# How do you think of music?



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

This was sort of a hard topic to name because I can't quite figure out how to word the question in one sentence but I want to know how you think of music when you are listen to it? Or maybe, how you listen to music? 

For example, I suppose I think of music like a puzzle. When I first listen to a piece I love to pick it apart, figure out the themes, the form, how everything relates to each other. Then after that, once that particular "puzzle" has been figured out and put together, then I can sit back and feel the joy of just listening to it in a more intuitive/emotional way, like appreciating the picture on a puzzle you put together. 

This is why, when some people say they won't bother listening to something they don't like over and over again, I am the opposite. I think of it as a juicy challenge and not understanding a piece at first makes me want to listen to it over and over again until I do. 

Something that doesn't come to my head when I listen to music, though, are images. I don't really think of many extra-musical things when I'm listening to music unless I'm listening to a piece of music in response to some event in my life that I am feeling the need to listen to music for. This makes tone poems hard for me to get into because I never really hear or "see" what I'm supposed to be hearing or seeing in my head and it makes it frustrating.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I do my best not to think when listening to music. Thinking just gets in the way of it.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I like the word "puzzle". That might be a late-term word I would use, after I've gotten to know a piece for a long time. But images, invented lyrics, and a storyline are most likely to come to my mind while listening to music. A vocalized expression of some sort accompanying the music, be it a narration quality, simply moans, groans, and interjections, or seeing actual scenes in my mind, with or without a plot.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I suppose for me it _is_ images, though largely abstract. I often think of motives and phrases as molecular models that fit together in complex and surprising ways. Or it may be even more abstract -- ideas represented by direction, up down, forward, backward, left, right. Also spatial relationships, far near, with, within, without. So visual is a close approximation of how I think of music. That's not entirely accurate, but close. To try to describe it is like trying to describe a dream after you awaken. You can usually only convey vague surface similarities to the actual experience. The experience is sub-verbal. Or maybe extra-verbal. It's a lot like the mental state one enters to draw or paint.

Emotions are prominent too, but they play second fiddle (so to speak) to the above visual / spatial impressions. There is a lot of anticipation, tension and release.

I don't suppose any of that made much sense. I guess it goes back to that old quote mentioning dancing about architecture, or whatever it was.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Actually a very interesting question. How one thinks of what we call "music" in general can be what separates many o' ideas. Is it a release? Is it a challenge? Is it a party? Is it an expansion of what you call yourself? The list goes on and on... and I think I can jive with all of the above. Sometimes it's a release. Sometimes I want to stretch my intellect. Sometimes I just want to expand into a space greater than myself. 

I don't know what exactly "music" is. A collection of organized sounds by some form of intelligence... But it seems there is an extra spark somewhere that makes it much more than that. And still, I'm left not knowing... But, I'm enjoying that. 

:tiphat:


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Sound paintings.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

It's almost pure emotion for me. 
Programmatic notes, facts and/or opinions about the composer or the performer(s) might flit idly through my mind but I don't latch on to them. 
I am not submerged into the music, nor do I stand outside of it. It's as if a current of energy is flowing between the music and me, and I'm bathed in this current and go unthinkingly wherever it takes me. There's certainly no subjective experience of time passing, the music takes me to a place outside of time.
Sometimes I'm ready for the piece to be over but the piece itself isn't through with me. Afterwards I might experience have been soothed or it might be very different: I've been picked up by the music and tossed around and then released, shaken. 
But whatever it is, it can't be compared to what I get from literature or poetry, painting or sculpture. It's the peak experience of beauty. 
I've heard it said that at the end of life, hearing is the last remaining sense. Thank goodness!


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## Rachmanijohn (Jan 2, 2014)

I try not to think. Thinking gets in the way of feeling and the main reason I listen to music is to be transported, to feel something. It's all in the emotion for me.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

I suppose I'm a lot like CyressWillow, especially during my first listen or two of a piece. I like to just let the music just take me along. I try and listen attentively though, and I'm not afraid to let myself drown in the soundscape. I suppose there are times that certain pieces evoke images for me but I don't consciously try to think of images that match the music. Subsequent listenings I may be more analytical in my approach to pieces, and try and break them down. I find this much easier to do when I am familiar with a piece than when I am not, and that is why the first few listens I prefer to just let the music take me where it will.

Kevin


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

I find I think of music in a very melodic/thematic sort of a way. Under the influence of Rosen, I'm starting to think in a more dramatic sort of a way (what are the "events" that the composer wants us to hear?). 

Perhaps this is controversial, but I don't think anybody listens to music without thinking about it (although perhaps they don't think about thinking about it, if you see what I mean). It sounds to me like saying "I don't think when I read a book, I just enjoy it". Surely you have to think about it a little in order to know who the characters are and what the plot is and so forth?


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

ahammel said:


> Perhaps this is controversial, but I don't think anybody listens to music without thinking about it (although perhaps they don't think about thinking about it, if you see what I mean). It sounds to me like saying "I don't think when I read a book, I just enjoy it". Surely you have to think about it a little in order to know who the characters are and what the plot is and so forth?


I think what they might mean is that they don't try to analyze the music too much. However, I do think it's possible to still your mind like in Hindu or Buddhist meditation practices, but I suppose only extremely disciplined minds could accomplish this. Or maybe it's just a Zen approach to the music where you are just "in the moment". Of course I could be totally wrong but that's kind of how I viewed the statements.

Kevin


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

ahammel said:


> Perhaps this is controversial, but I don't think anybody listens to music without thinking about it (although perhaps they don't think about thinking about it, if you see what I mean). It sounds to me like saying "I don't think when I read a book, I just enjoy it". Surely you have to think about it a little in order to know who the characters are and what the plot is and so forth?


 The mind must work in some way for that to happen, surely. The difference is (and you've indicated it already): Do I get _aware_ that my mind is working in the receptive process, or do I only experience the _results_ - which could be emotions, images, sense of structure, associations, possibly even concrete thoughts and ideas.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I think I experience sound first - timbre and pitch and harmony, moment to moment, isolated from larger patterns. That's what I enjoy most as well. When I say that some music is "beautiful," this is what I have in mind. 

Next I experience rhythm. 

Then, motifs. Not whole themes, usually, just pieces of themes. I think the manipulation of motifs interests me more than any of the larger patterns, though you can't really separate them of course. 

Of course I enjoy a lot of melodies, but it seems that this aspect of music doesn't matter very much to me.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

An abstract non-verbal form of communication which has its own meaning, not at all translatable into words or images. and very much about itself, i.e. organized sound, and as much so, maybe even predominantly, what that has to do with time and my perception of it. I hold that music, after the basic elements are named, is primarily 'about' time, in all sorts of ways outside of everyday notions of what is time.

At this point, when I listen, it is pretty much on all fronts, the entire fabric being as important as the most or least of its parts. Any premiere / initial listen is mainly on the visceral plane, while of course a long time of study and cumulative listening have me also conscious of the more technical aspects at work in the piece. (Then too, it is an intellectual entertainment, what the composer did, how the piece is working, how it gets from 'here,' to 'there.')

The visceral includes, for lack of better explanation, emotional responses.

High art or lighter fare, I consider it all an entertainment: for me it has also been, for a very long time, about as necessary as food, air, or water.

I listen for pleasure and 'meaning,' and would not know at all what further specific or named personal reactions I have might be of any interest or use in the telling of those to anyone else.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

This is a very interesting question and has really made me think. The answering posts are fascinating too.

I listen in a number of ways. When I was a child, I had a broken leg in plaster for three months & in the morning would be left in a room with the BBC third programme playing classical music. I used either to 'conduct' the music, or imagine ballerinas dancing to it.

When I am playing my violin, one way that I use to memorise first the tunes & then the dynamics is to make up a story, which involves the appropriate emotions for the phrase or crescendo or whatever. I sometimes do this when l am listening too - not so much a narrative as imagining myself as a person who lived in the composer's era and trying to feel the emotions and character of that person as a way of 'putting myself' into the music.

Sometimes I do manage a bit of sound painting, or maybe that should be 'sound weaving'. A theme might seem to me like a pale blue strand & I see it weaving in and out below another theme, which might be a rich honey colour or so on - a bit like a tapestry - and the sky blue strand eventually joins itself up with the butterscotch strand. But this happens not very consciously - it is as if I am noting the pattern of the tune and my brain is supplying a helpful picture for me.

Sometimes I just register my emotions - or I drift off - start a train of thought - or just caress a much loved phrase with my mind.
As in the popular saying - 'Sometimes I sits & thinks & sometimes I just sits.'


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## DaDirkNL (Aug 26, 2013)

I often think of music as a conversation, between different personalities. Sometimes it's a puzzle, sometimes a sound painting.
Music begins where words end. A piece of music can be a journey to heaven, or it can contain all of life.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

At the end of the day, listening to music triggers a response, hopefully enjoyable ones. As for what those responses mean that varies by people, although a lot of quality music seem to trigger similar types of responses and the "meaning" is really a matter of perception because we are dealing with sounds (unless we are listening to vocal classical music with sung texts). 

I don't think I have met sane people who deliberately listens to horrible music to their ears for the sake of deliberately getting displeasure like a type of "musical sado-masochist". Hope not.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Someone asked me this years ago. I failed to describe it then - I'll probably fail this time as well.
The best (or worst) way to describe it is like a an _exploded diagram_. I'm always centre with the rest of the music positioned according to orchestre positions/dynamics relative to me...which is again broken into themes/motifs/etc.

I'm aware of how stupid this must sound. :lol:


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

When people say they don't think about the music, I agree they probably are not trying to analyze. But they could also just mean they don't think verbally about it. In western culture we lean toward equating thinking with an internal discussion using words. There are other modes of thought.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

For me it is a multi-level experience that do not exclude any kind of emotions or intellectual stimuli (They may not appear at the same time, but they might). I don't think anyone is a blank canvas, You always judge and process those new experiences with your previous knowledge library.

Those who think they don't think about the "music" they hear, just have not examined the process that listening is all about closely enough yet! If You're not processing, You will probably not be writing on this web-forum as You surly will have some form of massive brain damage, but that may be fine for You and a quite happy state! I have a friend who works with patients with this kind of diagnose and most of then reacts profoundly to all sorts of music despite not being able to communicate their emotions in any verbal or aural form.

I really don't think You can experience without thinking! 
And if You are not experiencing the music, to what use is listening to it?

/ptr


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Well, of course it depends on whether I'm playing or listening, but when listening, I find I tend to process music mostly as an emotional response. I do do some analysis, but this is mostly limited to just taking note of the themes and general form.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Weston said:


> When people say they don't think about the music, I agree they probably are not trying to analyze. But they could also just mean they don't think verbally about it. In western culture we lean toward equating thinking with an internal discussion using words. There are other modes of thought.


To extend this with an example, somebody who thinks about thinking about music might think something like "my word, what a lot of unresolved dissonances there are in this piece! Ah, and they're all tied together in the recapitulation and resolved, how lovely", whereas somebody who "just listens" might think (not necessarily in words) about tension and release.


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

the way i see music is like a tale or poem, only much more abstract and pure, told right from the heart without the limitations of words, pure emotions that make up a story. At first I liked writing much, but more and more I felt words weren't enough to express what I needed to, so my music developped to, frankly, be able to live on. 

For about the same reason, it's a form of magic to me, such an unearthly energy, and yeah i know it's sounds and harmonics and you can analyse it and it's natural, but to me that doesn't even come close to explain the depth of music, like a piece can be a reflection of a composers inner world and can be a bearer for his emotions, or for a performer, or for a listener (and its magical too that composing to me never feels (totally) as creating, rather like passively experiencing, while with listening it never feels only passive but active too)

When I listen to music I always get inside the music, not like looking at a painting, when I'm really listening to something I become part of the music and I let myself be flooded with the emotions. I especially like to listen to music that connects to me and my own emotions, so that the music can care for them. I also like when there is fantasy in music, some distraction from the coldness of modern society, when images and other sensations come to me in the form of a reflection of a part of someones inner world, in which you can be save and feel and cry and heal and get hope before coming back. 

I also have synaestesia and I see colors when listening to certain chords and intervals, and also forms and patterns, that also plays a role in my music experience and is even in a way connected to the emotions I feel and the stories I hear. I have once made a piece that was completely darkred


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## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

so highly evaluated, all the approaches above!

they could form a very interesting essay

How do I think of music!

Music is maths, but it is literature as well

It is supported structurally, but it is also an idea, occupying the human spirit

The images are surely formed in my mind, and the emotions are raised

Music can be interpreted and received differently, by musicians and by listeners

In a sentence, I would say that a perfect equilibrium in soul, spirit, mind, heart and body,

is what music can really bring to a person


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

lupinix said:


> the way i see music is like a tale or poem, only much more abstract and pure, told right from the heart without the limitations of words, pure emotions that make up a story. At first I liked writing much, but more and more I felt words weren't enough to express what I needed to, so my music developped to, frankly, be able to live on.


Ballet music is sufficient in and of itself without the need of words to express a story. You don't even need to see the ballet itself to see the story, which is what makes it so great. I actually prefer not to see ballet, because my mind can do better to depict any scene for myself.

Sometimes what I like to do is imagine abstract people dancing when listening do classical dance music of any kind. If a piece is really good, I might even imagine _myself _dancing to it (I can't really do anything fancy), usually a series of "spins and twirls" as I call it.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I tend to listen to music as a whole the first few times I listen to a new piece. Then, after some familiarity, I will break it down and pay attention to certain passages, solos, dynamics, interplay, etc. This is no way interferes with my emotional enjoyment of the music. 

I don't believe listening to music 'without thinking' about it, and listening on a more intellectual basis as being mutually exclusive. I can switch between the 2 modes at different times and get different experiences each time. Both modes offer emotional enjoyment for different reasons.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

violadude said:


> This is why, when some people say they won't bother listening to something they don't like over and over again, I am the opposite. I think of it as a juicy challenge and not understanding a piece at first makes me want to listen to it over and over again until I do.


What if you hear a piece and understand it and feel it isn't that creative and you don't want to hear it again? I don't see the point listening to the same piece over and over particularly as there is so much more music out there. Maybe hear a couple more different performances if you think you need another perspective but then I'd move on.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

ahammel said:


> To extend this with an example, somebody who thinks about thinking about music might think something like "my word, what a lot of unresolved dissonances there are in this piece! Ah, and they're all tied together in the recapitulation and resolved, how lovely", whereas somebody who "just listens" might think (not necessarily in words) about tension and release.


And I'm more the second which is why I mentioned tension/release before. I'm interested in the overall arc of a piece, the harmony or conflict of the interrelated elements. Of course it's possible to just like some details, and there's certainly far more pieces which have nice details here and there but don't coalesce into a completely coherent whole. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, which music, poetry, painting, film etc I prefer things which I can enjoy within the totally of them. Anything that seems to interfere with that annoys me and I become more aware of the incongruity or misstep. I feel I favour more creative people who put more into a piece and put effort into putting their details within the overall concept. That makes me relatively picky, but considering the mass of things out there I think that's a good thing.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

For me its a wave of sound i swim or dive into, or just let my body and mind sink down to the depth(s)...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

ptr said:


> For me it is a multi-level experience that do not exclude any kind of emotions or intellectual stimuli (They may not appear at the same time, but they might). I don't think anyone is a blank canvas, You always judge and process those new experiences with your previous knowledge library.
> 
> Those who think they don't think about the "music" they hear, just have not examined the process that listening is all about closely enough yet! If You're not processing, You will probably not be writing on this web-forum as You surly will have some form of massive brain damage, but that may be fine for You and a quite happy state! I have a friend who works with patients with this kind of diagnose and most of then reacts profoundly to all sorts of music despite not being able to communicate their emotions in any verbal or aural form.
> 
> ...


When I say 'thinking' I am referring to ratiocination, involving language. Of _course_ there are synapses doing their thing all over the brain terrain, including responses to the aural input. You have descended into absurdity.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I find music to be the perfect escape from the pressures of the world. Too bad the guy under so much work pressure in the "Willoughby" episode from the Twilight Zone wasn't a music lover. It might have prevented him from jumping from the train. To quote the train conductor, "Poor fella." Poor indeed!


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Ukko said:


> When I say 'thinking' I am referring to ratiocination, involving language.


I suspect it's much the same process under the hood whether one thinks about it using language or not.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

ahammel said:


> I suspect it's much the same process under the hood whether one thinks about it using language or not.


It isn't even close.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Yes, soundscapes...


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Ukko said:


> It isn't even close.


Uh, OK.

Any particular reason for that assessment? [SNIP: edited out snarkiness on second thought. Apologies.]


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Ukko said:


> You have descended into absurdity.


I'm not convinced that there can be language without reasoning or thoughts without language, hence I believe that whenever there is some form of stimuli processed within a normally mature brain, language automatically forms, it may well be unintentional or subconscious process most that do not consider "reasoning", it is still littered with language when You "look" back at it after the event. I don't find that absurd at all!

/ptr


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

In general I try to eliminate all outside distraction and avoid any thinking in words, devoting my whole attention to what I am hearing. I am not distracted, however, by watching performers.

I listen to different kinds of music in very different ways. When listening to music composed under an expressive aesthetic (Romantic, much conservative 20th c. music) I often imagine that _I am the music_, that it is my internal experience, that its journey and its fate are mine. Much baroque music, J.S. Bach in particular, puts me into a more abstract kind of intellectual ecstasy, though it affects me emotionally as well. For example, I find the fugue from Bach's Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C to be exhilarating. I feel my throat singing it, its power in my limbs, I want to dance it-exuberant joy incarnate. Not my joy exactly, but a perfect, abstract representation of it. Good blues and rock solos, particularly guitar solos, affect me through my vocal chords and guts. I sing them internally and imagine what one would have to feel to want to sing in just that way. Or howl, scream, moan or burn as the case may be. There is a rhetorical element to them. Classical music - though not mature Beethoven (see expressive aesthetic above) - is more like intellectual puzzle, dialogue, interpersonal drama, my least favorite period really. I love good pictorial music that is like pondering the awe and beauty of nature (Dawn, Midnight from Brittens Sea Interludes, Debussy Nuages). Okay, I've gone on long enough here. Must stop writing and listen to something instead.

I should add that while I am listening in the above ways, there is almost always some analytical awareness and note taking going on, but usually at an unobtrusive level. Theoretical training can do that to you.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

In classical, I like both thinking about and feeling the music. I prefer structured pieces because I seem to understand the composer's 'point' with the piece better that way. Maybe that's why I like Haydn so much, because he constantly makes you 'think' about what's going on when he does the unexpected.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Ukko said:


> When I say 'thinking' I am referring to ratiocination, involving language. Of _course_ there are synapses doing their thing all over the brain terrain, including responses to the aural input. You have descended into absurdity.


Do mathematicians 'think' in words? There is thought involving the juggling of a set of already defined symbols, more abstractly yet mere images are held in mind as icon representatives of concepts, with numbers of them seen at once as if looking at three transparencies laid over each other, any of which can lead to a rational conclusion or bring about valid and workable new ideas or inventions.

Then we have this little matter of these large structures in sound, systematic notation, which are not at all verbal -- do composers sit down and rationally think in words?

One quick check in a dictionary did not show any meaning which limited the type of thinking to words.
I think your notion that ratiocination is limited to verbal thinking only is mistaken.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

ptr said:


> I'm not convinced that there can be language without reasoning or thoughts without language, hence I believe that whenever there is some form of stimuli processed within a normally mature brain, language automatically forms, it may well be unintentional or subconscious process most that do not consider "reasoning", it is still littered with language when You "look" back at it after the event. I don't find that absurd at all!
> 
> /ptr


It is possible that we have had different experiences. There may be some significance in the fact that I do not remember music the same way my friends do, i.e. I can't 'play it back'. When I hear the music again, I may recognize it _as it is happening_, but can't predict it, even by a second. Maybe the first few notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony... or the deadly repetition in Ravel's Bolero - but I can't play any of that back either before I hear it.


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## stevederekson (Jan 5, 2014)

In my mind, the upcoming passages are predicted, in the sense that they are played in my mind miliseconds before I hear them.

This recognizing of passages is what helps me enjoy a piece truly, but it must be a sweet-spot where I have listened to a piece enough to loosey recognize the passages (yet not the individual harmonies), but not enough that I no longer respond emotionally to the piece.


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## bellbottom (Jun 19, 2013)

I never knew sa re ga ma solfege would assist me in learning and understanding music so well. I used to just like the music. Then on my mind translates the music into solfege and i could like its progressive waves theme. Then i could even try variations. The musicians who create music have love expressions in their minds so it creates the melody.

Nice reading and where could i get this better english also thoughts. Thanks.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Ukko said:


> It is possible that we have had different experiences. There may be some significance in the fact that I do not remember music the same way my friends do, i.e. I can't 'play it back'. When I hear the music again, I may recognize it _as it is happening_, but can't predict it, even by a second. Maybe the first few notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony... or the deadly repetition in Ravel's Bolero - but I can't play any of that back either before I hear it.


For some it may be a component to be able to recreate music previously heard, but for most who have not got this tool, the music still creates a form of memory that, whether or not you can sing the tune back, can be described with words connected to emotions the music spurs with in You. I do not believe that anyone can listen to music without some form of emotion formed, and emotions in the human race are linked to language, conscious or not.

/ptr


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## Anterix (Jan 24, 2010)

How do I think music?

I try to memorize it first. Then I try to play it. Then it comes a time when I am capable of some extraordinary things: I can play it on any key and on any instrument (that I can reasonably play). By that time I think I know the music. I really memorized it. Not the notes. Not the position of the fingers. Not the pitches. But the music! If course this is not easy to do with all kinds of music.

I have to understand the form, the harmony, sometimes rhythm is more important then others... I like to think pure music. Even when music has external influences, music is always pure music too.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

stevederekson said:


> In my mind, the upcoming passages are predicted, in the sense that they are played in my mind miliseconds before I hear them.
> 
> This recognizing of passages is what helps me enjoy a piece truly, but it must be a sweet-spot where I have listened to a piece enough to loosey recognize the passages (yet not the individual harmonies), but not enough that I no longer respond emotionally to the piece.


With music I'm already familiar with, it is impossible to avoid anticipating what is coming. I understand your 'sweet-spot' very well and can find the experience unbelievably intense. I can be listening to something that I don't know I know when I get that 'eureka' moment and though I can't anticipate exactly what's coming, each moment becomes like a exquisite deja-vu. Usually after that the piece will live with me for days or weeks. Like an infatuation. I can't stop thinking of it and replaying it in my mind.

For me music is an entirely abstract thing but one that gives me the deepest and longest lasting pleasure out of everything. Perhaps _because_ it is abstract and can therefore be perfect? Of course the down-side is that some music can cause me profound irritation!


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## BillT (Nov 3, 2013)

Last night, while listening to Beethoven's 7th live at the SF Symphony, I had an awakening.

I realized that the music was dancing back and forth between _confidence_ and _doubt_. (Those are not terribly accurate words for the feeling, but they'll have to do.) Often the music was expressing confidence, maybe a jaunty confidence, like walking down the street without a care in the world, then would suddenly turn into a metaphorical question-mark, almost as if the person now thought of something that bothers him, ... then linger in this sense of doubt and questioning for some time, ... then move to a slightly more confident tone, (as if the person was thinking "It may be OK, I can probably deal with it") ... then more and more confident, then (happily! with great joy!) turn into unbridled confidence! "YES! THAT'S IT!!!"

I thought of a wave changing as it moves, then breaking as it hits the shoreline.

The final movement seemed almost totally confident! Like, "Dammit, I'm going to be happy no matter WHAT!!" type of confidence.

Does that respond to the OP's question?

God, I love music !

- Bill


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