Music as an art of the theater has its roots in primitive ritual and ceremony and its branches in every modern means of theatrical presentation. Its functions are as varied as the forms require and range from being the primary reason for performance, as in opera, to mere noise, filling a vacuum in imagination for some screen and stage presentations.

Theater music is all music composed to govern, enhance, or support a theatrical conception. Music composed for theatrical purposes obeys different laws than does the music for concert performance or conventional opera. Whereas in opera the music dictates the form in which the dramatic visual imagery is presented and governs its development, in other kinds of theater the music is, at best, an equal partner among its principal elements. In concert, of course, the music is the sole factor that determines the experience.

Theatrical music is variously related to the type of a character and his behavior. Music can accompany character’s actions such as movement and his behavior. In some instances music is dominant, in some it is subservient. If a character is moving quickly, you would have an instrument such as a violin playing rapidly and have it follow his actions. On the other hand, if the character was dragging himself, you would have and instrument such as a cello play slow stretched out notes.

Today we have the technology and tools to make every play performance better and more effective than the ones previously preformed. Different performances are made to suit different audiences. Producers and directors are ones who modify plays in order to satisfy their audience. Every play director has his idea of creating a great impact on the audience. Some of them fail and some succeed. All plays function in a different way and are written to be performed. They are not like prose or poetry. In poetry for example, you can not put extra words or comments, but with a play you can do whatever you like, as long as you have a good imagination and a way of pleasing the audience. In the performance, the director can place music at certain places within the play according to his taste. In my opinion, every play would be boring if it lacked music at some points. With ten years of musical experience, I would agree that all plays should contain some music in order to keep the audience awake. It is totally up to the director of the play to decide where and when he wants it played.

In A Doll’s House, Nora is the character who evolves the most. The reason I chose her as a reference is the fact that she is the character who constantly changes the way she acts in order to accommodate the changes. In other words, she constantly alters her attitude when she goes from one person to another. Nora is a quick motioned, jerky character, who is constantly called by animal names such as bird and squirrel, by her husband Helmer. Therefore, the best sort of music accompanying her would be a flute or a piccolo playing high pitched, quick tones. This music would create more life to the play and would go very well with the actual character.

Act II is the act where Nora makes most changes. As a reader, you are imagining different musicals at different episodes, which satisfy the character’s behavior. Reading the play in this manner creates more meaning as well as more life to the actual play.

In the beginning of the act, Nora talks to Christine. Christine reproaches Nora for having borrowed the money from Dr. Rank to pay for Helmer’s rest cure in Italy. Empathetically the girl denies it, for, she says, she would never allow herself placed in such a ‘horribly painful position’ toward their old friend. Now in this situation, there could be a cello playing deeply in the background. The audience is aware that Nora doesn’t want to stick to the subject, and as soon as Helmer appears, Nora quickly goes to greet him and then coaxes him once more to allow Krogstad to keep his position in the bank. In this instance, as soon as Helmer appears, there could be a change in tempo of the music being played. There could be a flute and a violin playing high, quick notes, to show Nora’s nature and the way she moves to greet Helmer.

Later on, Nora insults Helmer by remarking how unlike him it is to take such ‘a narrow-minded way of looking at things’. At this point Helmer is very angry. An orchestra playing a sharp set of tones could be played to emphasize Helmer’s anger. The loudness and the intone of the notes played would really help the audience see Helmer’s anger. This is a good example of why music should be used in all plays. Just by shouting and making a grim on his face wouldn’t create a dramatic effect for the audience, but if that is combined with the music, there would be a much greater impact upon the audience.

Before Dr. Rank arrives, Nora is a cheerful and playful person ‘like a bird’, so a piccolo could play a set of quick, high notes to show her motion. Nora stay like this when Dr. Rank arrives, but the situation calms down when he tells her that he loves her. At that point, the quick music would stop, because Nora would have been confused. A violin could play something slow until Nora decides what to reply. This is a good point because the change is spontaneous. The music would go from quick and cheerful, to something very slow and rather depressing to compensate.

So far we have had either happy or depressing set of tones accompanying Nora’s character. When Nora reads Krogstad’s threatening mail, a violin could play something sharp but not so fast, in order to create a tense, threatening situation. This would make the whole episode more dramatic for the audience, because music would be showing that there is something tense occurring which maybe the character wouldn’t be able to perform. On her way to Christine, the music would stay the same, but as soon as she reached her the music would stop.

Music in the play shouldn’t constantly be played because the audience wouldn’t concentrate more on it and maybe miss some crucial points. Therefore, the director should be very careful in choosing the places for music and places to leave without any.

At the point where Torvald is busy reading mail and Nora is distracting him, the play could have silent background orchestra playing with a piccolo or a flute being emphasized at the points Nora moves around distracting him. Nora then tells him she’s nervous about the dance and asks for assistance. While dancing, Helmer gets extremely mad because Nora ignored his instructions. At this point, his action can be accompanied by a sudden start of an orchestra playing sharp, loud tones, which emphasize his extreme anger. Therefore the music would have to be going from softer up to a point where it is extremely loud, to show the peak of his anger.

This music would then slowly decrease in speed and loudness as he slowly looses his anger and starts calling his wife animal names such as in this case ‘where’s my little skylark’ and therefore a flute should be playing something soft, to show his passion and love towards Nora.

The intensity and the type of music are mostly important at the openings and closing of the acts. Just like an introduction and a conclusion of a paper, they serve to introduce and close an act. It is perfectly possible to use music in plays but it is up to the director to decide when and where he should place it. An emphasis should mostly be placed on the entrances and exits as well as on introduction of new characters, because the music would give the play a dramatic effect, which would help the audience understand the performance better. Drama is always creative. The author only writes a play, and many producers edit it in order to make it ‘better’ or more effective.

As a reader, if you take in consideration what music could be played when and using some imagination, reading a play in this manner would create more meaning to the overall play, and help the reader understand the true nature of the characters.

Political Sociology Question #3: What strategies as the legal profession used to establish a professional monopoly In what sense have these strategies been successful or unsuccessful Why

Before we can discuss the way that the legal profession as attempted, either successful or not, to create a monopoly the definition of what a professional is should be looked at. A profession, according to the functionalists, is first serves the needs of the public s best interest. To the functionalists there is no professional bank robber. A profession has a strong community or essentially by blocking out competition. The last and most important idea of professionalism is self-regulation. It is the ultimate goal of any profession to be self-regulated. Here is where we can observe that professions do not establish a monopoly, yet the term profession itself means to monopolize the work place. According to people of any profession theory will argue that this is a neccesity. The only people, professionals argue, that can judge or regulate the in this case lawyers would be expert lawyers. It would not make sense to have professionals from other areas such as blacksmiths, doctors, electricians, etc., regulate the legal profession.

There are two sides to this argument that the legal profession claims. Though the self regulation is good because they can now set standards for the profession and high ones at that, on the other hand they will be less likely to punish on of their own because it makes the profession look bad. This argument of whether it is in the public s best interest remains to be seen and self-regulation is in a constant struggle to prove so.

The strategies employed by those who wished to keep the legal profession just that a profession, for which I already showed means monopoly, was by first establishing barriers for prospective lawyers to cross. In other words, guidelines that forbid any citizen to just claim divine lawyership becoming a lawyer without the proper education or knowledge. The first step to achieve this was by forming an American Bar Association ABA , which was accomplished in 1878. Before this there were local Bar Associations, which had neither real ties nor any organization to begin to regulate the practices of lawyers. The Bar Examinations, which are a form of self-control, began to be used as a tool. The ABA struggled to get states to accept this as the entry port in to the legal profession. This is one way in which the profession can regulate who becomes lawyers, the Association would regulate the number of lawyers in the industrial states for there were already a number of lawyers, and they want to keep competition down. This is a fundamental goal of monopolies to eliminate competition.

As the Bar Examinations gained power, those wishing to be lawyers realized that they needed to go to school to learn about the tests. One cannot take a test for which they do not know the subject matter. Consequently, the number of law schools increased drastically. The ABA lost control to law schools, the schools are cheap to maintain and kept increasing enrollment, offering part-time school, giving every opportunity for as many aspiring lawyers a chance. After the ABA was unsuccessful and felt like they were losing control they put pressure on the law schools to slow down, but they had no reason to. The next step for the ABA, in trying to monopolize the legal profession was to work with the most rigorous and prestigious schools giving them accreditation.

1921 saw the ABA adopt a formal standard way of legal training, teamed up with the Association of American Law School to raise the standards for access to membership. Proving once again unsuccessful the ABA pushed to mandate that all state bars to only accept new lawyers who attended only accredited law schools. This was needed because the attempt at monopolizing was failing because students were not going to the more expensive accredited law schools. Now a first step at gaining a monopoly at what schools lawyers must attend was successful. During the depression and WW II the unaccredited schools were driven out, thus a true monopoly over the entrance into the profession was completed.

The next step to further the monopoly was to mandate that all accredited law schools mandate that all law students must have a college education. The Bar would and was in constant battle with state legislatures of trying to further regulate bar admittance. The Bar Association established a character and fitness test to regulate and discourage the number of immigrants and minorities from applying.

The ABA also attempted was to ensure self-regulation, doing this the legal profession would maintain itself as a legitimate profession. They must do this by lobbying government. This proved to highly successful for lawyers as they gained ground by working with other professionals and making treaties and lobbying. It would not seem that difficult to me, since most politicians were lawyers themselves, and much of that was to secure the governments willingness and ability to the ABA. It goes without saying that members of the ABA will do what is in the best interest to lock the legal profession by the use of legislative laws, and those making the laws themselves are ABA members.

For the most part the ABA was successful in monopolizing the profession and continues to do so, it has taken them much hardship and time. Even though there is a rise in the number of lawyers, the ABA will limit those who pass the bar to balance the workforce. One area that the ABA has been very successful is creating an ethnic monopoly. Not very minorities are lawyers for various policies and regulations established by the bar thus blacks framed the NBA, no not the National Basketball Association but the National Bar Association. This association is becoming very powerful, they are an organization aimed to help and support other black lawyers.

In conclusion the ABA has over the last century painstakingly attempted to monopolize the legal profession. The ultimate goal being self-regulation was finally achieved through the government. For example it is illegal to give legal advice if you are not a lawyer, one cannot represent another in a court of law without a law license; which are controlled by the ABA. There are gamuts of things the nonprofessionals cannot do, unless licensed. The ABA today has complete control over who gets to become a lawyer and in some ways that is good; rather, on the other hand the law profession in our society is looked down upon. And the way they are systematically denying access or making it impractical for minorities shows that someone needs to regulate the self-regulated professions