TexasTravel
Music has been a VERY powerful thing to me since I was about 13 years old. I played drums for a while and have been to hundreds of concerts from Rush (many times), Iron Maiden (many times), Metallica (many times), Testament, Overkill, Motorhead, Malmsteen, ZZ Top, King Diamond, etc., some country, blues, etc. I have met many, many bands....all except Rush.......someday I hope to meet them.
Anyway, music, always being so special to me, has always been hard to explain to someone that does not feel the same way. You, Cinnabar, and Speber are some of the few that can relate. Music, to me, is not listening to something on the first level but actually feeling something in your nerves, soul and some sort of third world conciousness.
This is where music puts me, sometimes, when this feeling overtakes me. My wife can come up next to me and practically scream at me and all I see, if I see her, is her lips moving with no audible extent.
I have never done drugs, illegal ones that is, but this is how it must feel. It is not like being, what I been told, high is but, instead, an altered state of concious depth. Most of the time, it makes me very somber...not depressed, just somber. Come to think of it, it is when my memory works the best. My mind is not racing as it usually does.
I cannot control when this happens but it is something that is definitely not unnoticable.
I just wonder, how do other people feel when something like this happens? Can you "snap" out of it? How long does it take you to get to this state? Can it happen any time or do you have to be in a certain place?
One interesting this is that when I try to describe this to an neurologist they just think it is my drugs, or something, but I can attest to the fact that that is not it at all. I wonder if neurologist are taught about this type of stuff? I do not think so.
The music is almost always known to me, to varying degrees though.
Sometimes it is something powerful like Rush/Middletown Dreams or slow like something Sheryl Crow would do. Sometimes it is Stevie Ray Vaughn and then others it is Malmsteen. Or, sometimes it is Boston and then others it could be DiMeola. It could be the Cars or even Isaak or maybe Satriani/Johnson. Or it could be Trans-Siberian Orchestra or maybe Orbison. It can be almost anything.
When I was ten I was listening to Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Mary (didn't get "puff the magic dragon"!) and Bob Dylan while my little peers were listening to the Beatles, Beach Boys and such. I didn't do much writing then, save a journal. As a creative writer, now, I can see why I was drawn to "story telling" music so early on. I didn't know I was a liberal, so caught up in the mavaric lyrics. I didn't know that vocals could be music.
Now, I listen to alternative rock: Nancy Griffith (the slightest bit of country twang), John Prine, Paula Cole, etc. Then old blues like Betsy Smith. My range is actually wider than alternative rock when I come to think of it. Classical, especially, baroque, is very appealing but forget the likes of the Third World Symphony (and leave it to me to share my dislike of Metalica whereas you like it!)
That we all have different tastes in music is of no matter. We all have a different ear, soul and even life experiences which lead us to our genras of choice. Again, your question: do we choose them or do they choose us? On a phylosphical note, I wish I had the answer. It's certainly worth exploring and I'm interested in what others have to say. Simple? Maybe it's just about being in the middle. We are at the mercy of music. The music is at the mercy of us. Depends which side of the bed we wake up on...
Your idea of music as being a third world conciousness is something I think I can understand. A dimension of it's own, filling the gap between flatland and nirvana (which is beyond our comprehension) Yes. A kind of Twilight Zone. (But, I don't think that the Twilight Zone had any background music! Kidding!)
You mention experiencing the absence of your wife, for example, while in the zone. I similarily react (don't react) to other's intrusion when illustrating. I'm in a meditative state, imagining what you experience when listening to your music. However, when I'm writing and my companion enters my space to tell me something or if the phone rings, I nearly jolt out of my seat. My agitation is monumental. A different interior world. Hum. Music? I don't have to be in charge. "Listening" to art allows me to "look" inside where I find places that I didn't know existed. Kind of like looking at a fine painting and saying "Hey, I never noticed that stroke there before". My intensity of reaction depends on what kind of music I'm listening to. Music evokes so much emotion that sometimes I forget than I'm physical. When I'm reading I can only have classical in the "faint background" of my mind. Any other type of music confuses me during these times. When I need to concentrate on a book I need complete silence or tame wordless music in my space (I "can" listen to about much of anything when reading a silly magazine . No real cerebral activity is required... so I guess that means I'm not really concentrating on either and my alpha waves are flat!!!)
Creative writing is very musical. You are the composer (and more) and if you're any good you need to carefully alternate the low notes, middle notes and the high notes in the story. It goes beyond simply "weaving" as many writers like to describe ...the degrees of stretching, the snaps, the surprises, as with music, require technical skill and, of course, a good, honest inner ear.
I wonder if musicians feel this way? When I write I get to be many people with important roles. I get to be the writer, producer, editor, actor, stage hand, managing scenery and last but not least get to and must consider my audiance. No, spewing, on silent reader, silent listener or live audience. Coming from a "personal place", only, sets the stage for dismissing people who could otherwise be fans.
Cinnabar
