Does anyone else feel this way about music?

I think music has been ubiquitous since it was born. It's nature.

If it's not playing, it's in my head.

Television is completely different. Behind every song is a songwriter. A person with a vision and an imagination (unless they are on contemporary pop radio). Television is an enterprise that has always been strictly about money. Without commercials, it wouldn't exist.

You don't dance to television.
You don't need to plug music in.

Cool. This thread is getting interesting again.

why do you say "again" Gar?
what made it uninteresting for awhile?

bm

I wish we had access to the old Abuzz threads.

The night I went to the Sax Summit and came back and posted about rediscovering a part of myself - if you could read it, I think you'd get how much a part of my being music is, CT.

I know it's not the same for everyone. People who don't need music are like people who are colourblind - in my view.

Kevin Carlson still has all the old Abuzz threads for you to download Ehbeth.

Uh, I just meant that it seemed to have died for a second, as in no one had been posting.

Don't worry, you're a great threadmaker. You're doing a terrific job.

Oh - I didn't think that.
I was thinking the subject was going in a direction you found boring.

I would pose the same question to you as I asked ehBeth.

ehBeth, I do appreciate you feelings for music and how you wouldn't feel complete without it.
My idea of heaven on earth would be to live in a library, and not have all the distractions of the world.....

However, when I imagine myself living in a time either before written materials or in a time or place that I might not have ever even heard of writing I'm not sure I would think myself as not being complete.

There would be people, some of which could tell really great stories, but that's not the same as reading it.
Just as hearing songbirds and waterfalls, although natures music, is not the same as what we consider music today.

If you didn't know such a thing existed, would you miss it?
You might be much more atuned than others to bird calls than most, or find yourself always singing songs you learned at that festival to honor the god of the harvest that you went to once in your life, 10 years ago, but would you be less of a person?

You may have been one of the lucky ones of your village that got to actually go to that festival, and so would have so much more experience than them.

Or, you may have lived in a time without even festivals, just hearing natures music.
If that's all there was, it would fill your soul, just has having a story told would fill mine, if that was the time/place I lived in.

If I had to choose among loosing my sight, hearing or speach, I would have to say hearing.

Loosing my sight would make me feel unsafe. My eyes used to be very bad, and I would think about how if I lived in another time, I would have been tiger food long ago.

Although if I were born blind, my feelings would be different, and wouldn't find it frightening at all.

If I could talk or hear, I could write or sign.

Hmmmmm?

I don't remember seeing this thread, Chai just linked to it elsewhere...

Don't want to get all maudlin, but something came to mind while reading it, especially this page.

We were talking about Prince a while ago and I went to YouTube to find some old videos. Used to love Prince, used to watch a lot of MTV, and if I watch the videos the sound usually comes back -- it's stored in my brain and the visual component unleashes it.

So there was a really grainy, bad video of "Raspberry Beret." I watched it the first time with only the barest memory -- I remember the first verse, but couldn't really get much more out of the video. Second time, as I watched the dancers, the main bassline/ melody suddenly appeared. It was great. It just shot to the surface, whole.

The video quality was bad enough that I couldn't really see his face/ lipread. Went and found some lyrics, put the windows next to each other. There we go, I was really following along now. Dancing in my chair and stuff. Then at a certain bridge it all came together and it was just full-force -- I remembered it note-for-note, like it was playing right then. And I just broke down sobbing.

I miss music.

ohhh...I'm sorry soz.

I have only read the first page of this thread, but I wonder if any attention has been given to ARTISTIC ("classical") music--or has it only been given to RECREATIONAL ("popular") music.

Soz- I read what you wrote and I clicked away- but I can't pretend that I didn't see it and that it didn't affect me.

We don't know each other, really at all, but I want to say that although I know I can't begin to imagine it, in terms of your specific loss, I am so very sorry for your feeling of loss and sadness.

That bugs the hell out of me after a while too.

Reading and music are much part of my life, and I often read while I listen to music and vice-versa. I find music very relaxing (classical, ballads, country, blues, jazz, etc.), fun and energizing (rock, rock 'n roll, disco, etc.). It is like taking a multi-vitamin pill.

I don't like all types of music, just some. I noticed that other people's music (i.e. music that I don't listen to) absolutely bothers me. I don't enjoy listening to it at all.

The music I like best is the song of birds in the morning. It is a rare thing for me and I always listen to it with joy.

But silence can also be music. Have you heard the sound of silence? Sometimes it is deafening.

Soz, I just want to acknowledge what you wrote. I don't really have anything constructive to say about it, just that it really sucks.

Whatever the genre, music should go somewhere, take you somewhere.

All art should do this.




Chai, I'm interested in what you said about not being tone deaf. Can you "hear" music in your head without the song being on?

I'm not a fan of "atmosphere" music. The kind of music I listen to demands your attention.

You can keep most "dance music," too.

Sozobe, I did not understand your post until I read the other members'. I am sorry for your loss of hearing (am I guessing right?).

Maybe I could just add that you can still hear the sounds and music you used to hear. They are inside you. Remember Beethoven? He was deaf and he could still hear all that beautiful music and compose it for us to hear what he heard. Take courage, Soz.

I feel compelled to say that Soz lacks no courage, and that she seems to be enjoying her life. If anything, she gives me confidence that I could (even as a musician) enjoy my life wlithout hearing.

Yep, I became deaf when I was 18, cello. (Started having problems when I was 13, fluctuated so I could occasionally hear in the stretch from 13 to 18, profoundly deaf since then.)

And yep, the music is definitely there, but the quality degrades. I remember the last time I remembered it rather than what it actually sounded like. So it's the ones that I haven't remembered since I did actually hear them -- so the quality is fabulous -- that hit me like a ton of bricks. Especially melodies -- and "Raspberry Beret" has a great one. Beats are still accessible, melodies exist only in my memory.

Thanks for the kind words everyone, didn't mean to be a downer or anything, just came to mind while reading...

Shared joy is joy doubled; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.