January 23, 2010
Dear Clusterflock: How does your emotional attachment to music work?
I’ve been pondering this for a while, so I guess the best way to ask is explaining mine.
Music that reminds me of people and incidents past and present: Mostly this does only that, it reminds me of them but I rarely feel emotional when I listen to this music. I’ll be honest there ain’t much of it. I don’t have special tunes that remind me of when I was doing this or that or in a relationship with that person or this. I sometimes feel this is odd, but, I’m 52 and it still doesn’t happen. Even if there is a tune that remindes me of something, I seem to be able to separate the emotion of the incident and not let the song crank it up.
Music that I use to feed my emotions: Oddly, they are not tunes that will make me unhappy or happy, but, I use them to confirm how I feel. I am much more attached to these tunes. Also, I never use these tunes to change my state of mind just to confirm it. So a spiralling pit of depression is always fed with tunes that will send me deeper into it and happy tunes are only used to make me happier. I guess being equally comfy in either state of mind helps.
I have looked at the tunes and they have no relevance other than they are mine and I use them how I need them. The beauty of these tunes is that I can share them easily because they don’t relate to anyone other than me and so don’t feel I am crossing some dodgy line.
Does any of this make any sense?
So, how do you use music dear flockers?
Perhaps you just listen
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Great question. I’ll be pondering it all day and maybe even tomorrow. What you describe makes complete sense.
Phil, I especially like what you say about the tunes you feel that you can share, though I can’t articulate why, as it’s still early and I’m only partially caffeinated
Yes–what Sheila said. I often find myself seeking out music that tends to sustain or push an existing emotional state, as you describe here. But music is also a strong marker of personal history for me–although I never seek out particular tunes with an aim of making that happen. It’s always that I hear a piece, and a tide of near-memory arrives, in the form of, say, a gesture made by somebody at a party attended by a crowd of people who had no concern with the fact that I was there. Or a song that brings thoughts of a war, or of a time marked by love.
Sometimes I seek out music just because I don’t like the music I’m hearing: I want to wash it away. And sometimes I listen to Glenn Gould because I want to refresh my faith that precision and heart are not an either/or proposition.
Cindy is much more of a music person than I am, so I am really looking forward to what she will have to say here. I think a lot of my love for music gets satisfied by way of sentence rhythms and sounds in poetry. I often seek out specific written works in order to listen to them, in much the way a person plays something from a playlist on the iPod.
I also find that the lyrics are unimportant, well, not unimportant if the mood of the song and the lyrics work then wonderful, but, not exclusively. Most songs I am connecting with the mood of it rather than what is being said.
There is a lyric of one of my favourite tunes My Morning Jacket’s The Way That He Sings. It contains the words:
Why does my mind blow to bits every time they play that song?
It’s just the way that he sings,
Not the words that he says, or the band.
I’m in love with this soul, it’s a meaning that I understand.
Which I guess says what I am trying to say in a much better way.
There are songs (from the old days) which probably make me feel a certain way because of the unconscious associations of the past, but I too rarely connect songs to specific times or people. “Something in the Air” by Thunderclap Newman and “Can I Get a Witness” by Lee Michaels always give me a surge of good feeling–but then the music of both of these (arguably in contrast to the lyrics) is rather uplifting. I too tend not to focus on lyrics (partly because they are rarely very good and partly because music to me is sound, not sense), but the sound of a vocalist’s singing matters a great deal–and in fact nowadays I tend toward instrumental music because I find most singers irritating. I think a lot of what I consciously choose (as opposed to the ‘shuffle’ mode on iPod) is not for emotional reasons but for usage reasons: that is, for example, instrumental/ambient/electronic music as a conductor for thinking (writing, reading).
It’s hard for me to pin down, which means I haven’t given it the thought it deserves. But in general:
Lyrics matter, but not always.
Concept/intelligence/innovation matter, but not always.
Funk quotient matters, but not always.
Technical excellence matters, but not always.
Music can evoke memory or association, but that’s never enough to sustain my interest.
I’m not a music person at all–I know far less about music than the literary or visual arts. But I’m an avid listener, and I have strong likes and dislikes. I need to let this roll around in my mind for a while and see what pops up.
Cindy, I too know nothing about music. My son knows who sang what and with whom and when. He knows all the tracks in order etc. I just like to listen and know what I like. I’ll listen to most things.
I own stuff I wish I didn’t and resist owning stuff that I love.
The feeling I love more than anything is that moment a tune comes on the radio that you love. Noting beats it and it’s the reason I resist owning certain things.
[...] Phil Bebbington I own stuff I wish I didn’t and resist owning stuff that I love. [...]
I use music to attach to emotion, to find a way in to it. that’s it. sometimes it gets entangled with a place, or person, or time. sometimes that ruins it.
That magical radio moment you mention, Phil, is one reason I still listen to radio. Last night, as I was driving down a dark country road, hearing the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Shake Some Action” excited me into some pretty reckless driving.
I’d lost my vinyl copy of that tune years and years ago, and it gave me great joy to hear in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.
But I am not so wise as you. The instant I could, I went and downloaded it.