A Sonic Lexicon

This chapter focuses on orchestrational technique, explaining the role and importance of arrangers and orchestrators. It surveys musical conventions (of timbre, texture, gesture, sonority, and performance style) commonly used to convey each of the four aesthetic parameters introduced in chapter 2 (sensuousness, restraint, elevation, and sophistication). Bringing in noncinematic examples such as songs by the Pet Shop Boys, Joni Mitchell, and Steely Dan, it shows how these glamour conventions remain active in different popular music idioms to the present day. The chapter concludes by noting that glamour, like other style modes, can be played for different effects, including comedy and camp subversion; but it can also be played straight, with no ironic commentary in mind, and it is essential to appreciate when extravagance takes dignified forms.