Voids: Tension and Release

The International School of Kuala Lumpur provides an exceptional education that challenges each student to develop (Silence) the attitudes, skills, knowledge and understanding to become a highly successful, spirited, socially responsible global citizen.

I feel that adding the word Silence after develop provides a void with maximum tension for the listener because it is just before the part where the mission statement is going to describe what the “develop” is. A void creates tension for the audience by making them uncertain and asking questions. One way to create tension is to add silence, which is possibly the best void, in which the listener wonders where, when and why the main idea is and what happened to it. Pausing right after “develop” makes the audience ask questions, in this case, “What?” “How?” I believe that this place for silence will provide the maximum tension for the audience.

One of the way composers can create tension for the audience is to remove or add an element of music. The composer may call for the melody, harmony or pulse to be added or removed. In the absence of one of these, the audience feels tension and asks questions because they are uncertain of what will happen next etc. When the composer decides to provide the release to the tension (the answer to the audience’s questions), he or she just adds or removes the element which they changed in the beginning.