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

Steven

(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):

How Does Music Affect You?

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 page
Into 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*?

Parents

  • Music can do a lot for me, as can the moments when I deliberately choose not to listen to it. It can also bring back memories and experiences.

    Music makes me imagine things, different scenarios where I can actually be the person I’d like to be. It’s nice for a little while.

    It can help me process feelings too, if the sounds match.

    Music can also be motivating. Iron Maiden and Trivium got me through a really intense workout earlier. But up until that point, I had not listened to either for a very long time. It wasn’t right until today.

    In triggering memories, I listened to Bad Religion’s The Empire strikes First album when I was reading Christopher Paolini’s Eragon for the first time and now I associate the songs with the book, almost as if it was the official sound track or something. I think my wedding songs will be an even more wonderful version of that.

    One thing to add though, and it really is an unnecessary side point, but I really get angry when bands hold a single note for seemingly hours on end at the end of a song. It just seems so ridiculous to me. It’s rage inducing to me! Some of my favourite songs are like it and I have to be ready to skip!

  • in reply to Oakling

    i can relate so much to lots of that! That soundtrack thing. In the Nineties, Doctor Who carried  on off screen via a run of books called the New Adventures. Then later they carried on under bbc in house branding but with Paul MCGann’s Doctor.  Anyway, while I normally read them in silence, there was one book - Human Nature (later adapted for the telly and in my own ‘canon’ both versions happened to the Doctor at different points in his life) that I got at a time when my parents (returning from Austria) had gifted me a Best of Mozart CD. I played it softly in the background on repeat and the mood shifts of the book just seemed to keep landing in exactly the right moments that the most appropriate music was playing. Light and hopeful, wistful and regretful. Etc. 

    sidebar: that book ends with my favourite ever closing lines from a novel. ‘But if it wasn’t for the snow, how could we believe in the immortality of the soul?’ ‘What on earth do you mean?’ The Doctor smiled. ‘Do you know, I haven’t the faintest idea’ And just for a moment, far overhead, before they dissolved into mist, two snowflakes were the same. Long ago, in an English Spring’ there was some beatiful music playing when I read that, I’ll never forget the moment. I was in bits. 

    Later on, I decided to make Jean Michelle Jarre’s nineties albums the soundtrack to one or three of the McGann novels. It worked pretty well. 

Reply
  • in reply to Oakling

    i can relate so much to lots of that! That soundtrack thing. In the Nineties, Doctor Who carried  on off screen via a run of books called the New Adventures. Then later they carried on under bbc in house branding but with Paul MCGann’s Doctor.  Anyway, while I normally read them in silence, there was one book - Human Nature (later adapted for the telly and in my own ‘canon’ both versions happened to the Doctor at different points in his life) that I got at a time when my parents (returning from Austria) had gifted me a Best of Mozart CD. I played it softly in the background on repeat and the mood shifts of the book just seemed to keep landing in exactly the right moments that the most appropriate music was playing. Light and hopeful, wistful and regretful. Etc. 

    sidebar: that book ends with my favourite ever closing lines from a novel. ‘But if it wasn’t for the snow, how could we believe in the immortality of the soul?’ ‘What on earth do you mean?’ The Doctor smiled. ‘Do you know, I haven’t the faintest idea’ And just for a moment, far overhead, before they dissolved into mist, two snowflakes were the same. Long ago, in an English Spring’ there was some beatiful music playing when I read that, I’ll never forget the moment. I was in bits. 

    Later on, I decided to make Jean Michelle Jarre’s nineties albums the soundtrack to one or three of the McGann novels. It worked pretty well. 

Children