How Do You ListenTo Music?

[Bill_Wiltrack]

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How Do You Listen To Music?

Initially, I have to tell you the way I listen to music, to frame this thread. It’s a bit odd.

First, when I hear a song that I like, I will listen to it repeatedly. I mean repeatedly. Repeatedly.

Because of the internet, specifically YouTube, I am able to listen and listen and listen to one specific song again & again if I choose to.

Currently, as I type, I have Peter Gabriel Red Rain in my headphones. I have been listening to this tune on & off ALL DAY long. It seems as if I love it and appreciate it more & more each time I play it.

Then, after perhaps a hundred listens or so - I’m done. I don’t need or want to listen to the song again.

I still LOVE the song and will listen to it in the future but I am not possessed to listen to it.

Strangely, the GIF that I have included within this thread, found it by accident seemingly by chance, oddly fits into the vibe I am feeling off this song. That’s neither here or there.

Secondly, when I hear a song that I like during the day - my mind stops. Just stops. Stops.

The song consumes me. The tune encompasses me.

If I am talking or listening to someone my world stops.

I can’t drag myself to the other impressions that surround me.

I’m sure this has something to do with the two sides of our brains but I have never hear of anyone reveal what I have attempted to explain within this thread.

I’m sure my relationship to music that I like could be signs of a malady or psychosis, I just don’t know.

tl;dr

1 - I listen repeatedly to a song that I love
2 - A song can TOTALLY consume me

My thesis for this thread:

How Do You Listen To Music?

Can you relate to the contents of this thread in an emotional way?

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[Daktoria]

I listen to music with my ears.

Sometimes, I use headphones.

Anyway, what you’re saying makes sense. I used to do the same thing when I was younger.

Now, I don’t listen to music much anymore. It’s biased. Silence is unbiased.

[Bill_Wiltrack]

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I appreciate what you just said. Silence is unbiased.

I too feel that way about music at times.

A lot lately.

I love silence when I am clear.

Thank you for adding to this thread.[/size]

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[Orbie]

I really like classical music. The last thing is discovered was Chopin’s ballad #2 in Minor. I listened to rubinstein’s version, Hrowowitz’s and another pianist. I read what the critics had to say about them, and how they compared them. Most of them judged rubinstein to be superior. But after repeatedly listening to them, I found Horowitz’s version almost irresistibly superior. Now I have the same need to listen to this peace over and over, especially when I get into a mood.

 I get a narcotic effect from music, and I am able as a sort of time machine, to associate a period in my life, when such and such music was released, and travel back there, and visualize that time with particular events and places taking place.

[Pandora]

I find that some pieces of music are more ‘cerebral’ than others, that is, you have to actively listen to the piece, or you’ll miss the transitions within the piece, its distinct or nuanced personality, if you’re distracted.
Other music is more passive, it’s more like mood music (like elevator or contemporary jazz you hear in the cafes). This kind of music is more like a pleasant and relaxing background noise. You don’t really pay attention to it, but it’s still nice to have it in the ambiance, like sonic mood lighting, or sonic wallpaper.
One thing I can say in defense of classical music, is that, traditionally, it required an active and more analytical listening. Music appreciation classes (in the past, don’t know about now) usually used classical pieces as their ‘texts’.

[Daktoria]

@Pandora

I find that some pieces of music are more ‘cerebral’ than others, that is, you have to actively listen to the piece, or you’ll miss the transitions within the piece, its distinct or nuanced personality, if you’re distracted.
Other music is more passive, it’s more like mood music (like elevator or contemporary jazz you hear in the cafes). This kind of music is more like a pleasant and relaxing background noise. You don’t really pay attention to it, but it’s still nice to have it in the ambiance, like sonic mood lighting, or sonic wallpaper.
One thing I can say in defense of classical music, is that, traditionally, it required an active and more analytical listening. Music appreciation classes (in the past, don’t know about now) usually used classical pieces as their ‘texts’.

I agree with all of this. It’s actually the problem with classical music - art is synthetic, not analytic.

If you analyze art, you defeat the purpose because the goal is to relish in possibilities, not necessities. I’d actually say that the very idea of “learning” music shouldn’t involve analysis because it detracts from the heritage of a community. That is analysis puts technique before style, yet style is how people relate with one another. Technique can be customized as long as people get the style right.

[Arcturus_Descending]

[Pandora]

Daktoria,

I agree with your view on art. Intellectual satisfaction is not the same as aesthetic. This is why, to me, art removed from aesthetics is no longer art, but some kind of thought experiment. Modern art should not be called art but something else, it should be placed in another category, by itself.
But not art.

[melonkali]

Once when I was listening to music from another culture, for the first and only time in my life I experienced what I think was a petit mal seizure – I definitely hit the floor, hard. Curious (of course), I later read an ethno-musicologist’s analysis of this music, and he described his first hearing of it like having a lemon spike driven through his brain.

Has anyone else ever had an experience with music that seemed to cross the line from aesthetic/emotional to a neurologic event?