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bee Group: Members Posts: 1227 Joined: Jan. 2004 Posted: July 02 2005, 21:33 Do you think that music has such a profound effect on people because it involves the process of hearing? As hearing is the first sense to develop in a foetus ( I believe) and the last to leave us when we die,  it must, therefore, be pretty important from an evolutionary point of view. Is this why it can be so powerful and essential to our lives ? An ancient language directly connected to our emotions, on every level. -------------- ....second to the right and straight on till morning.... You heard me before Yet you hear me again Then I die Till I call me again Back to top

Locutus Group: Members Posts: 23 Joined: June 2005 Posted: July 03 2005, 04:15 its a nice thought.... i think that discussion would soon proove that 'our hearing' is strictly subjective.i also like to think that we (the mamals) have ocupied the nicest part of the sound frequency band ,but on the long run, frequencies going of the scale dont really lose sound - we just dont have the ability to hear them. to go all megalomaniac, our sound percepcion is verry narrow, considering the whole scale.our ability to control the sound to create music,and the ability to differe its finesse, is what counts, and what connects our emotions to it. so (i believe) its about the music, not hearing. Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: July 03 2005, 13:07 Well, hearing is a crucial thing to human beings, I believe, even more than vision in some aspects. You can hear things that you can see. Sound can even be a kind of vision, when you have the right skill. Now that I think about it, I do think that our hearing skills are very responsible for the effects music has on us. It's not just music, either: just see how powerful the radio is, as a medium. Sounds make our minds create images. By hearing an instrument being played, we can imagine how the musician is playing his instrument: with passion, with sadness, with coldness. That's just one example, mind. Sound can create vibrations, and we're very sensible to it. But it's true: the music by itself - combinations and sequences of notes - are very responsible for our emotional responses. Since a very young age, we're taught which notes exactly are "resonant". Humans perceive frequencies in a certain way, so the "correct" harmonies are always the same. And most people have the very same "basic" concept of "beauty" in music, so it's not just sound after all. Now, I do believe that paintings, sculptures and other works of art can cause just as powerful reactions in us. But music is much more easily available and perceptible. Music is literally everywhere, so we're more attached to it than most other art forms. -------------- 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

bee Group: Members Posts: 1227 Joined: Jan. 2004 Posted: July 03 2005, 16:33 I do agree & talking of art forms, I have this theory about touch. I do not consider photography an art form {not meaning to offend any photographers here} Art in a painting for me says so much more. They are both images that can be memorable- indeed a lot of photography is artistic and a wonderful form of expression but it lacks something for me and is glassy. I think it's all to do with the lens being a barrier between the subject and the viewer. The camera distorts. I know that painters have used the camera obscura to aid them, but the paintings by Canaletto and Vermeer have the accuracy of detail desired and  atmosphere/emotion. Paintings by Degas show not only the dancers in the rooms but the air itself. When you see brush strokes or drips of paint or finger marks on sculpture it makes the viewer feel the artist's presence. And that's why I love live music and even L.Ps. I adore imperfection- the little guitar noises made when fingers slide up and down strings. It's real. I love clarity too, but given the choice the bits that aren't quite perfect are quite perfect for me, (same with people! And this is why art is so important, it stops you in your tracks and makes you look deep inside yourself - why do I respond in that way to that painting?-it helps you to understand what it means to be human and why we do what we do.It is also a very important way of setting down, for future generations, images of the past. Look how music is passed down through generations in so many cultures. It's a way of reaching through time. But there must be physical touch. One thing that is odd about the internet and emails is their silence. Sometimes it deafens me. To hear a voice.. we need voices.. you see personalities in voices.. I fall in love with voices. It's true that in using the internet we are maybe more objective in our discussions-accents don't influence us &the meaning of the words can be interpreted steadily. It's different to reading a publication though. It's quicker for one thing, the exchange of thoughts- it's brain to brain and it's changing language along with text messaging. I'm not sure if it's good or bad really, but it's kind of fun. The chaps who invented the telephone and the television have quite a bit to answer for! And that's back to sound and vision again. -------------- ....second to the right and straight on till morning.... You heard me before Yet you hear me again Then I die Till I call me again Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: July 03 2005, 20:21 Interestingly, I have always admired photography quite a lot. A photograph is always real. You can only photograph reality. But yet, a skilled photographer can make something completely unreal out of reality. I think of, for example, Storm Thorgerson's album covers. I love the cover of The Cranberries' "Wake Up And Smell The Coffee", for example. It's REAL, it's absurd, and it's meaningful. A painting makes it obvious that the image isn't real, so it's there to be admired differently. And I don't give a damn when an artist tries to make his painting "realistic". One thing I hate is a painter trying to show off his technical skills. I think I'm going off topic. -------------- 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

raven4x4x Group: Members Posts: 1535 Joined: Jan. 2002 Posted: July 03 2005, 23:44 Perhaps the reason that music is so powerful, the reason that I love music more than paintings or photographs, is that it is quite possable for music to be pure emotion. Generally speaking you can't photograph 'anger' or paint 'sadness', you can only paint a person that is angry or a landscape that is sad, etc. Music, on the other hand, has the ability to remove the person or landscape and just focus on the emotion. Perhaps that is why it is so powerful. -------------- Thank-you for helping us help you help us all. Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: July 04 2005, 06:11 Quote (raven4x4x @ July 04 2005, 04:44) Generally speaking you can't photograph 'anger' or paint 'sadness'. Yes you can. Examples: Picasso's 'Weeping Woman' in the Tate Gallery, London. (See here.) Wilhelmina Barns-Graham's (abstract) painting 'Goodbye Johnnie' in Aberdeen Art Gallery. (See here.) I think this varies enormously from person to person, according to their expectations about paintings and their experience of ways of looking. I've stood in front of pictures that I was no longer able to see through the tears that they had induced.... Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: July 04 2005, 15:07 I'd say it's not quite right to think that a certain art form can't capture pure emotion. Anything can. The truth is, it depends highly on who's experiencing it. A picture can be a "painting of a sad thing" or can be "sadness", and it depends only on who's looking at it. Same with photographs. Same with music. Same with anything. In fact, you can be hearing some noise of, I dunno, the window vibrating with the wind outside, and think it's the saddest thing you ever heard. It's not music - it's not even art, but it affects you. That's how you face it. Er, yeah. What I actually mean is, in this sense, "sound" can affect you much more than "music". And this ties in with the initial question, I think. -------------- 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

The Bell(end) Group: Members Posts: 1051 Joined: July 2005 Posted: July 04 2005, 15:42 all I know is, when I listen to music that I truly love, I get tingles in my spine, either that or I get a sudden burst of super energy, that then makes me feel as if I could run 100m in 10 seconds, sadly I've tried and it doesn't work! hehe For me to like music it has to inspire me, either really appropriate words or excellent instrunmentals get me into a great and positive mood. -------------- When the night's on fi-ya, do you need love's arms to hold yew? :D Back to top

bee Group: Members Posts: 1227 Joined: Jan. 2004 Posted: July 04 2005, 16:06 I think, Sir M, that you have said exactly what I was trying to. The trouble with me is that I fly off at a tangent ( then forget how I got there! and start on about things related such as paintings etc. It was kind of linked though. Under the umbrella of " art " there's something for everyone. In our responses we are all different. And it all ties in with the senses ~ the looking,hearing and touching   how we receive is determined a great deal by our backgrounds and current lives.....But  hearing does have this very direct line to our emotions and that's what I cannot ignore. There will always be a kind of magic in music, and, like poetry, it is elusive and very very necessary to us. It's also true to say as you did, that sound itself effects you much more than music. I am effected so much by the sound of woodpigeons that I want to throw my slippers at them when they start cooing on my chimney!! -------------- ....second to the right and straight on till morning.... You heard me before Yet you hear me again Then I die Till I call me again Back to top

raven4x4x Group: Members Posts: 1535 Joined: Jan. 2002 Posted: July 04 2005, 20:16 Quote (Sir Mustapha @ July 05 2005, 04:07) I'd say it's not quite right to think that a certain art form can't capture pure emotion. Anything can. Well, I can only speak from personal experience, and I've never been affected by a painting in the way that Alan describes. I do like to look at paintings and pictures, but in a way that seems rather superficial compared to how I feel about music. By the way Alan, I don't think those two paintings you linked to look particularly sad. Not to me anyway, I'm afraid. -------------- Thank-you for helping us help you help us all. Back to top

EeToN Group: Members Posts: 845 Joined: Sep. 2001 Posted: July 04 2005, 21:02 I've just written an essay roughly about this topic. There are many interesting pages and books throughout the web that are worth checking: I highly recommend the freely downloadable Music Therapy Today magazine. In the April issue there is even a long article about generative music that I'm very interested in. There is a book called The Origin of Music, written in 1999. I only read some reviews, but it seems to be interesting as it sketches a quite new interdiscipline called biomusicology. Some interesting articles about a kin discipline, zoomusicology here. There are quite a lot of books about music cognition. You can find a recommended reading list here.   there is a list about the questions music cognition would like to answer here. Intriguing, isn't it? Some books here from the music psychology point of view. Sorry for posting reading list instead of my own opinion but it's such an arborescent topic and I still didn't settle the bases for myself. -------------- If I were music, I would be Enigmatism. Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: July 05 2005, 04:37 Quote (raven4x4x @ July 05 2005, 01:16) By the way Alan, I don't think those two paintings you linked to look particularly sad. Not to me anyway, I'm afraid. I expected that Alex, and I think there are several reasons for it. First, you have to see the original work. Images in books or on the internet are OK for reference, but often the feeling hangs on very subtle effects of tone and colour and much is lost in comparison to the original work. Second, it takes time. If someone sits down to listen to (say)Amarok for the first time, he knows at the outset it's going to take an hour - and also that it may take several listenings before he starts to get into it. When I first started listening to Wagner, for example, I felt nothing more than a niggling curiosity for many, many hours of listening. It took that long to get into the way of the music, to tune into the composer's way of expressing himself. But most people expect to walk up to a painting, look at it, and feel something. Well, they might - if they're lucky. But in my experience it usually doesn't work like that. My point is that it takes as long to become properly acquainted with most great paintings as it does to tune in to most symphonies. The Barns-Graham, for example - when I first saw it, I thought it was attractively blue, and nothing more. But I was in the gallery for several hours, and it niggled at me, so I kept returning to it, giving it a few minutes at a time - and by the time I finally found myself feeling so moved that I was actually weeping, I must have spent well over 20 minutes in total, actually looking at it - not to mention the hours of niggling thought. (Incidentally, I wrote to the artist afterwards, and she told me about the genesis of the picture.) For some reason many people seem unwilling to spend the time necessary to engage with paintings, perhaps because they think they are immediately seeing all there is to see. But that isn't the case, in fact. Back to top

TubularBelle Group: Members Posts: 1487 Joined: April 2004 Posted: July 06 2005, 03:51 I think that music touches the soul more than any other art form because you can interpret it any way that you want to and make it your own. You choose to listen to a piece a music that relates to the emotion you are feeling at the time and then you take complete ownership of it, whereas with any other art form, sure you can love it or hate it, feel anger or sadness from it, and spend a great deal of time trying to interpret what it really means, to you or to the person who created it. But it is always going to be the work, idea, vision, creation of someone else and you are limited to their finished product, you can't really change it to suit yourself, you can't own it and envelop yourself in it completely like you can with music. I often ask myself if I had to give up my sight or my hearing what would I choose. Vision is so vitally important and you are far more greatly impaired by the loss of it than by the loss of hearing, and if I had never heard music, I wouldn't know any better, but to give it up now would be devastating and I would have to think long and hard before I made such a decision. It reminds me of the movie 'Mr Hollands Opus' which makes me cry from beginning to end about a composer (Richard Dreyfuss) who has to sacrifice his dream to compose his own concerto because he is forced to become a music teacher after the unexpected arrival of a son, and then discovers his son is deaf, which heightens the resentment he feels towards him and the extravagant costs involved with raising a deaf son makes his dream become an impossibility. The most upsetting scene for me was when he came home from work upset over the death of John Lennon and when his teenage son asks what is the matter, he says, 'You wouldn't understand'. Of course it all works out in the end. A beautiful movie. Sorry if this is a bit off topic. Tracy. -------------- I hate getting up early. I didn't even realise there were two 6 o'clocks in one day! Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: July 06 2005, 08:02 Quote (raven4x4x @ July 04 2005, 20:16) Well, I can only speak from personal experience, and I've never been affected by a painting in the way that Alan describes. Me neither. You know, to be honest, it's very hard for a piece of work to give me sadness. I recognise sadness when I see/hear it, but when that happens, I only try to understand it and appreciate it. One thing you must be sure of is that, if you ever make the saddest piece of work in history, you're not going to have my sympathy. But you'll have my respect. True, I'm much more affected by happiness in music than sadness, but I suppose that's personal. I don't want to be a sad person. So, when I'm faced with a piece of music that truly makes me want to be happy, the effect is very powerful in me. And music that truly can make me happy is very rare - mostly because it's dang difficult to make art that causes happiness in many people. It may sound like a mystery, but it takes something as silly and abstract as "The Simpsons Sing The Blues" and "Bob The Builder" to drive my spirits up. Quote You choose to listen to a piece a music that relates to the emotion you are feeling at the time and then you take complete ownership of it, whereas with any other art form, sure you can love it or hate it, feel anger or sadness from it, and spend a great deal of time trying to interpret what it really means, to you or to the person who created it. But it is always going to be the work, idea, vision, creation of someone else and you are limited to their finished product, you can't really change it to suit yourself, you can't own it and envelop yourself in it completely like you can with music. Hmm, but this also depends a lot on the music, doesn't it? For example, I can't make much out of Joy Division's albums. They're sad and that's it. You can't really make it your own because, as far as emotion is concerned, they're extremely unidimensional. You either get depressed or you don't. The first time I've seen a truly open album, where you can interpret it as you wish, is Sigur Rós's ( ), which was MADE for that. There are vocal albums, instrumental albums and WORDLESS albums. ( ) is the latter. -------------- 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

bee Group: Members Posts: 1227 Joined: Jan. 2004 Posted: July 06 2005, 18:41 Having got hold of a copy of The Cranberries - Wake up and smell the coffee, because I was kind of curious about what you said about the album cover Sir M, I have to say that it is indeed a great image. Very "Dali-esque" infact. Emptiness, distance, sand and sky, figures in a curious situation, but I still get this feeling of remoteness to the viewer. Sorry! Incidentally, never having given the Cranberries much of my time, I was pleasantly surprised ( one track I knew quite well but hadn't realised it was them before - Dreams) the girl's voice has a lovely quality, calm and soothing, she'd be good on a future MO album perhaps? And they are upbeat and cheerful and their sound did effect my mood at the time. But they haven't yet earned a place on my ipod !!!!!!!!!!! The image of Picasso's Weeping Woman is one that I cannot go past if I see it in a book. It is so powerful and touches something deep inside, her anguish and despair are presented so truthfully. I have not yet  seen the painting in the gallery but I feel it will effect me. The other abstract image you mentioned AlanD really does need to be seen for real but the colours used have a contemplative feel, like the colour of a  headache if you know what I mean. Sometimes words just aren't enough. -------------- ....second to the right and straight on till morning.... You heard me before Yet you hear me again Then I die Till I call me again Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: July 07 2005, 04:34 Quote (bee @ July 06 2005, 23:41) The other abstract image you mentioned AlanD really does need to be seen for real but the colours used have a contemplative feel, like the colour of a  headache if you know what I mean. Sometimes words just aren't enough. We need the original - but for what it's worth - what I found myself concentrating on was the difference between the left and right panels. The left has that area of grey calm, and the little white figure at the centre is a focus point, highlighted by the black ellipse - so I have the feeling of something important and distinct and at the heart of things. Then I look at the right hand panel and there is just emptiness. The original has great depths of shimmering blue that I feel lost in, but no matter how hard I look into those remote and beautiful depths, there's nothing articulate to be seen. So I look back at the left side... which is now strangely comforting... and then back to the right, and the beautiful emptiness hits again. And as this goes on a great feeling of loss builds up, mingled with something like gratitude. As with experiences of all great art, I find there's a feeling of extended consciousness, a deeper awareness of my own humanity, and that of others. I discovered afterwards that the artist (who was very old herself) painted it on the day she heard the news that a lifelong close friend and fellow artist (John Wells) had died. She died herself last year, but she'd had time to make a silkscreen print based on this picture. It cost an arm and a leg, but I knew I had to have one, and it now hangs at the top of the stairs in my house - a constant reminder of human frailty and the effect we have on each other's lives, and of the enormous power of the artist in permitting us to feel that through art. Back to top

TubularBelle Group: Members Posts: 1487 Joined: April 2004 Posted: July 07 2005, 23:36 Sir Mustapha, I said that you choose to listen to the music that suits your mood at the time. So if Joy Division is sad (ironic) you wouldn't listen to it when you wanted to feel happy. Having thought this through a little more, I think the reason paintings affect me less emotionally is partly because you don't have them in your home to look at and 'feel' when you are feeling a specific emotion. You visit them in a clinical cold environment (or look at them in a book or on the net), I'd be embarrassed to start crying over a painting in a museum, but if I could afford to have great works of art in my home in the same capacity that I can have the great works of people like Mike Oldfield in my home, I'm sure I would be just as greatly affected by them. Sure, it's not Mike sitting in my lounge playing the music himself, but it's as good as, (don't get picky). Why are we talking about paintings when this thread is about sound and hearing? Tracy. -------------- I hate getting up early. I didn't even realise there were two 6 o'clocks in one day! Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: July 08 2005, 04:09 Quote (TubularBelle @ July 08 2005, 04:36) Why are we talking about paintings when this thread is about sound and hearing? Four reasons: 1. It's bee's thread, and it was clear by her second post that she was wanting to discuss the issue in a broader context (which I think makes the discussion more helpful, actually). 2. The idea was being floated that music (or sound) could convey emotion better than the sense of sight [which may be true for some people but isn't true for me]. 3. Some topics aren't as neatly confined as message board thread moderators might like them to be, and this is one of them. 4. If you give me even half a chance, I will tend to discuss painting; and I was given half a chance. Quote You visit them in a clinical cold environment (or look at them in a book or on the net), I'd be embarrassed to start crying over a painting in a museum, but if I could afford to have great works of art in my home in the same capacity that I can have the great works of people like Mike Oldfield in my home, I'm sure I would be just as greatly affected by them. Yes, this is a serious drawback. I'd go so far as to say that you have to live with a picture in order to get to the roots of it, and that's a real problem. Incidentally, it's possible to shed a tear or two quietly in a gallery without being embarrassed or even noticed! Back to top

TubularBelle Group: Members Posts: 1487 Joined: April 2004 Posted: July 08 2005, 04:16 I guess in my mind I was comparing it to the difference between listening to a cd once in a music store with all the distractions that are around you and not being able to relax and open yourself up to it, and having it in your home and being able to get to know it completely. When I spoke about owning it before I meant metaphorically but now I think it is actually about owning it in the literal sense, because you chose it and it is yours. If only beautiful art was as assessible to us as easilly as beautiful music is, because I do think you need to own the original piece to appreciate its full impact. -------------- I hate getting up early. I didn't even realise there were two 6 o'clocks in one day! Back to top

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