narratif.

Les apports de la narratologie cognitiviste à l’étude des musiques populaires ont récemment permis d’adopter des approches analytiques permettant de rendre compte des processus de narrativisation à l’œuvre lors de l’écoute, c’est-à-dire des modes de réception caractérisés par l’interprétation des éléments sonores et verbaux au travers d’un prisme narratif. Malgré la généralisation de ce cadre théorique, peu d’études de réception ont encore été réalisées pour renseigner ces processus de narrativisation. Cet article se propose de contribuer à leur compréhension grâce aux résultats d’un questionnaire en ligne portant sur la réception narrative des chansons rock et folk, en se concentrant ici sur les strates musicales non vocales des chansons. Les témoignages d’écoute mettent en évidence trois éléments majeurs jouant le rôle d’incitants narratifs pour la population enquêtée : la complexité de la forme, la présence de soli instrumentaux, ainsi qu’une atmosphère jugée immersive. En s’appuyant sur les descriptions de ces caractéristiques par les enquêtés, cet article tente d’affiner l’identification de ces incitants narratifs non vocaux dans un contexte musical défini génériquement.

Thanks to recent developments in cognitive narratology, popular music studies now have means of approaching the narrativization processes occurring when listening to songs, narrativization being characterized by a reception where sonic and verbal elements are interpreted by recourse to narrative schemata. Despite the generalization of this theoric lens, few reception studies have been conducted to grasp better understanding of these processes. This article aims at contributing to this understanding using the results of an online questionnaire dealing with the narrative reception of rock and folk songs, with a focus on the songs’ non-vocal layers. The listeners’ answers highlight three main elements that can act as narrative incentives: a complex form, instrumental developments, as well as an atmosphere considered immersive. Through an analysis of the descriptions given by the participants to the survey, this article tries and refine the identification of non-vocal narrative incentives in rock and folk recorded song.

Effects produced by music and sex are similar insofar as they make us feel the present moment intensely (Frith 1996): this is probably the reason why our discourses frequently borrow vocabulary from the sexual lexical field when we want to name instants where our musical perception is most stimulated. The word “climax” is a transparent example, since it can literally refer to an orgasm, but is also used to talk about the intensity peak of a piece of music. This metaphor comes with unfortunate restrictions, in this case, the viewing of a climax as the equivalent of one standardized representation of male pleasure – the single orgasm. Yet, to see a musical climax as an intensity peak preceded by a crescendo and followed by an immediate fallout has its limits. It is generally relevant in tonal, classical music, but this outline loses its accuracy when it comes to other genre families, like rock music, which progresses step by step, and does not necessarily include one precise identifiable peak.

This article focuses on a post-rock corpus and shows the importance of a more flexible use of the notion of climax in musicology. The studied climaxes, shaped as long sections instead of one-time peaks, illustrate how musical analysis can benefit from alternative templates, namely those of multiple and sustained orgasms. Using these two models as formal references, and relying on Brad Osborn’s work (2013), which evidenced the role of terminal climactic sections in recent rock music, this paper stresses the internal crescendos of the climactic sections often – but not exclusively – heard in post-rock. Their form, instrumentation, harmonic strategies, use of technology and performance highlight the main characteristics of these expanded climaxes: an extended temporality, replicability and reduced teleology.