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Topic: Why is Mike's music important to you?, How has it affected your life?< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
raven4x4x Offline




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Posted: Nov. 27 2004, 20:55

I thought I'd have a go making a topic for a change, so I'll ask you this question. We are all here on this forum because (hopefully) we are all fans of Mike's music, and our lives have been changed for the better through listening to and loving his creations. My question is, how has Mike's music changed your life for the better? Prehaps it inspired you to take up an instrument, or helped you though a difficult period in your life. How has this music affected your life?

For me, listening to Mike got me into music. From listening to Tubular Bells, Five Miles Out and Crises I was inspired to collect all his album, and from there moved on to Yes, Pink Floyd and all the other musicians and bands I love so much. If it weren't for Mike, I probably would never have heard them.


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Blind Faith
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Posted: Nov. 27 2004, 22:07

That one is easy...

I was 18  when TB came out and I adopted it as mine. I knew this was the kind of music I would like to make, knowing full well I would never be a musician.

It has been playing as a background to my life eversince. I am not a fanatic or collector. I just keep track of the progress and keep on buying what comes out and playing the music while I work or play. This is a major part of the soundtrack of my life.

Coming to this place has given me the sense that I belong to ...
I don't know the word to finish this sentence.

Five Miles Out playing in the background...

:cool:
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DanishDonJuan Offline




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Posted: Nov. 28 2004, 05:54

Mike's music has had quite a big impact on me.
My first album ever was 'Discovery' & 'Complete', and prior to that my musical interest was limited.
Mike's music inspired me to myself make music, and to open my mind to more unique music.(I now have 600+cd, and not many of them mainstream).
The biggest influence Mike's music has had on me though, has been in cheering me up on a bad day, helping me escape a tough world of so much clutter, and sometimes even moved me to tears and regain faith in good by the beauty of some of his deeper music.
I have even sought a more open-minded spiritual life myself, because of the impact his music and interviews have had on me. His music to me relfect happiness, inner peace, beauty, intelligence, tolerance & love. All things I love and seek.
I wish Mike would know how much his music means to me. :)


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If every road we traveled were the easy, we would be weak, and would eventually think every road difficult.
If every road we traveled tough, we would be strong and eventually think no road to be difficult.

Its the tough road that leads to happiness.
A smooth sea never made a great sailor.
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Sir Mustapha Offline




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Posted: Nov. 28 2004, 07:40

Mike Oldfield is important to me for similar reasons why many other artists are important to me: his music made me see possibilities in music that I had never seen before. The difference is that, among all the musical revelations I've witnessed, Mike might have been the biggest of all. Tubular Bells and Amarok shocked me in a way that made me feel like I had never listened to music before, and everything was starting again.

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Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds.
Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com
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Tati The Sentinel Offline




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Posted: Nov. 28 2004, 08:22

For me it' not just the music,but also the fact I've learned so much about life after reading lots of his interviews.

Musically speaking,it's much like my personality.The emotional rollercoaster,and it fits quite well with it.It was something I was looking foward to discovering in terms of good music.It took me about 10 years to grow up as a person to really get into the spirit of Mike's music.It's like a good drug which leads you into a fantastic trip...and the post-trip effects are soooo great...

Of course,getting to know a guitarist with a reconizable sound,with a impressive tecnique and who does know how to treat a guitar without being a stupid,like most famous guitar men in the music world.His guitar is his voice.
How could I forget this!

Without a doubt,it's the soundtrack for my 20-something years(me 23 now).Like Mike,my life has changed a lot when I was 19-20 years old when I finally got into Chemistry university,which was a personal dream for a while.

Regarding other aspects:
I was impressed also with Mike's interest on science,which suprised me a lot.I remember one spanish interview during all that blurb regarding Tres Lunas where he said something like, young people don't choose music,choose science,it's better.And when he discussed how important biotechnology is nowadays and also for the future,bingo - that's exactly what I've always wanted to do(and my degree is going to be on biotechnology chemistry).That meant a lot to me.


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"But it's always the outsider, the black sheep, that becomes the blockbuster." - Mike Oldfield, 2014

"I remember feeling that I'd been judged unfairly and that I was going to prove them wrong." - Peter Davison, 2011
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Alan D Offline




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Posted: Nov. 28 2004, 09:29

Quote (Tati The Sentinel @ Nov. 28 2004, 13:22)
I was impressed also with Mike's interest on science,which suprised me a lot.

I didn't know that, and it surprises me now to read it. Thanks Tati. (I'm a physicist, myself.)

These comments about his music being an important part of the soundtrack to their lives apply to me too - at least, to the last 25 years of my life, anyway. But also, there was from the start something about the characteristic Oldfield way of playing the guitar that brought an entirely new dimension to its possibilities as an expressive instrument. No other guitar player reaches as deep into the soul of me as he does.

Sometimes in the past when I encountered something new by him, it seemed to fill a hole in me that I'd hardly been aware of. Hergest Ridge was like that - it created a kind of 'English landscape' feeling as Vaughan Williams had done, but achieved it through a kind of fusion between 'classical' music and rock that affected me more deeply.

And as for Music VR... well... I had been looking for something like that all my life; and suddenly, here it was.
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familyjules Offline




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Posted: Nov. 30 2004, 08:39

Mike's music isn't much like anything else I listen to.  I first heard him when I was a kid and I became a big fan, but then I believed all the critics who said he was washed up, and moved on to more fashionable music.  Hey, I was a teenager, you know how style conscious teenagers can be?

Fast forward several years and I'm thinking "well, I'm not that shallow now, I'm all grown up, and I kind of miss that Ommadawn album, and it'd be neat to hear Tubular Bells again too", so earlier this year I bought Boxed.

It was like welcoming back an old friend that I hadn't seen for, oh, some 25 years.

I've never really been one for instrumental music - in fact on most albums I seem to skip instrumentals to get to the songs with words, but my relationship with Mike's music is very different for me.

I guess I have to try and answer why this is the case.

Hmmmm.  I think I fell in love with several things about Mike's instrumental masterpieces.  I certainly loved the 'one man band' aspect, but more importantly, the melodies were catchy and dynamic and, unlike most instrumental music I'd heard, very much rooted in rock and folk, so it was accessible to me as well as at the same time stretching my palate for more complex music.

Ultimately I like the warmth in his music.  Which is probably why Ommadawn remains my favourite of his albums - I find it very warm, very human, very organic.

Plus he plays a mean guitar.  ;)

Jules


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Alan D Offline




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Posted: Nov. 30 2004, 08:53

Quote (familyjules @ Nov. 30 2004, 13:39)
more importantly, the melodies were ...., unlike most instrumental music I'd heard, very much rooted in rock and folk....
I find it very warm, very human, very organic.

I think the folk roots, and that 'organic' quality are the foundation.. the bedrock ..., without which it couldn't have the archetypal power that it has. (It's much the same with Bob Dylan, incidentally, as he's so often acknowledged).

There's some point in the Lord of the Rings - battle of Helm's Deep maybe? - where Gimli says something like 'this land has strong bones' (at least, he does in the book - I haven't seen the movie). And you can say the same sort of thing about the art of people like Bob Dylan and Mike Oldfield. It has strong bones. Their music is rooted deep in human experience, through the folk tradition; and that gives it an essential organic strength.
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Yuval Offline




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Posted: Dec. 01 2004, 06:00

tought me how to write
how to break musical rules
how to orchestrate a piece
how to produce it

on top of all that- a great plausre
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familyjules Offline




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Posted: Dec. 01 2004, 06:27

Quote (Alan D @ Nov. 30 2004, 08:53)
And you can say the same sort of thing about the art of people like Bob Dylan and Mike Oldfield. It has strong bones. Their music is rooted deep in human experience, through the folk tradition; and that gives it an essential organic strength.

Beautifully put, Alan!

Jules


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Jim Glass Offline




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Posted: Dec. 11 2004, 15:59

I grew up listening mostly to classical and instrumentals. The instant I heard TBI I knew this was "it". Mike's music is simply the soundtrack of my life.

For me, the essential element (sorry) of music is MELODY. Mike is the quintessential instrumentalist and arranger. He just KNOWS which instruments sound "right" together.

Finally, like all great composers (Bach comes to mind) he knows how to "hook into" the alpha rhythm of the brain; at his best he is ruminative music comparable to the Passacaglia and Fugue or the Tocatta and Fugue.

I have said here that in 100 years, he will be ranked with the second tier of composers: no Bach or Beethoven, but certainly the equal of Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Handel, Vivaldi. And TBI will be known as "Oldfield's First Symphony"!
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hiawatha Offline




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Posted: Dec. 11 2004, 18:48

I'm been thinking of something to add as a reply to this item, but could not think of the best way to put it. Jim Glass's post above pretty much did the trick: that is pretty close to my feelings as well.

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"In the land of the Dacotahs,
Where the Falls of Minnehaha
Flash and gleam among the oak-trees,
Laugh and leap into the valley."
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Sir Mustapha Offline




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Posted: Dec. 11 2004, 18:54

Quote (Jim Glass @ Dec. 11 2004, 15:59)
For me, the essential element (sorry) of music is MELODY.

I don't need to add much more to that.

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Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds.
Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com
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SentinelGard Offline




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Posted: Dec. 12 2004, 05:50

Where do i start.....    :/  Ive been around alot in the last 30 years and had plenty of highs and low and the one thing i could always rely on was Mike music show me the way and make things right..

I remember when i turned 18 i had the world at my feet and it was taken away from me when i was told i had cancer and that it had spread though out my body , Lucky for me i had caught it early and i had 95% chance of surviving , but it took alot of chemo and time to get through it . But my true savour of my mind at least was TB2 , i had brought it the year before but hadn't really listened to it , I took it to the hospital with me and i must have played it a million time at least .  :D

I think i even converted some of the nursing  staff and even the odd doctor into M.O fans...

Isn't it funny how there isn't many other types of music that effect you like M.O music can..


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The Big BellEnd Offline




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Posted: Dec. 12 2004, 13:37

I think mikes music gave me tolerance and a sort of patience for listening to long pieces of work, even though I already had Meddle in my collection TB tore up the rule book for a rock/pop album. Then there is the point that mike did'nt follow treands so for me when you put on his music for me it does'nt sound dated it just sounds mike.p.s I've just got back in from a Christmas shopping trip and I think it is possible to overdose on dum de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum de jubilo.

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I, ON THE OTHER HAND. AM A VICTIM OF YOUR CARNIVOUROUS LUNAR ACTIVITY.
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sister_in_the_dark Offline




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Posted: Dec. 15 2004, 10:58

I listen to many different styles of music, lots of bands and for every mood there's something different.
I think I like Mike's music because it calms me down  :)


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Rev Offline




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Posted: Dec. 16 2004, 15:44

Hi - never been on a board before, so sorry if I mess things up.

I first got into MO when a friend lent me a worn out tape of Exposed - thought it was weird, but 20 years later I'm still listening.

For me, it somehow helped through some pretty horrible teenage times, gave me something to hold on to.

And this is a recent thought:  I was listening to a radio programme on synesthesia - they said some people see colours/shapes etc when they hear sounds.  I said to my wife "Doesn't everyone?"  "No".  So it turns out I've got it and didn't know.  But maybe, she said, this explains why I listen to all that MO stuff!  I used to turn the lights out so I could 'see' the music better!  Anyone else - or is it just me?
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The Big BellEnd Offline




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Posted: Dec. 16 2004, 16:06

U R O A LONE

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I, ON THE OTHER HAND. AM A VICTIM OF YOUR CARNIVOUROUS LUNAR ACTIVITY.
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Alan D Offline




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Posted: Dec. 16 2004, 16:39

Can't say I've ever experienced anything such as you describe, but we know that colours and shapes have an emotional effect on people, and we know that music does; so it seems quite reasonable that some people like yourself would make mental links between music and colours. I'd like to be able to do that myself, I think!
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raven4x4x Offline




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Posted: Dec. 16 2004, 22:08

Can you imagine the colours you'd see listening to Amarok or Music from the Balcony!!

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32 replies since Nov. 27 2004, 20:55 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >

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