Published on 12, July, 2020
(Yes, it's yet another thread with which I try to distract myself from myself, and from the troubles I constantly bring both to me and to all-round much better people):
There's an interesting article on the NAS website about music therapy for autists. One unfortunate person who struggles to communicate his emotions has been helped by way of this therapy: thankfully, he can now use musical instruments to have a 'voice' when, ordinarily, he might be lost in silence. After reading this feature, I wondered how music affects our lives? Not only in the 'helping' sense but also in music's basic power to change or sustain our moods? It doesn't matter if your own examples are standard or unusual ones. I'll start us off ~
*Cue the obligatory and dreaded 'Simon examples', listed because he has no actual life-experiences beyond those in his mind*:
1. When watching Kate Bush's 'The Sensual World' video, I feel transported to a world of Romance. It's like a Pre-Raphaelite painting come to life. A medieval fairytale in crimson, adorned with Autumn leaves. It is breathtaking. Who needs reality?:
'And how we wished to live in the sensual world...You don't need words -Just one kiss, then another
Stepping out of the pageInto the sensual world'
2. I often have images in my mind when listening to music, but sometimes I get it 'wrong'. On hearing a Classical piece, I was unshakeably convinced that it soundtracked a slender ship cutting through the ocean, casting blue waves aside; later, I found out that the piece actually represented the flowering of an English country garden. Doh.
More interestingly, (I hope): How Does Music Affect *You*?
Really interesting topic, you have a knack for them!
love that KB song and video btw, she had so many good ones.
Not sure if I’m doing the topic ‘right’ but when you talked of changing or sustaining moods, I’m not sure that I’m very good with the former. Seeking out a cheery song when I’m in the swamps of sadness will not help me. Instead, I’ll sustain by listening to… well something like The Swamps of Sadness from The Neverending Story. Or, to subtly shift but still mood match, maybe a stoic anthem (or one that feels that way to me). Like this…https://youtu.be/fXo47CIUuFg
or this https://youtu.be/dexagddSZUw
But another thing I get is that I have music days where listening to music seems an inevitability and a necessity. But I might overdo it, feel too intense an emotional high or melancholy low from it, and then the next day the idea of a single bar of music becomes slightly nauseating, and I know it’s going to be a spoken word (podcasts, the news, audiobook) day exclusively. However, this sometimes leads me to think ‘wouldn’t it be sad to die on a non-music day?’ Somehow that seems worse to me. To die in palette cleansing mode or the neutral middle ground retreated to when music has burned me out. And yet those days are just as precious to me - more of a rich tea than a bourbon when the former is all one’s aural ‘taste-buds’ can handle.
interesting that you mention getting the ‘wrong’ visual image. There’s a song by The Divine Comedy called The Certainty of Chance.https://youtu.be/3HQ8IC--4ko When I first listened to the section between 3:50 and about 5:00 I got this image of something like the opening sequence to a Poirot era murder film - all black and white, rain pouring down on an old fashioned black car wobbling its way over the last cobbles on approach to the roped off scene of a crime, then panning over to follow the car-exiting detective to where the rain soaked aftermath lay. The grounds of a large estate maybe. Of a back alley. Can’t recall which.
But I later saw someone online say that they Ioved how the same section captures the arid, shimmering feel of a desert- all dry sounding flutes and things. And it was so the opposite of my mental picture that I kind of inwardly recoiled at it, then finally conceded that that probably or possibly was the intended ‘grammar’. But… my version still sticks with me as the ‘proper’ one. Silly,subjective, but it is as it is. I can no more change it than the weather. Hadn’t listened in a long time until just now. I’m having an in between day, where bits of music but not too much are what I can handle.
Hello, mate, it's very good to see you around. Superb post too.
Your final section reminds me a little of a chapter in the brilliant book 'Ways of Seeing'. In it, the author asked readers to look at a photo of a painting by van Gogh. Then he asked us to look again...as he told us that this was the last picture Vincent painted before his death. The difference was remarkable - what formerly looked simply like the picture of a field now appeared as a dark testament of doom, angst and misery. Perception at work.