A Comparative Study on Accents in Periodic Actions of Drama and Music

Abstract
One of the main reasons of spreading the multimedia in the world is that of employing various arts at
once. In fact “using” multi-arts are far ahead of “studying” multidisciplinary approaches. In spit of that,
multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary studies are growing faster than any other disciplines. This growth
requires the specialization of the issues which are studied under these approaches. As this, the current
study narrowly focuses on considering the status of accents in drama and music. In music the accents of
whatever kind are spaced out through time. However, in theatre and cinema we are faced with two kinds
of accents, those spaced through out in time and those spaced through out in place. Dramatic actions
whose accents lead to their emphasis are categorized in two views. In the first view, action in drama is
taken as changing process which occurs along linear time. In this view, dramatist chooses some portions
of this based on the given time of the performance. In the second view, the actions of drama are taken
as periodic processes, taking place in cyclic time. In this perspective, the dramatist selects a number of
such periods to present in the time of performance. These periods in music are seen from the smallest
unit, motif, to phrase, phrase-group, movement and finally the piece itself. Comparative study of accents
in music, drama and visual arts shows how the main constructive elements work similarly in the process
of creation and perception of various arts. Considering different sources of musical and dramatic accents
illustrate the variety of tools available for emphasizing different points of piece in the hand of their creators.
Synchronizing the musical and dramatic accents is the next issue of this article. One of the simplest
ways of treating musical, visual and dramatic accents is that of synchronizing them. Such synchronization
makes the process of perception very reliable. In watching a movie or theatre a huge amount of data
goes through the mind of the audience. In order to process such a huge data, the mind of audience has no
chance other than finding a kind of periods to reduce the amount of data. Various elements are used to
provide the mind for categorizing parts of the piece and finding periods including mood, internal condition,
energy and structure. Each of those elements or a combination of them could provide the boundaries
of each period. For instance, changing in the atmosphere of the stage can be used as an introduction of a
new period. The interaction of musical, visual and dramatic accents with each other composes the main
part of this study which leads to introducing a new diagram of categorizing the ways of their combinations
in four possibilities including: parallel, diverse, counter-pointed and harmonic. Finally, presenting
various issues regarding examination of accents in drama and music revealed that having more than one
perspective in such investigations could provide deeper understandings