Persuasión musical en spots de Donald Trump. Recursos de yuxtaposición en anuncios comparativos con música de librería

Aleix Herreras Carrera

doi:10.31921/doxacom.n39a2093

Authors

Aleix Herreras Carrera Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC), Spain https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9425-5340

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n39a2093

Keywords:

Campaign ad, musical syntax, harmony, presidential campaign, Donald Trump

Abstract

This paper studies the soundtrack of some Donald Trump contrast ads that include resources of musical juxtaposition. Adverts that used pre-existing production music during the 2016 and 2020 US presidential campaigns. The preferred technique is to reduce the number of instruments used to a minimum when talking about the adversary and bringing in full orchestration when speaking of the advertiser. Expressive silence is the most powerful musical device for signposting those words or phrases that, due to the information they transmit, summarise the advertising and campaign message in the ad. The Republican candidate opts for alternating and combining harmonious and textural changes to project himself with a tough profile in the second part of the spot, in contrast with the weakness of the Democrat candidates, as represented in the first, negative part. The application of harmonic changes while maintaining the instruments, rhythm and pace of the music strengthens the narrative cohesion of all the audio-visual components. The methodology utilised in this study can be applied to observe music in the audio-visual field outside the context of political campaigns, and even outside advertising.

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Author Biography

Aleix Herreras Carrera, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC), Spain

Musicologist (UAB, 2015) specialised in the integration of music in audio-visual narratives, and musical persuasion in advertising spots and electoral campaigns. He attained a Master’s in Specialised Communication at the University of Barcelona (UB, 2016), where he was a student of Doctor Joseph Hilferty, former president of the Spanish Association of Cognitive Linguistics (2004-2008). Together with this linguist, Herreras Carrera has studied the priming effect of changes in musical harmony on linguistic understanding (a paper published in Epistemus: Revista de Estudios en Música, Cognición y Cultura, 11 (1): “Effects of a progression of chords on linguistic understanding: the relationship between closure or harmonic suspension and the declarative or interrogative meaning of a phrase”). Aleix has a doctorate in Communication from the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC, 2024), with a thesis on Musical persuasion in campaign spots tutored by music management professional Isabel Villanueva Benito, a PhD specialised in the digitalisation of music and communication strategies for reaching new audiences.

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