The 'How Does Music Affect You?' thread (in association with Shard)

Darn! The changed title makes it sound as if people can only be affected by music if you're playing the instruments or if the music has some connection with you, Mr Shard! Arghhh!

*resigns*

PS Should I alter the thread-title?

I think the lyrics to this song, especially in the first verse, are pertinent to recently discussed topics on here:

https://youtu.be/ylLdszMHkLo

Yes. I could have posted instead any number of their songs even including the most obvious prominent ones like 'The Killing Moon'.

Echo and the Bunny men. ..there's something about their chords. In The Cutter...they're melancholic but slightly joyous at the same time. It's a strange combination.

That's a wonderfully written and explained post. I can relate strongly to that 'brown rice' thing. Managing the funnel, great way to conceptualise it! I also know what you mean about small features. And it can often be the bit that seemed unexpectedly out of the 'formula' when you first heard the track - some bittersweet intentional discordancy or counterintuitive deviation - that on the third or fourth go you realise creates a new equilibrium to the whole thing you didn't even know you wanted but now can't imagine it without. I'll try and think of an example in a bit. 

I believe that I have a huge sensory funnel ! [let's not go *there* folks, not in this thread.]

I use music to fill up my "perception funnel" with something benign, so that my brain does not seek out or become clogged with other inputs that would otherwise, unavoidably, fill that funnel - and overload/distract clear and focused thought.

I work on the basis that I am "taking in" so much stuff, all the time, whether I want to do not.  If I sit (as I often do) in a sensory void/muted place, then my brain starts spewing up all sorts of nonsense to fill that funnel.....so I have found that I need to find some metaphorically boring brain rice/bread/potatoes fodder to stop that from happening.  Music, or calm speech radio works for me.

So most of the time, I "listen" to music without listening to it.  I almost always listen to it on repeat and I thoroughly "know" such music for it to fulfil the function I have outlined.

When I do choose to "focus" on the music, it is wonderful - like staring at a kaleidoscope - so many levels of interest.  Again, I will listen to anything good over and over until I have fully understood and explored it.....then it too can become fodder.

Certain (normally very short and/or small) features within a piece of music can prompt VERY strong emotion within me.  It can make me cry or feel ecstasy or make me angry and irritated.  I'm a BIG fan of an introduction, riff or modulation - when done well.

"If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die. That strain again, it had a dying fall." - 12th night.

The budget to ambition ratio was crazy. And therein the magic lies. Still does!

You just carry on and I will get my Meccano box out and explain all about it! and met 2 doctors! Remember watching a program in the 70’s it explained how they made the original theme music, the budget was quite small.

I'll now try to stop mentioning Doctor Who in every thread. Just every other one. :-) Every thought in my head lives in a little blue box, sorry! 

I don't know much Puccini, just the well known 'bit' (technical term :-)) of Madam Butterfly - but that has a special place in my heart, as it's the music the Seventh Doctor died to (literally - it was diegetically playing during the surgery that failed to stop him succumbing to gun-shot wounds). When  he wakes up in the morgue as Paul McGann he's still got that earworm going on so wanders around humming it despite post-regeneration amnesia about everything else. Lovely clever way to say - 'see, same guy'  

Music is where is escape to, if deep in thought Puccini is an emotional escape. We often holiday in Tuscany, Puccini was born in Lucca, the students at the Opera School hold concerts in the Summer in an open air theatre. People can sit with picnics and watch, you don’t have to be near anyone else. Hope to do it next year.

I’m into early Elton John at the moment and listen to ‘Goodbye Yellow brick road’ at least once a day.

One that makes me happy is Georgy Girl by The Seekers.

This one takes me to another place, It’s Procul Harem, A Whiter Shade of Pale, live performance with orchestra and choir. Part of it was originally by Bach.

https://youtu.be/St6jyEFe5WM

Controlling my sound world is a constant battle for me which music plays a very big but not the only part. There’s lots I could contribute on this subject but for now just this …

I connect to the rhythms of music incredibly well and am an amazing dancer. We go clubbing most weeks and it’s a delight to me - the loud music, the dance with it’s physicality, the lights, the incredible attention I get. I really get high on all this and say when people ask “what are you on?”: “who needs drugs when you’ve got music!” But I can walk away from it easily, I know when enough is enough then we tram home. And it’s a drug with no hangover either lol. 

Glad you both get so much out of that mood-switching strategy with music. I suppose I should try that more often, but i find it hard not to let mood lead the way. 
i don’t know too much arcade fire but that Eurydice/Awful Sound track really captivated me a while back and I gave it a few spins

It was my fergal sharkey discernment that did it I suppose 

Music is so powerful. Today I was feeling stressed and overwhelmed and I put on the Arcade Fire Album ‘We’. Within about 5 minutes I could feel myself feeling so much better. 
My youngest son struggles with depression and he finds really euphoric pop music really lifts him and gives him the energy he struggles to find within himself when he’s feeling depressed. He likes to listen to music in the car - the energy of the music and the speeding along in the car really lifts his mood. 

Harold Budd only recently died I think. 

You are the hero of this thread, chief, so I wanted to pay tribute. 

Incredible. Liz is astonishing.

as we’re now after midnight, how about contemplating the rare sort of music that feels like it belongs to that liminal threshold between consciousness and sleep.
 https://youtu.be/1uWbEe7U3ZY

This feels like it was borne organically out of that zone, manifested in some woozy space where the disarticulation of language is its own poetry and all pianos sound haunted.  

Sometimes I listen to this as I feel the pull towards temporary (perhaps!) oblivion, and it ferries me to the other side. The whole album actually has that vibe. 

I’m in the title now?!