As a conclusion to this thread, I will post the essay that I ended up sending. Tell me what you guys think.
Morningrisen Influence
(an essay on influence)
Any given person takes influence from everything he or she experiences. Whether it is a positive or negative influence, each experience has its own impact on that person. With this in mind, I have had considerable trouble pinpointing a certain thing that has influenced me. As a person of high imaginative standards, that which I take influence from is generally also the result of a great amount of talent. The bar that I set as a benchmark for the quality I desire from imaginative works is surpassed only by my expectations of that which comes from me. This trait is one that I consider to be a great virtue, and is also one that I believe I am coming to possess.
The thing that made me realize that good enough does not exist is a musical work. This may seem laughable at first, but imagination can be portrayed in a multitude of ways, and music happens to be my favorite. Said musical work is an album called Morningrise by a band called Opeth. It is a composition comprised of many very different styles of music pieced together such that, strangely, they do not contrast. On the surface, Opeth tend to sound like a band of the death metal genre; this is due to the singing style, and interspersed sections of anger. Calling them death metal, though, is very inaccurate, especially considering that the genre is marked by simplicity, hate, and often ignorance; none of which are attributes of Opeth. Opeth have also been called progressive, due to the intricacy, eclecticism, and other-worldly nature of their music, and take obvious influence from classical and jazz styles.
Morningrise is a piece divided into five parts, (songs, for lack of a better word), each of which is longer than ten minutes. The music is saturated with harmony, and lacks the repetetivity of popular music, as well as the catchiness. It often moves back and forth from distorted sections with angered vocals, to acoustic guitars complimented by the beautiful singing voice of Mikael Akerfeldt. The most noteworthy thing of the album, though, is its utter beauty, which is derived mainly from the vast amount of emotion harnessed by the music and channelled to the listener.
The first influence this album had on me was that it made me redefine what my musical interest actually was: I could no longer listen to music casually, and pay little attention to it. I began to listen for the intricacies in all music music i heard; I put myself in the place of those playing the music, and tried to understand what it was the writers originally intended the music to portray. This led to my loss of interest in music that is made for the trend: music that is hollow, devoit of inspiration.
The next influence Opeths Morningrise had on me came when I analyzed the music. The fact that Opeth so gracefully intertwined multiple music styles that they sounded far more beautiful together than any of them would apart, caused me to ponder the truth of this idea elsewhere. It made me wonder if all the things that humans have segregated, because of our inclination to dislike difference, would be twice as marvelous as before, if they conjoined and collaborated with each other. Mixed, no so far as to lose identity, but in a means to harmonize their differences, (full acceptance between races, creeds, etc. for example). Another thing Ive noticed about Morningrise is that it is uniformly melancholy. Generally, it is thought that only things that are cheerful can be enjoyed, (thus the notion of harp-playing, singing and dancing endlessly in heaven), but I seem to derive a somber kind of contentedness from this work; a feeling that I cannot get from something upbeat and cheerful. Once I realized the contradiction, I came to the conclusion that both sadness and happiness have positive traits. Each reflects something beneficial onto a persons soul, and without one, the other becomes meaningless.
Morningrise has given me great inspiration as both a music and poetry writer. Its music, as stated previously, pushes me to reconsider what I have written, and to ask myself Is this my very best? While the lyrics on the album require many readings to fully understand, and often leave a feeling of mystery behind for the reader to hold onto, credited to the well-balanced vagueness of these five poems. Most of them are about the loss of a loved one, and the thoughts provoked therein; a theme which fits perfectly into the atmosphere of the music. Thus I take influence from Morningrise in a technical way also.
The last manner in which I take influence from Morningrise builds upon the first I listed, in which I learned to scrutinize all music that befell my ears. More recently, I have heeded the intricacies, not only of music, but of the entire world around me. Each event, person, idea, or product thereof is cause for analyzation, and each of these presents its own respective influence on me. For this perspective, I can give much credit to Morningrise, because that album helped me open my mind to more abstract things.
I conclude by stating that Opeths Morningrise has not only been a wonderful musical experience, but also a wonderful place to draw artistic and abstract inspiration. It is by no means my only source of influence, but it is one I am most appreciative of being privileged to experience.
comments?
