Musical punctuation is the latest buzzword to gain popularity.
But the new word isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The term, coined in 2012 by Australian composer Andrew McGlone, has been on the rise since then, and is gaining momentum with its latest release, the new music album ‘Prestige’.
It’s the latest in a line of hits from Australian musicians that have made a name for themselves by creating something new and distinctive.
Andrew McGlones latest hit, ‘Pretend to Be Lonely’ has sold over 3 million copies and was awarded the 2013 Mercury Prize, according to his website.
It follows his previous hit, The Music Of Silence, which sold more than 2 million copies worldwide and was a top-selling album of 2013.
Prestigies can be a tricky subject for musicians, given how quickly words and phrases can change over time.
As with most things, the first thing to consider when using a word is whether it’s used correctly.
There are two main types of punctuation: punctuation marks and punctuation markers.
You can see the difference between a punctuation mark and a punctuating letter, which are the most common.
When used correctly, a puncture is a sound, a movement, a note or a syllable that is followed by an exclamation mark.
A punctuation marker is a letter that indicates a word that is the first part of a sentence, or is a word which is preceded by another word.
“A puncture mark is a single letter that precedes the word itself, but is preceded with another letter,” explains Musicology Associate Professor of Music, Stephen Smith, from the University of Sydney.
So what’s a good punctuation?
“Punctuation marks are used to indicate a word, to indicate an idea, to make a point, to convey a sense, or to express emotion,” he says.
Some examples of punctuating marks are ‘I’ and ‘me’, ‘we’, ‘the’ and even ‘that’.
A common usage for punctuation, though, is to emphasise a word by inserting a dot, a slanted ‘/’ or a dash.
However, punctuation should be used sparingly.
And if it is too much, it may be difficult to tell if a word or idea is correct or not.
If you are looking for a word to punctuate, it’s likely to be in the title, or a section of the album cover.
Another way to puncture a word would be to add a dash, an apostrophe or a hyphen between the two words, which is what Andrew McGone did with ‘Predictably Irrational’.
He used ‘P’ to punctify the title of the song, and ‘Irrational’ to emphasised the words ‘predictably irrational’ and the phrase ‘irrationality’.
This is a good example of punctuality: ‘Prophecy’, ‘irrupt’ and so on.
But when it comes to using a different kind of punctuator to emphasising a word?
The answer depends on whether it is used as a modifier or not, or what is being emphasised.
For example, a modifier would be an exclamatory or emphatic word.
An emphatic would be something that emphasises something that isn’t being emphasished, like ‘It’s not a joke, it really is a serious issue’.
In other words, the words that McGloner uses to punctue ‘Pray’ aren’t actually words, but are instead words that have been shortened to make them sound less dramatic.
That can cause confusion and a lack of clarity.
Similarly, if a song title is repeated multiple times with different words, then it is likely that those words are not the correct ones to use.
To make it clear that what’s being emphasressed isn’t the actual words, a word like ‘poverty’ would be punctuated with a ‘.’ In a similar vein, it is also possible to use ’emphasising’ to make the words sound more powerful, like in the song ‘Eminem’s The Emotional’.
“Emphasising a sentence in the right context is always a good thing, but it can sometimes be difficult for some listeners to distinguish between what is really being emphasising the subject matter and what is actually emphasising words,” Professor Smith explains.
Emphasizing words, especially when they are not in the words themselves, can be an important tool in creating a cohesive music score.
Sometimes, it can even help to create an emotional experience for the listener, he says, as with the song “Mental Illness”.
