There are many examples of story telling and narrative drive in music, from the country and western song, to the tone poems of composers such as Liszt and Richard Strauss, but perhaps the grandest example of story telling in music is opera. And perhaps the grandest and most ambitious of all opera is Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

It is worth standing back from this gigantic monument of a work to appreciate its timeless, story telling characteristics: there are heroes and heroines and impossible undertakings; there are villains who seek to undermine the heroic progress and replace it with one of their own; there are endings and new beginnings; there are seemingly impossible challenges, victories and defeats and countless reversals of fortune and through all, intertwined with the story's progress, there are essential truths about the nature and meaning of life.  

In terms of the music itself, significant ideas and characters are given their own musical themes, and these rise out of the musical ocean accompanying the action when they are particularly significant and the onward narrative demands it. In Wagner's operas, this background, boiling ocean of ideas is not only symbolic of the subconscious and conscious feelings of the characters on the stage, but also of what Jung called the 'Collective Subconscious' of the world depicted. This is its feel, its latent resonance, to use a modern term its background radiation, the cultural and psychological atmosphere within which the characters live, breath and sometimes, as in the case of the Rhine Maidens, swim.   

It is easy to take the above principles and apply them creatively to everyday problems and issues. Who are the key players and are they positive or negative forces (heroes, heroines or villains)? What are or could be their roles? How powerful and/or  important are they to the situation or problem and you? What challenges, events or  tasks are crucial to your success? Which ones need special (perhaps heroic) attention, the mastery of specialist skills or the application of expert knowledge? What is the overall story of the problem? Where was its beginning? What is its history, its back story? How has its narrative unfolded? How many subplots (secondary problems) have formed? When will all the subplots or secondary problems come to a head? How is it all likely to end? What type of ending would you like? What are the alternative endings? If it is likely to end tragically how can you alter this (or at least survive to fight another day)?

Lastly, as alluded to above, the world of opera offers one more insight; what is the background radiation that accompanies the problem? Within what ocean of culture, feelings and emotions does the problem exist? How has this shaped the problem? Indeed, is it the very reason for the problem's existence?

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