What Does Music Do For You?

[BetteTheRed]

I don't just think music, I just listen to it all day long, pretty well. At home, it's CBC, as much classical as I can listen to, some pop, just to keep me in a loop. And as it occurs, roots music, indigenous music, still a bit of jazz. When it's really not suiting, I put on a CBC playlist.

I am self-aware enough to know what music I need, and often, what the dog needs. I like classical with intellectual interludes, like Tom Allen's About Time, she likes mainly piano music.

At the big guy's, there's rock 95 always in the common kitchen dining room. When I'm on my own, I've discovered that putting my phone on CBC music in the stand mixer bowl is a good little natural amp. On his playlist on his TV is Stingray 70s music. I change it. He is getting used to Loreena McKennit, hates the Goldberg Variations.

 

[Mendalla]

Depends on the music. I listen to a broad range that keeps getting broader (e.g. I got into metal in 2020 after being meh to outright hating it since my youth). Country still gets side-eyed save a few artists. Ditto hip-hop. Mainstream pop I am meh on, esp. the current stuff that tends to be heavy hip-hop influences. Though I just watched a couple good episodes of PBS Sound Fields on the genre (one on rap battles and one on the influence of a specific drum break from an old James Brown song) and it kicked my respect for hip-hop up a notch or three so maybe that is going to change.

So, what does it do for me?

I guess it is mostly an emotional thing but what emotion depends on context and music.

For instance, "How's the Heart?", one of my favorite Nightwish songs (it's from their latest album so has Floor on lead), is a bit of a tearjerker (a good one coming from positive emotions, but a tearjerker nonetheless) to start with, but I used it in my head as a backing track for the ending of the Tana chronicles so there's an extra kick there for me, I think.

Whereas if I need a pick-me-up in a big way, something stirring like Beethoven's Ninth or some uptempo folk metal might hit the spot.

For just something to kick back to, I tend to head for Jazz or maybe old school electronic like Vangelis or Jarre.

And then there's things like opera and film music that are often tied up with my love of stories, e.g. my fondness for the works of John Williams who always seemed to have the right piece for every moment in a movie, or for the great romantic opera composers like Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner.

 

[Mendalla]

Oh, and sometimes I just want to bang my head and raise my fist. That's where the more hardcore end of metal and hard rock comes in.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Sometimes you just appreciate it more with time and experience. Musicians who are good lyricists are literary - they have the right intellect and emotion to reach their audience and their messages are timeless. It doesn’t always have to be taken seriously. Thinking of bands from the late 60s to now folk (Dylan, Mitchell, Cohen etc rock, soul/ funk/ punk/ hip-hop are what I’ve mostly listened to. Some country is good but I had a bias interfering at times.) - the messages aren’t always positive either but they reflect real life, real thought, real emotion, real experience, and you can use that as a lesson to do something else. Or just crank some of it good n’ loud for release. Tonight I was listening to Father John Misty and Pearl Jam. Others I’ve been listening to lately (on my playlist or on YouTube) are Prof, Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Space Hog, Nirvana, Everlast, Bjork, Sinead O’Connor, Fatboy Slim (to bop along to), Jesse Wells, Bowie, Queen, Kris Kristofferson, Hoyt Axton… (my playlist is a mishmash of genres).

When you can’t avoid the fact that Even Flow is about more than watching Eddie toss his lovely hair around.

Sometimes you just know exactly what they mean:

https://m.youtube.com/watchv=p0mRIhK9seg

Some songs are just good because they’re meant to be loud:

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

This was the broken link above.

Or maybe this:

The studio version is much better without the voice distortion, imo.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

.

Here’s another good loud one. These guys are more profound than you might think. When you’re just bopping around you don’t get the depth (but sometimes you just want to bop around and get the frustration and angst out and that’s okay too) :

I like this one for the sound effects at 2:37. I play that really loud. It doesn’t really mean anything but my brain likes it. Boosts the seratonin and endorphins. The whole thing’s got a cool, funky beat. Also, 2:09 - much appreciated.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I guess the distortion is there but it’s less than the live one. I played it twice when I was out doing some shopping today. I tune little stresses of the store right out. That’s what its good for. Makes getting in the zone and thereby getting errands done, easier.

 

[Mendalla]

Since my response above, my exploration of metal has gone heavily into the world of "extreme metal", which is the collective term for things like death metal (and its myriad sub-genres), black metal (ditto), hardcore-derived scenes like metalcore and deathcore, as well as metal-influenced punk and hardcore. Some would put thrash in there, too, but I find it weird to call a genre that includes possibly the most popular current metal band, Metallica, as "extreme". Then again, death metal and black metal both have roots in thrash, esp. the former, so I guess it is at least ancestral extreme metal.

Anyhow, I am still not entirely sure what death, black, and doom (not considered extreme but often overlaps with death) metal do for me, I just know I am into them. Admittedly, I still kind of bounce off the really dark, heavy stuff (e.g. traditional death metal, Norwegian black metal), leaning more to things like melodic death metal, blackened death metal, symphonic death and death-doom, symphonic black metal and others where there is a bit more focus on traditional musical values like melody. Greek black metal (which to my ear is more blackened death metal but whatever), for instance, is still fairly dark and heavy, but more melodic and less ponderous than Nordic black metal, which can often sound like a shrieked chant over low, downtuned, tuneless riffs.

Perhaps it's how I can deal with and explore my darker feelings (I am prone to depression of late) in a safe, entertaining way.

And believe me, it surprises me, too. There's no way I would have considered growls, shrieks, and screams musical even a decade ago and now some of my favourite singers are masters of that style of singing, e.g. Poppy, Courtney Laplante (Spiritbox), MIkael Stanne (various bands), and Alissa White-Gluz (various bands and now also a solo artists).

 

[Luce NDs]

Since my response above, my exploration of metal has gone heavily into the world of "extreme metal", which is the collective term for things like death metal (and its myriad sub-genres), black metal (ditto), hardcore-derived scenes like metalcore and deathcore, as well as metal-influenced punk and hardcore. Some would put thrash in there, too, but I find it weird to call a genre that includes possibly the most popular current metal band, Metallica, as "extreme". Then again, death metal and black metal both have roots in thrash, esp. the former, so I guess it is at least ancestral extreme metal.

Anyhow, I am still not entirely sure what death, black, and doom (not considered extreme but often overlaps with death) metal do for me, I just know I am into them. Admittedly, I still kind of bounce off the really dark, heavy stuff (e.g. traditional death metal, Norwegian black metal), leaning more to things like melodic death metal, blackened death metal, symphonic death and death-doom, symphonic black metal and others where there is a bit more focus on traditional musical values like melody. Greek black metal (which to my ear is more blackened death metal but whatever), for instance, is still fairly dark and heavy, but more melodic and less ponderous than Nordic black metal, which can often sound like a shrieked chant over low, downtuned, tuneless riffs. Perhaps it's how I can deal with and explore my darker feelings (I am prone to depression of late).

Then there was those vocalists that sang of Distant Drums ... a call in the night? Maybe a core vlue out there somewhere free of the physics? Meta physics ...

One could extract the rabid as a bun ... and extensions into other zones ... opening up many path Eh ...