Emerson’s “The American Scholar”: From
Words to Instruments
Emory Jacobs
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Keith Dippre
Department of Music
Statement from the Artist
This musical composition was created by analyzing Emerson’s speech titled
“The American Scholar.” I converted each major passage or repeating subject and
assigned it a small melody, or in more proper musical terms, a motive. Each time
Emerson mentioned something in his speech, I translated that into notation: Whenever
he mentioned books, in my piece the motive I assigned to books would play. Whenever
he mentioned the duties of a scholar, the scholar motive would be notated. The
instruments also each loosely represented an idea, such as the earthy-sounding bassoon
being the instrument that first introduces the listener to the book motive.
Other concepts—such as Emerson’s position for or against certain subjects—
were related to key. If Emerson was angry or disapproved of something, the motive
would play in a minor key. If he talked about something for a very long time, I would
stretch the motive out by several measures. If he mentioned two subjects at the same
general time, both motives would play, but one would be made to sound louder or more
obvious than the other. Techniques such as themes and variations were used here as
well; if Emerson was repeating the same subject over and over, or was saying the same
thing but with different wording, the motive would have a bit of variance.
What I ended up with was something I did not actually expect. Out of
precaution, I had created the various motives to be able to play simultaneously without
creating a lot of dissonance, so that any subject could be mentioned with any other
subject and transition into the next topic without much trouble. But I had especially
made the “religion motive” and “man motive” sound, in my opinion, very
complimentary to each other. Contrary to my expectation, those two motives never
overlapped. Nor was the speech very organized in practice; it was meandering, with no
overarching sections. Meanwhile, some motives were never overshadowed by others or
were never in anything but a major key. These sorts of details became the meat of the
project, as they offered the most intriguing avenues for interpretation of Emerson’s
intentions and beliefs.
Ultimately, I tied these patterns to Emerson’s personal belief system and his
cultural upbringing. His ideas and beliefs at many times did translate musically. For
65
example, the “nature motive” never modulated into a minor key: Emerson viewed
mankind’s relationship to nature positively, and the popular Romantic movement
heralded nature as a source of inspiration for man. In the same vein, the “religion
motive” and the “man motive” never once crossed paths. Not only was religion so
dominant at the time that many viewed the concept of God having some sort of
influence on man as a foregone conclusion, but also Emerson believed that others
should come to their own conclusions about spirituality. This speech in particular
instructs how best to come to such conclusions and where to find inspiration; he was
not there to tell the audience about his own conclusions, which explains why some
possible relationships between topics were barely, if at all, explored.
The oddities and patterns of the musical composition succeeded as
simplifications of Emerson’s personality and belief system. His ideals stayed intact, even
when his words were stripped away and made into something else entirely.
________________________________________
An audio recording is available at
soundcloud.com/e-jacobs/emersons-score
as well as through the online edition of the
Monarch Review, volume two, at
www.methodist.edu/monarch-review-2
and at
66
Emerson: From Words To Instruments
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