The secret about music
Apr. 18th, 2013 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teaberryblueI'm bad at listening to music.
I really only listen to music when friends send me music to listen to, or recommend things to me.
It's not that I don't like it, it's just that...music invades my brain so, so hard. I can't do things when there's music on, it completely short-circuits my brain.
Most sounds do this to me. Conversation, television, anything that isn't white noise. It bears mentioning that I'm a very light sleeper who gets woken up half a dozen times a night by noises that probably wouldn't bother anyone else.
Sounds captivate me, so I have to be completely and attentively tuned to them. I don't have a choice.
So listening to music is just not something I do very often, because if I'm listening to music, I really can't do anything else. I have to be listening actively. It's even a problem in stores, when I'm shopping. Sometimes I'll have to stop shopping to listen to whatever song is on.
This means that I don't really discover a lot of new music. I've got the music friends have turned me onto, and that's basically it.
But there's another secret about this. Part of the reason I don't listen to music is because there is always music in my head.
I have a very good memory for sounds, and after hearing a song once or twice, I can pretty much keep it stored in my brain and recall it well enough that it's essentially the same experience, for me, as listening to it. Plus, if I listen to things in my head, I can tweak it mentally in the way I want, or take apart the harmonies, or whatever else tickles my fancy. There have been songs I've listened to in my head so often for so long that when I go back and listen to the original, the lyrics are the same, but musically they've been taken apart and put back together in ways that make me startled to hear the original again. Gorecki by Lamb is a perfect example of this. I don't think I actually played it to hear from 2004 until 2012, but I listened to it in my head all the time, and when I heard it again, I realized that my version had morphed into something darker, crueler, with sharper edges and more deliberately dissonant tonal shifts. The funny thing is that they're all things I know Lou Rhodes can do with her voice, because I've heard her do them in other songs.
(here's the song, for reference)
Lamb - Gorecki by Angkor
But a lot of the time, the songs in my head are not ones that exist anywhere else. And I don't know how to write music, or how to play any instruments, so while I could sing them to you, you wouldn't hear the full orchestrations the way they are in my head. I can separate them out, hum all the different parts, but that's really not the same thing.
Anyway, they usually pop into my head as tunes and words at the same time, usually a verse and or a chorus to start, but they pretty rapidly populate themselves into complete songs. Or I'll just have one verse for years and then suddenly the rest of the song will come to me in the course of a day. Sometimes I'll dream songs. Not always whole songs, but parts of songs. Sometimes I'll remember the songs that were playing in the background in my dreams. The funny thing is that a lot of these dream songs are things that stay in my head long after the fact.
I don't remember my dream from last night but I do remember the song from it. Or part of it:
You can stoke my fire
Till the flames rise higher and higher
And I want to light your candle,
But I know it's not that simple, baby
I keep rattling on,
Like a train that's come and gone
But someday maybe I'll come rattling back
Cause you're the only thing
That stops me in my tracks
Stop before you begin it
'Cause you know that's not my style
Give me a minute
And I'll want to take a mile
Your charge is electric
You change my English to Metric
And I want to match your measure
But you're clouding up my weather, baby
I keep rattling on,
Like a train that's come and gone
But someday maybe I'll come rattling back
Cause you're the only thing
That stops me in my tracks
Don't remember after the second chorus.
I do remember dreaming last night, but not what it was about. Just the song.
So it's hard to justify turning on music when I have that and I'm the only one who has it. Sometimes I wake up and try to google lyrics to see if I'm dreaming real songs, but I'm not, usually. If I am, I recognize it immediately.
I really only listen to music when friends send me music to listen to, or recommend things to me.
It's not that I don't like it, it's just that...music invades my brain so, so hard. I can't do things when there's music on, it completely short-circuits my brain.
Most sounds do this to me. Conversation, television, anything that isn't white noise. It bears mentioning that I'm a very light sleeper who gets woken up half a dozen times a night by noises that probably wouldn't bother anyone else.
Sounds captivate me, so I have to be completely and attentively tuned to them. I don't have a choice.
So listening to music is just not something I do very often, because if I'm listening to music, I really can't do anything else. I have to be listening actively. It's even a problem in stores, when I'm shopping. Sometimes I'll have to stop shopping to listen to whatever song is on.
This means that I don't really discover a lot of new music. I've got the music friends have turned me onto, and that's basically it.
But there's another secret about this. Part of the reason I don't listen to music is because there is always music in my head.
I have a very good memory for sounds, and after hearing a song once or twice, I can pretty much keep it stored in my brain and recall it well enough that it's essentially the same experience, for me, as listening to it. Plus, if I listen to things in my head, I can tweak it mentally in the way I want, or take apart the harmonies, or whatever else tickles my fancy. There have been songs I've listened to in my head so often for so long that when I go back and listen to the original, the lyrics are the same, but musically they've been taken apart and put back together in ways that make me startled to hear the original again. Gorecki by Lamb is a perfect example of this. I don't think I actually played it to hear from 2004 until 2012, but I listened to it in my head all the time, and when I heard it again, I realized that my version had morphed into something darker, crueler, with sharper edges and more deliberately dissonant tonal shifts. The funny thing is that they're all things I know Lou Rhodes can do with her voice, because I've heard her do them in other songs.
(here's the song, for reference)
Lamb - Gorecki by Angkor
But a lot of the time, the songs in my head are not ones that exist anywhere else. And I don't know how to write music, or how to play any instruments, so while I could sing them to you, you wouldn't hear the full orchestrations the way they are in my head. I can separate them out, hum all the different parts, but that's really not the same thing.
Anyway, they usually pop into my head as tunes and words at the same time, usually a verse and or a chorus to start, but they pretty rapidly populate themselves into complete songs. Or I'll just have one verse for years and then suddenly the rest of the song will come to me in the course of a day. Sometimes I'll dream songs. Not always whole songs, but parts of songs. Sometimes I'll remember the songs that were playing in the background in my dreams. The funny thing is that a lot of these dream songs are things that stay in my head long after the fact.
I don't remember my dream from last night but I do remember the song from it. Or part of it:
You can stoke my fire
Till the flames rise higher and higher
And I want to light your candle,
But I know it's not that simple, baby
I keep rattling on,
Like a train that's come and gone
But someday maybe I'll come rattling back
Cause you're the only thing
That stops me in my tracks
Stop before you begin it
'Cause you know that's not my style
Give me a minute
And I'll want to take a mile
Your charge is electric
You change my English to Metric
And I want to match your measure
But you're clouding up my weather, baby
I keep rattling on,
Like a train that's come and gone
But someday maybe I'll come rattling back
Cause you're the only thing
That stops me in my tracks
Don't remember after the second chorus.
I do remember dreaming last night, but not what it was about. Just the song.
So it's hard to justify turning on music when I have that and I'm the only one who has it. Sometimes I wake up and try to google lyrics to see if I'm dreaming real songs, but I'm not, usually. If I am, I recognize it immediately.