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Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: Jan. 10 2006, 04:02 As long as I've been listening to music, I've tended to associate imagined scenes or pictures with what I'm listening to - so that the music has a tendency to play the role of a soundtrack to an imaginary movie. When I listen to Sibelius, I find images forming of windblown snow swirling across fir-covered slopes. Listening to Elgar, the images are predominantly English landscape with gentle hills. The situation with Mike Oldfield's music seems more complicated. With pieces like Tubular Bells, for instance, I only get fleeting images that dissolve as fast as they form because the visual component doesn't quite seem to be present. Hergest Ridge is a notable exception with very obvious landscape imagery. With Incantations the pictures have a fairly obvious Indian flavour - great canyons, dark blue skies lit with moonlight, dancing and chanting figures. Wind Chimes always generates images of a lake, with reeds and bullrushes swishing together in a warm wind. Does anyone else do this? And if so, what kind of images do you associate strongly with the music? Back to top

Tubularman Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 2304 Joined: June 2004 Posted: Jan. 10 2006, 05:57 Heh.. yes i do have.. When i listen to "let there be light" i see a sun climbing up the sky, a new start, and warm winds in my faces. Im like a bird flying over landscapes, so free! Over the mountains, over the forests, over  the ocean and see dolphins over the sea.. This song makes me really dream away (tsode is a dreamworld) When i listen to Tb III i have a lot of images in my mind. Specially "Source of secrets", i once had a travel to Fuerteventura, a dark light island with many beach'es. This Island have a dark beach on the other side, you must rent a jeep to get there. This place always get up in my mind while playing "Source of s" It must be the dark beautiful place that touch the mysterium over the song. picture of the beach When  i listen to "Tears from an angel" i see a man cries and angel falling over him with the wings like a eagle pretecting here small babys. A really sad story i think. But when the solo starts playing is like a box to be open when good feelings. But one thing is must ask! When you listen to "Our father", do you think about the pope? or do you think about some other thing? maybe your own god? I dont think about the pope anyway.... -------------- Mike Oldfield M i x e s https://soundcloud.com/tubularman Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: Jan. 10 2006, 07:43 Quote (Tubularman @ Jan. 10 2006, 10:57) When i listen to "let there be light" i see a sun climbing up the sky, a new start, and warm winds in my faces. Im like a bird flying over landscapes, so free! Over the mountains, over the forests, over  the ocean and see dolphins over the sea.. This song makes me really dream away (tsode is a dreamworld) That's a really interesting one - and I can see why you've associated it with those kind of images. For me the images are much more vague - cosmic, maybe. Planetary systems; stars; galaxies. Quote When you listen to "Our father", do you think about the pope? or do you think about some other thing? maybe your own god? I dont think about the pope anyway.... When I listen to the first part, the images are of Maestro, freeing the caged birds. But when I get onto the 'our father' part, the images all become negative. I don't specifically think of the pope - just negative images associated with religiosity and religious dogma that leave me vaguely depressed. But that's a specific legacy from my own past, and not really a response to the music as such. It effectively prevents me from enjoying it. Back to top

Tubularman Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 2304 Joined: June 2004 Posted: Jan. 10 2006, 08:01 Quote (Alan D @ Jan. 10 2006, 13:43) That's a really interesting one - and I can see why you've associated it with those kind of images. For me the images are much more vague - cosmic, maybe. Planetary systems; stars; galaxies. But when I get onto the 'our father' part, the images all become negative. I don't specifically think of the pope - just negative images associated with religiosity and religious dogma that leave me vaguely depressed. This kind of pictures comes up when i listen to Supernova and Magellan, from "let there be light" on earth is like flying up in the stars where the supernova and galaxies is. About Our father i really think Maestro too, I think about some place you can be alone like on the game. I dont prefer the pope.. (thats maybe some of the reason i dont like the lyrics on our father) When i listen to the Maestro is just like flying alone along fantasy world in peace   -------------- Mike Oldfield M i x e s https://soundcloud.com/tubularman Back to top

arron11196 Group: Members Posts: 826 Joined: April 2005 Posted: Jan. 10 2006, 11:01 Aaah!!! How on Earth did I miss this thread... This is definately my subject... I will regroup and comment at another more convenient time... So, my comments... As many of you know one of the things I like to do most is sit back and listen to music... but I only ever get full enjoyment out of it when I do the imagery thing... How best can I explain it... it's like the music is a drug that makes you hear and see things in your imagination so clearly, so well defined... that I'm actually there. (This state can only be achieved when completely relaxed) And my mind reacts to the music. Over time and upon successive listens to the first awe-inspiring listening of any track, where I GET it, for the first time, the imagery begins to solidify, until every time I listen to that piece it's almost like watching a film... and some bits surprise you because you don't quite remember it that way, and other bits are like old friends. As far as specific musical experiences are concerned, they can be linked to a variety of different emotions, such as Crises just being too COOL for words, just so energetic, brilliantly composed, and I get that feeling of a high after I listen. With others, its different, such as Mont St. Michel which inspires a wrenching in my chest... much akin to the feeling of butterflies when you first meet someone who thrills you. Epitaph (King Crimson) is another, which is very emotive in a different way. This conjures images directly as are described, but it's as if I am living it. A facinating thing to do (at least I think so), but very difficult to teach (if it's possible) as I don't even know how I do it myself. -------------- Arron J Eagling Everyone's interpretation is different, and everyone has a right to that opinion. There is no "right" one, I am adding this post to communicate my thoughts to share them with like-minded souls who will be able to comment in good nature. (insert the last 5 mins of Crises here) Back to top

hiawatha Group: Members Posts: 2391 Joined: Mar. 2004 Posted: Jan. 10 2006, 13:19 Quote (Alan D @ Jan. 10 2006, 04:02) .........When I listen to Sibelius, I find images forming of windblown snow swirling across fir-covered slopes. I don't have any strong imagery for TB or HR. "Ommadawn" side 1, as I have mentioned elsewhere, I associate with the novel "Lord Foul's Bane", but only parts of it: 01:15:30 Amadan I 02:42:65 Amadan II ....both with Mt Thunder / "Gravin Threndor" (If you know Mt Doom from "Lord of the Rings", you have the general idea) 06:56:40 Majestic III (Played sprightly on recorder) ...for the green paradise Andelain, seen here http://theland.antgear.com/andelain.jpg I envision your fir-covered slopes for much of Incantations Side 4. The grand guitar solo in the middle of Side 2 conjures imagery of tropical seas (a la Le Guin's "The Farthest Shore"). Side 2, until just before "Diana...." is the time before the dawn, leading up to and including dawn itself. Also, please see this page: http://theland.antgear.com/songs.html (also "Lord Foul's Bain" related) In it, someone has come at this topic from the other angle: seeking music to fit something, and finding Mike Oldfield music to musically portray three difference scenes from the books. As the full-length Oldfieldian folk-tinged progressive rock instrumental is the pinnacle of musical achievement, so too is the fantasy epic the pinnacle of literary achievement. -------------- "In the land of the Dacotahs, Where the Falls of Minnehaha Flash and gleam among the oak-trees, Laugh and leap into the valley." - Song of Hiawatha Back to top

maria Group: Members Posts: 928 Joined: July 2002 Posted: Jan. 10 2006, 16:49 for me there's also a strong link between the music i love and images. actually i know how deep a piece of music gets in me because it has the power to draw something on my mind. that's why i don't normally enjoy music with lyrics. there are songs that i like, but they don't usually touch me so much or maybe i should say in the same way. instrumental music is something like a stream of water or air in which i can flow and feel the music taking me in a journey. some places out of mike's music that have been always with me are: the horse ride through a forest in ommadawn side b, a big bird soaring up from the mountains in  'wild goose flaps its wings', and just some months ago, in 'tears of an angel' i found another image that i won't never forget and -as i said time ago in another thread- was obsessing me until the moment i could put it on a sketch. oh yes.. it's such a big pleasure when while listening to a piece of music, there's suddenly an image appearing able to take me wherever the music flows.. (and i'm just thinking that it's so good to have a place to speak about this without feeling i'm nuts ) -------------- ...morning and evening i'm flying, i'm dreaming... Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: Jan. 11 2006, 05:02 Quote (maria @ Jan. 10 2006, 21:49) the horse ride through a forest in ommadawn side b Oh of course!!! How could I have forgotten that!? For me the image is of riding along a gently windblown grassy upland (Hergest Ridge, I suppose) rather than a forest, but the vividness of the ride is the thing. Yes. Back to top

Tubularman Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 2304 Joined: June 2004 Posted: Jan. 11 2006, 05:37 Quote (maria @ Jan. 10 2006, 22:49) a big bird soaring up from the mountains in  'wild goose flaps its wings', This song gives me picture of a dark country, the skies is full of dark clouds and you can almost wait for the thunder, Under the sky i see white goose that flies. (This is one of my favorite phenomenon before the thunder weather break out) You see clear white birds fly low under the dark grey/blue cloud, Its so beautiful... And that comes up in my mind evertime i hear "Wild goose flaps it wings" -------------- Mike Oldfield M i x e s https://soundcloud.com/tubularman Back to top

Nicolas Group: Members Posts: 208 Joined: Sep. 2005 Posted: Jan. 11 2006, 08:25 Ommadawn part 2, starting at 10.09, going through the climax and into Bodhran: A manned mission going from quiet orbit into an atmospheric descend, and when the flute in the climax starts is when the crew can see the landscape through the clouds. The climax ends at touchdown. Bodhran is the part where the crew is cheering, they put on their space suits, make everything ready, open the gate and ends when a foot is set on the alien world . Back to top

Korkesova Group: Members Posts: 73 Joined: Nov. 2005 Posted: Jan. 11 2006, 12:52 When  I'm  MO listing,  I haven't visual image. MO music caressing my feelings. It raise my sensation: luck – QE2, FIVE MILES OUT, TBII, ease – Incantations, Hergest Ridge, Voyager, LIGHT sorrow – OMMADAWN, GUITAR, TRES LUNAS.  I can spend lots of feelings and than they simply go away.  I'm even. It isn't difficult to understand his music, Mike doesn't speak  and though I´m know what he feels.  AMAROK is the best in this area. It is mixture Mikes feelings, totally true compose. Light and Shade addreess my precise manipulation with sound tone, I'm gain, as though MO is always MO, is a initiator in new PC-music full emocions. -------------- it's never too late for me Back to top

Inkanta Group: Admins Posts: 1453 Joined: Feb. 2000 Posted: Jan. 15 2006, 20:02 Yeah…lots of images swirl in my head while listening to MO, and I notice it more with his material than with any others'. Many--though not all--have grown out of experiences/things I have seen. I will try not to be too redundant with what I have described elsewhere: Tubular Bells and Tubular Bells II: The images were there with TB….a late summer meadow, fragrant with clover and grass, sloping gently to the sea under a hazy blue sky; a dark journey through mountain precipices; ancient churches and celtic crosses; the devil, resembling the beast in the 1940’s French film La Belle et la Bette. <-:  With TBII an entire story emerged (and I choreographed it this way for fun). I’d go into the whole thing, but it would take too long and you’d either be asleep or laughing dangerously (not sure which! ). Incantations: Sometimes I’ve tried to fit Incantations into the four seasons or four elements, but when I’m listening my mind wanders to other aspects. Part I usually triggers early morning images: misty meadows, birds (I see the flutes as birdsong) and squirrels scampering about in the woods. Seasons vary, though it is often late spring. The Diana chant announces an eclipse, followed by more birdsong (flutes). In a total or annular eclipse, the animals behave as if dusk is falling--the earth cools, the birds prepare for nightfall; thus, more flute music. In Part II, I am captured by the Longfellow imagery, though sometimes Cayuga Lake drifts through, and often images of herons and pelicans. This became more intense upon moving to the shores of the Mississippi and running with herons flying and pelicans bobbing. Part III has always conjured up European ports of old and merchant ships. Part IV evokes that magickal, mystical time when day morphs into night…the falling darkness, mist rolling in through meadows to the woods. Pierre Moerlen’s phones are the stars that appear as Selene gently covers the world with her starry blanket. As darkness descends more deeply, more mysteries of the night are found…the nocturnal animals with their unfolding dramas….owl hunting….raccoons, possums and other creatures of the night prowling….coyotes and wolves calling. Then the moon rises. TSODE: I pretty much imagine the book. Before reading it, the images were similar, e. g, the nova of the sun swallowing the inner planets including earth; but now, especially in “Crystal Clear” I think of two people distanced by time and space, and the sadness inherent in one watching the other one depart for Sagan Two. "Our Father":  Since working on some presentations about the Inkas last month, the images have altered. Initially I thought of Pope John Paul II and processions--his smiles and waves; also of the brick and stone Catholic churches of Quincy, a community settled by the German Catholics; and the beautiful, ornate chapel of the university’s St. Francis Hall. Now, I start out with ha-happy images but at some point they darken to Pizzaro wandering into Peru amidst smallpox and civil war causalities…of Atahuallpa converting to Christianity so he could be strangled rather than burned…to the destruction of Inkaic religious centers .....to  Jeanne d’Arc in flames.....to more contemporary scenes of holocaust ... this is not making me avoid the piece because IMHO I need to work through it. Well…those are only a few examples and I’ll not blither on. -------------- "No such thing as destiny; only choices exist." From:  Moongarden's "Solaris." Back to top

hiawatha Group: Members Posts: 2391 Joined: Mar. 2004 Posted: Jan. 15 2006, 21:12 By all means, keep blithering. I've found these to be quite revelatory, and will help listen to some of these considering imagery I've never thought of before. I'm looking forward to more comments. A couple of more comments on "Incantations". Your dawn view of part 1 fits so well, especially with the very first choral introduction of the main theme (before the gong). I suppose the gong might be the first actual sunbeams coming over the horizon. The last section of "Part 3" has made me think of machines/industry/factories. -------------- "In the land of the Dacotahs, Where the Falls of Minnehaha Flash and gleam among the oak-trees, Laugh and leap into the valley." - Song of Hiawatha Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: Jan. 16 2006, 04:12 Quote (Inkanta @ Jan. 16 2006, 01:02) TSODE: I pretty much imagine the book. I only read the book once (very soon after buying the CD on release) and to be honest, my memory of it now is seriously faded. The book as a book didn't have much impact on me. But at the time, while I was reading it, it enhanced my listening a great deal, supplying imagery which still sticks to the music long after the details of the tale have been forgotten. Most particularly I remember the part of the tale near the end where someone composes a long piece of music to commemorate the events; and I immediately identified Mike's TSODE with that composition. So that to this day, I continue to approach TSODE as a kind of epic commemoration of a sequence of legendary events. It sets it apart from all his other work. Back to top

raven4x4x Group: Members Posts: 1535 Joined: Jan. 2002 Posted: Jan. 16 2006, 08:08 Really, I don't get images in my mind while listening to music an awful lot, it's more pure emotions. However, one of my very best memories is from when I was a kid, listening to Tubular Bells while it was raining. Hearing the music, accompanied by the gentle sound of the rain, and watching the rain on the window, it's a great memory for me, and the first time I fell in love with the album. Whenever I listen to TB now I always remember that scene. -------------- Thank-you for helping us help you help us all. Back to top

Nicolas Group: Members Posts: 208 Joined: Sep. 2005 Posted: Jan. 16 2006, 12:08 In "The Gate", MO did capture the atmosphere of the Menenpoort as I remember it. Not hard to imagine, considering these were what inspired MO to write it .  Whenever I hear the song, it reminds me of Ypres as it is now, almost 100 years after the war. The atmosphere at the graveyards and battlefields is different from the Menenpoort.  You could fill an hour of music to capture that atmosphere.  There would be almost completely silent parts in it, very slowly paced chants, beautiful melancholic parts and some more energetic, tense parts. But it would be VERY hard to do. I can advise everyone to visit them once. Get yourself informed (possibly by starting at the museum in Ypres) and visit the graveyards, battlefields and memorials. Being well informed is very important to fully feel and understand the atmosphere at the German and Allied graveyards, and the countless contradictory feelings there hang over these places (especially on the German graveyard it hits you, almost as much as the pictures of football on Christmas 1914). You'll never forget it and "the gate" will get an extra dimension. Do enjoy the cows who walk between the bunkers these days, it's the prettiest sight the bunkers have ever seen and luckily the only one I have seen in real life . Back to top

Piltdownboy on horseback 22 Group: Members Posts: 1548 Joined: Sep. 2005 Posted: Jan. 16 2006, 17:48 Quote (Tubularman @ Jan. 11 2006, 05:37) This song (wild goose) gives me picture of a dark country, the skies is full of dark clouds and you can almost wait for the thunder Ah, couldn't have said it better... Yeah, you get great images with some songs... I have that a lot too with Crises and The Lake (with the lake I get an image of a bored looking Arron   ) > No Kidding...   I see mountains with mist all over them, and a beautiful lake, and one small wooden house, where I will be living in a few years, I hope   With embers I can almost smell the new mown grass on a summer evening... *sighs* -------------- "And now we're going to play Platinum!" Back to top

arron11196 Group: Members Posts: 826 Joined: April 2005 Posted: Jan. 17 2006, 01:07 Just need someone to conveniently win the european lottery now... then we can BUY the mountain... let alone live on it... -------------- Arron J Eagling Everyone's interpretation is different, and everyone has a right to that opinion. There is no "right" one, I am adding this post to communicate my thoughts to share them with like-minded souls who will be able to comment in good nature. (insert the last 5 mins of Crises here) Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: Jan. 17 2006, 10:52 I don't think I was ever successful in making up images while listening to music. The closest that I ever got was with Jean Michel Jarre's Equinoxe, but it was more about the sensation of being underwater rather than the visions, listening to the bubbles, the hisses and the swooshes and feeling it instead of seeing. Generally, I let the "images" be different each time I listen to a piece. But like I said, the actual images never come. So, I prefer to get lost in the "halls and passageways of sound" (like one George Starostin once brilliantly described) and wrap my head around the rhythm, the harmonies, the melodies and the sounds of the instruments. Often, I can associate simple, suggestive visions and/or sensations to music, e.g. "Crises" = Night, "Amarok" = Red skies, NEU!'s "Isi" = Highway, Sigur Rós's "( )" = Rain, etc. They are just very primitive ideas, so I let my mind roam freely while I'm listening, always fixed to the concrete musical values more. One thing I particularly like (though I'm rarely able to do) is to listen to music outdoors, because in that case, the visions are there, and I can paste the music all over it. Music is motion, and I think there's a big parallellism between music that's playing and the landscape that I'm going right through. That's the origin, I think, of the eternal link between music and highways, buses, asphalt, breaks in the petrol stations for food, etc., . What's funny is how I tend to associate certain songs with certain times of the day. That's something I've had for a long time. -------------- 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 Back to top

Piltdownboy on horseback 22 Group: Members Posts: 1548 Joined: Sep. 2005 Posted: Jan. 17 2006, 12:08 Quote (Sir Mustapha @ Jan. 17 2006, 10:52) The closest that I ever got was with Jean Michel Jarre's Equinoxe, but it was more about the sensation of being underwater rather than the visions, listening to the bubbles, the hisses and the swooshes and feeling it instead of seeing. Great you mention it!!! I have the same thing!! This underwater feeling, with bubbles and strange colours! It was one of the very first albums that I heard, when I was 5 or so, and my dad put the lp on for me... A magic world unfurled, and in no time the childrens songs tapes were in the dustbin   -------------- "And now we're going to play Platinum!" Back to top

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