Music and your imagination

[Hammer of Might]

This is probably going to sound like a seriously weird topic, but I've just been inspired by some music (as I'll explain below), and it got me thinking - do you ever connect music you are listening to with a particular imagined scene, situation, emotion, or anything else? This is more of an issue when there are no lyrics to implant an idea in your mind, but rather when you are left to take in the music and construct your own interpretation of it.

I'll explain...

I just listened to Burzum's Tomhet while lying on my bed pretty much alseep, and I put an imagined situation to it without thinking about it too much. This will probably sound pretty bizarre, but during the pipe bit about half way through, it just made me picture a peasant in medieval times, a land labourer with nothing to live for, who has left the fields and gone to a scenic place in the countryside to play a tune to himself on a pipe. He knows he is breaking the law and flouting his responsibilities to his overlord, and that this may incur severe penalties, but the point is he doesn't care - he no longer feels bound by the material world and its man-made rules, he doesn't care if he will be killed, because this melody he is creating has set him free from human existence, and the price of death would be worth paying as he has found complete peace.



Anyway, enough of my "far out" ramblings. Are there any pieces of music with which you connect particular concepts, emotions or scenes, where there are no lyrics to do this for you?

I may think of some others if I can remember any.

 

[Carcassian]

Oh man, you know it. Great topic, by the way. I often listen to my mp3 player (ripped from my own cds, hypocricy-seeking fans) while drifting off to sleep. This often produces semi-lucid dream like states inspired by the music.

The weirdest and most vivid was dreaming I was sifting through the thoughts of a suicidal man in his dying moments, brought to you by sponsorship of "Oddfellows Rest" by Crowbar.

If I'm concentrating on a song, it will pretty much ALWAYS tell a story or vivid mental images in my head. I guess I'm just wired up like that!

 

[Jesse Pohjalainen]

oh yeah, when i listen to classical music like Chopin is just get these weird images to my head, not always.Some weird hippy stuff, lots of colours and stuff
That was not even you're point probably


Saw you Drown by Katatonia always makes me get this image of my brother drowning in the water and me just looking in his eyes and not doing anything,but that is probably a lyrical thingy.

 

[Hammer of Might]

@ carcassian - Thanks for the serious reply mate, good to know other people have their own interpretations.

@ jesse - man, that's a horrible but powerful image! By the sounds of it the lyrics are part of it there, but you add your own intepretation to it nonetheless.

I agree, classical can also be really inspiring. I've been listening to Mozart's Flute Concerto (Allegro) so much recently. It's one of the most perfectly melodical peices of music I've ever heard. I find it inspiring not so much in terms of imagined scenes but more just at the emotions it creates: almost like the triumph of humanity to aspire to greatness, beauty and perfection, even though terrible things happen and time cannot be reversed. I dont know, something like that anyway. It also makes me feel really sad for things that are in the past and cannot be returned to, but at the same time a kind of light-hearted joy that there is still perfect melody in the world. Haha, I'm disturbing myself. It's a masterpiece.

 

[Stormwatch]

I like the idea. But no. All I think of is beer.

 

[Carcassian]

I like the idea. But no. All I think of is beer.

Is that usually when you listen to Tankard?

I read somewhere they put forward masking in their music to promote alcohol use...I don't see it somehow.

 

[Jesse Pohjalainen]

@ carcassian - Thanks for the serious reply mate, good to know other people have their own interpretations.

@ jesse - man, that's a horrible but powerful image! By the sounds of it the lyrics are part of it there, but you add your own intepretation to it nonetheless.

I agree, classical can also be really inspiring. I've been listening to Mozart's Flute Concerto (Allegro) so much recently. It's one of the most perfectly melodical peices of music I've ever heard. I find it inspiring not so much in terms of imagined scenes but more just at the emotions it creates: almost like the triumph of humanity to aspire to greatness, beauty and perfection, even though terrible things happen and time cannot be reversed. I dont know, something like that anyway. It's a masterpiece.

I love Mozart, Eine Klein Nachtmusik everybody knows that song.
But yeah that Katatonia song is maybe the only song that makes me sad.

 

[Hammer of Might]

oh, Iron Maiden's Wasted Years I just find incredibly melancholic and sad. My friend proposed the suggestion to me that the lyrics could be applied to the British Empire, and how many people died for nothing as it no longer exists. That's quite a powerful image, whether you can relate to it or not.

At the same time, I kind of apply it to Iron Maiden themselves - as I sometimes feel I have missed so many "golden years" of the classic metal heydays.

 

[Kenneth R.]

a lot of CDs do this for me, i love it!!

Ulver - Bergtatt makes me feel like im running around in some forest.
same for most of Nightingale...

the imagination + music thing is really cool.

 

[metal paddy]

MAN I WAS LISTENING TO LAMB OF GOD AND FELL ASLEEP AND WOKE UP SOBER SHIT MAN THAT WAS FREAKY WOW MIND BLOWING

 

[Perdition's Light]

This is something I've always done but it's so complex that I'm not sure I can really explain it with words. Some albums have more ability than others to generate this visual feelings, one of them being The Gathering's Mandylion. I just woke up so this is my shit post of the day.

 

[metal paddy]

This is something I've always done but it's so complex that I'm not sure I can really explain it with words. Some albums have more ability than others to generate this visual feelings, one of them being The Gathering's Mandylion. I just woke up so this is my shit post of the day.

 

[Carcassian]

Pretty much listening to Immortals "At The Heart of Winter" on a long car journe is a voyage through some internal landscapes for me. Ultimate wintery battlefields, blizzard torn explorers and Wampas on the rampage...

Edit: This may well be the single saddest thing I have ever typed, referencing as it does Immortal, mental landscapes and Star Wars.

 

[VampyrRose]

Kammarheit's "The Starwheel' conjures up some good imagery, or any (dark) ambient for that matter.

 

[Hammer of Might]

..and rampaging Wampas

I was considering if Immortal had the same effect for me - but to me, albums like Pure Holocaust are more about grim heavy metal in general, they don't seem to conjur up any particular themes for me at the moment apart from black metal power!

 

[Perdition's Light]

don't forget the AT-ATs

EDIT: I wasted my 666th post on AT-ATs

ain't that how it always goes?

 

[Stormwatch]

I really like the idea of this thread, but it just means nothing to me. I don't listen to "Wasted Years" and hear anything melancholy about the fall of the British Empire or anything else. I just hear a good, unfortunately guitar-synth led song.

 

[Hammer of Might]

Yeah, but isn't that the point? Every piece of music affects (or doesnt affect) people in different ways.

 

[Carcassian]

I really like the idea of this thread, but it just means nothing to me. I don't listen to "Wasted Years" and hear anything melancholy about the fall of the British Empire or anything else. I just hear a good, unfortunately guitar-synth led song.

You miserable cunt.

I bet you never liked snow as a kid either, did you?

 

[Hammer of Might]

Chill out, it's fair enough! At the same time there are plenty of songs in which I just hear fist pumping metal, and nothing beyond that. I guess its always been like that so far for Stormwatch.