How Is It For You ? (the varieties of musical experience)
Have greatly enjoyed the discussions in a couple of threads about "what is music ?" but wanted to ask the question a different way, prompted by some of the posters. How do you, dear listeners, *experience* music ?
Some people, like me, cannot hear a a song without immediately noticing the words-and so singer songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Dylan etc etc have meant a lot to me. Some people I know would be hard put to tell you any phrases from songs they love. Some people tell me music is all about emotion, and will talk about symphonies, for example, as emotional journeys, while another friend, who plays the oboe and loves Brahms tells me music for her is much more about architecture than emotion. And so on.
I was reminded of this watching the superb pianist Helene Grimaud on telly tonight when it was remarked that she "experiences synesthesia, where one physical sense adds input to another, for example tasting words, or in her case, seeing music as colour" [Wikipedia].
I wouldn't say I consciously experience an emotional response to music very much, and yet was absolutely knocked out by the power of the sequence chosen by Howard Goodall in Part 1 of his series on How Music Works-see
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/H/how_music_works/music_melod...
The effect has remained on repeated viewings-by the point of Appalachian spring I am putty ... ;-)
I also don't really "hear" remembered music and yet often know equally well that I have a tune going through my head and which one it is - and also often find a song has popped up that seems to be apposite to/suggested by a thought or a current situation.
I am sure there are as many different responses to music as people-I'd love to hear from the Massive as to just how you do hear music.
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"Some people, like me, cannot hear a a song without immediately
noticing the words . . . . . "
An interesting point, that. Everyone has favourite songs where they love the music but the lyrics are awful. But does it work the other way around?
On holiday in Italy recently we had dinner with a lady from Carolina. The lyrics "Nothing could be finer than . . . " came to mind and the table had an unsuccesful night trying to remember which show the song was from, who wrote it, etc.
When I got home I searched on Google and came across the lyrics on Wiki. I don't much like the song or the tune but I love the line "Strolling with my girlie where the dew is pearly early in the morning". I don't know why, I just do.
Just thought I'd mention it.
Track 29 ...
Indeed. As an example of the mental filing system, reading the phrase "nothing could be finer", especially after dinner and Carolina, made me think for a moment you were talking about the Chattanooga Choo-choo ...
Pardon me boys ...
Music and Lyrics
Yes, the lyrics are really important to me. It's a huge part of what I get out of music, unless of course there are no words.
For the Mrs however the words are pretty secondary despite her liking Bob Dylan.
It is also a terrible but unavoidable habit to hear the words to a song whenever a related phrase or situation occurs, as they say, in real life - eg you're in London getting the last tube, you smell takeaway ...instantly the entire lyrics to Down In the Tubestation at Midnight srart running down your internal autocue. I have to bite my lip to not offer the words of Bowie or Weller up as a bon mot to friends and family.
It's holistic (man)
Sorry. Sometimes music catches you in a moment and I think actual music itself might not matter. It's just luck that that tune caught you at a time when your own internal planets are aligned. Apologies again. How else can I explain why I like Janet Jackson's Rythmn Nation album so much?
Often, it's more than just the music - it's your whole life experience that happens to have a good soundtrack every now and then and we attach a personal poignancy that isn't there. Conversely, a bad song can spoil things but in my case not enough to turn into the Incredible Hulk.
No I do not take drugs, thanks for asking.
Songs, not music
I'm another one for whom the words are as important as the music, if not more so. In fact, I've recently been toying with the idea that I don't actually like music as such - what I'm passionate about is *songs*.
That would explain why I've never been able to work up any enthusiasm for classical music or jazz, which are mostly free of lyrics, or most 'world music' for that matter, as words that I can't understand are almost as useless to me as no words at all. I'm fluent in French and German, so I can enjoy songs in those languages, but Latin American or African music generally passes me by.
Of course the melody and rhythm of a song are important to me, and I appreciate great playing - I can bore for England on the subject of Clarence Clemons' sax solo on 'Jungleland', or Jools Holland's piano at the end of The The's 'Uncertain smile', to name just two examples. But if they weren't attached to songs with words, I doubt I'd be so enthralled.
Beats and hooks
I have noticed that the older I get the more rythmic the music I listen to is. I rarely hear lyrics on the first listen, and sometimes never notice them at all, but if I can dance to it then I'll listen all the way through and then make my mind up. A lot of the music I listen to is in fact instrumental (funk, ska, afrobeat and jazz) or else in another language so the lyrics are either nonexistent or irrelevent.
But if the beat isn't the most important part of the song then I tend to get hooked on particular chord changes straight away, the best example being the one during the line 'Take these broken wings and learn to fly' in Blackbird by The Beatles and also the build up to the chorus of Oliver's Army by Elvis Costello and the beginning of the chorus to Tonight I'll be Lonely Too by Alison Krauss.
Good topic - me, i'm a music man.
I do 'hear' remembered music although it took me some twenty years to put the words to 'Grocer Jack (Excerpt from A Teenage Opera)' by Keith West. I appreciate good lyrics but it's the music that gets me emotionally and the emotions that stick in my brain.
Apparently music also affects the same parts of our Brain's used for the enjoyment of Food and Sex. Make of that what you will, but i'll take wordless harmonies or beautiful melodies anyday over words like 'ruby, ruby, ruby, ruby' or 'burning in anger with you' or even 'i'll be your baby tonight'.
Bit of everything
I think I pick up on most things really. I usually have a good idea of the words after a couple of listens and various elements of the music grab my attention, from a good bassline to the vocal phrasing. I write and record songs myself, overdubbing each instument, so that might patially explain my focus. I know quite a few people who only seem to grab certain elements, a friend of mine studied sound engineering and doesn't pay any attention to the words being sung.