I admit to being a major Julie Andrews fan. I have the Sound of Music and Mary Poppins completely memorized. However, reading Killingsworth's "Appeals Through Tropes" has given me some new insight in the "Do Re Mi" song, and how the song uses metaphor in an usual way.
Killingsworth writes "Tropes tend to connect the abstract to the concrete - again, "love is a rose" - expressing the emotional quality of our relationship to the world" (122). The "Do, Re, Mi" song uses tropes. Andrew's character, Maria, uses homophones, words that the children are familiar with to help them remember and identify the solfege syllables. The song begins with a metaphor: "Do, a deer, a female deer." "Do" is like a deer - not in its properties, but in its sound. This does not exactly match Killingsworth's definition of a metaphor, but I argue that it is a trope that involves comparing two unlike things for the purpose of understanding the unfamiliar one.
The tropes in this song are not simply embellishment- in contrast, they shape the children's thinking about how songs are put together, and they have a clear function. These metaphors for the various solfege notes "relate unfamiliar things to the familiar experience of physical existence" (Killingsworth 124). However, something interesting happens at about 3:08 in the video. Maria mixes up the notes, and they loose their metaphorical meaning. "So, do, la, ti, do, re, do" does not mean, 'Sew doe la tea doe ray doe." It wouldn't make any sense. One of the children points this out, and Maria says, "So we put in words. One word for every note." The metaphor served only a temporary purpose, to get the children in the story to the point where they were no longer needed.
I am curious - are there other places where tropes serve to cancel themselves out? I cannot think of other examples, but I am sure that there must be some.
Rebekah, I'm not sure how to relate this strategy of teaching to the usage of metaphors. She teaches the children to remember the "do re mi fa so la ti do" words by associating them with words that they already know. But, she is teaching them notes by using "do re mi fa so la ti do." Once they learn those words, she takes those words out and all of a sudden they know notes. Then they can sing notes with any and all words that they know.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a very realistic way to teach music, but I think I understand why you're relating it to tropes. I'm just having a problem with the notion of doing this to teach notes, since notes are not words. We sing words, but notes are not always sung. I wonder then how notes would fit into the notion of tropes?
As for other examples, I would think that teaching math would require students to use tropes and then cancel them out. For example, a teacher might use candy to teach a student how to count, but that candy will eventually be replaced with numbers once the students learn the concept of counting.
So you know when you're really little, younger than 4 years old, and you still have your glorified high chair at the dinner table? Something I saw my parents use as a "learning" tool was the "pretend the spoon is an airplane" trope. Something about an airplane covered with Gerber baby food makes it extremely appetizing to toddlers. I've seen it as a common practice that parents use to try and get their young children to eat.
ReplyDeleteSome parents even go as far as to make engine noises of the airplane soaring through the air, to make the airplane seem more "real." This type of dining experience is linked with the solfege tool because it trains the subject's mind to perceive differently. It is also an example of a learning trope that is there one day, and then gone once the "student" has outgrown the lesson.
Jaylyn -
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, I see this song as a trope because it connects two unlike things to further understanding of the unfamiliar thing. Of Killingsworth's tropes, I think metaphor is the closest one. This situation with the Do, Re, Mi song does not fit neatly into that category, so I am open to other possibilities to name this trope.
Gabe -
I am intrigued by your idea of a "learning trope." Does this constitute a separate category of tropes beyond Killingsworth's, or could any one of those tropes also be a learning trope?