Content and Cadence and Yes We Can

What do composers and speechwriters share in common?

They both need to balance the interplay on the one hand between elements of content, whether pitch for musicians or text for writers and on the other hand, elements of duration, rhythm for musicians, cadence for Speechwriters.

What happens when one element or the other needs to govern in a particular creative situation?

In the late Renaissance, composers, particularly those active in the fledgling art form of opera, decided that the rhythmic elements of speech had to take precedence over concerns of pitch. This philosophy, self-consciously harking back to the dramatic arts of the ancient Greek stage, was known as "Prima Practica".

If text and cadence are two perpendiculars, what sort of horizontal can unite them to make a brilliant speech?

Well, consider two, an inviting silence, and the human mind of the audience.

If you've ever been in a situation of observing speaker and audience, neither element is happy with silence. It's thought of as the equivalent of "dead air" in radio.

But the skillful speaker uses silence to crucial effect. He or she does the same thing with the human minds of the member of the audience.

Since the speaker knows the audience abhors a vacuum, they are more than willing, with the right cue, to help provide the totality that their minds demand.

The most visible example of this horizontal between the perpendiculars of speaker and audience are Barack Obama's "Yes, We Can" answers from the audience.

Which do you think are more important, the questions he asks, or the fact of repetitive and empowering response?

He'll take the rhythm of the response every time over the content of the questions he's asking.

Prima Practica, alive and well in the 21st century world of politics. Stay tuned.