attention before. And when Sonny realizes this, he invites his brother to watch his performance playing jazz with his friends that night. The narrator accepts the
invitation and goes to the nightclub with Sonny. And in that time, the narrator finally sees something in music that he did not understand before. Now he feels
music and the message in it. And also he finally understands his brother better.
B. Approach of The Study
The study conducted here uses structural approach with a brief historical support. The structural approach itself based on the structuralism movement.
According to Michael Lane, structuralism approach is: a method whose primary intention is to permit the investigation beyond a
pure description of what he perceives or experiences, in the direction of the quality of rationality which underlies the social phenomena in which he is
concerned. Lane. 1970: 31 The structural approach, can be seen as an approach which focuses on an
underlying structure that occurred in a social phenomena. Therefore the main aim of the study is trying to find the structure in a literary work. Jonathan Culler in
Literary Theory also stated:
“. . .the goal was to identify the underlying structures that make it possible. . . . structuralism sought to analyse structures that operate
unconsciously structures of language, of the psyche, of society. Culler, 2000: 120
According to Robert Detweiler, there are various methods in conducting the study using structural approach:
the key concept of structuralist search for “the quality of rationality” are those on system, the signified-signifier-sign relationship, binary opposition, laws of
transformation, deep structure and surface structure, synchrony and diachrony, and metaphor and metonymy. Detweiler. 1978: 17
One of the key concepts mentioned by Detweiler as the method of analysis
used in this study is metaphor and metonymy. The analysis on metaphor and metonymy is used to find the underlying structure of the verbal music in the story
of “Sonny’s Blues”.
While, the historical approach is used in order to support the structural analysis. According to Michael Ryan in An Introduction To Criticism
, “Historical information can explain a cultural text by providing meaning for events and
characters that is not lo catable within the text itself.” Ryan, 2012:32. This study
features revival meeting and blues-jazz as an archetypal culture. Therefore, historical support is needed.
C. Method of The Study
The study of verbal music in “Sonny’s Blues” conducted here is library
research. The study used the work of Steven Paul Scher titled Notes Toward a Theory Of Verbal Music
as the primary source of the research. Another theory and history about the revival meeting in African American and blues-jazz music is
also considered as important sources. While the step or procedure of the research is that first the story is read for
several times with the focus on the verbal music. Next, the theories are also read and highlighted in some important point. Furthermore, the study compares the
verbal music in the story of Sonny’s Blues to the theory of verbal music by Scher.
