For as long as I can remember I have always seen a close relationship between stories and music. Perhaps this is from my love of ballet, growing up with the magical scores and fairytales that have such a treasured place within the classical arts. However, ballet isn’t the only artform that combines music with narratives; there are operas, musicals, film scores and so on, all which use music to enhance the story they are trying to tell. And audience members, including myself, tend to be incredibly drawn to these productions, enjoying having another world to escape to, even just for a couple of hours.

As a composer, I really believe storytelling is one of the most important parts of my creative compositional process. I find it very difficult to find the same motivation to write a piece of music without an external stimulus, be it a concept, character or, of course, story. I take great joy in diving into a world different than my own and using it to inspire the musical content I am creating. To me, it is a way to get closer to an audience as I can create a sound world that is justified by the context I am producing it in. It also makes it easier to collaborate with musicians and share my vision with them, regarding how I would like a certain piece to be performed. It gives the music a kind of ‘nucleus’ to work around; something that everyone can explore or relate to outside of the notes on the page.

You see, music by itself is a pretty abstract concept, made even more abstract when the harmonies become atonal and the rhythms become irregular. This is where I believe stories can help, since they can be used to provide a structure outside of the inner musical structures or boundaries that are being broken down. In my opinion, you have to leave the audience with something to hold onto and something to understand, and a story is a great way to do this. The structure of a story, with its emotional arc and built in themes can all be used to support different musical choices, be it tonal or atonal, regular or irregular, melodic or atmospheric… you get the idea. Stories give these choices meaning, whilst also providing inspiration that can lead to lots of new and exciting ideas, since they will encourage you to imagine what different parts of the story could sound like.

We all know that stories are age-old devices used to teach, connect to and move people, and music is almost like the aural realisation of emotions. Therefore, the combination of the right story with the right music is like magic- it is powerful, expressive, emotive and memorable. Of course stories are not always the right choice for every piece of music, nor every composer. Sometimes composers want to let the music speak for itself or leave room for the audience to let their imagination run wild. However, I do think that using stories within music is an underrated tool, particularly in the world of contemporary and abstract music. Perhaps more could be achieved if we thought more about what we were saying and how we were saying it, especially when we want to encourage audiences to listen to what we create!