# Musical Imagery Discussion



## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

Name a piece of music and say what you see in your mind's eye. Be it an influence from a movie with the same piece, or somebody special in life. It can be a landscape. Look at this discussion as if you had the choice to make Fantasia.

Right now I am listening to *Bolero by Maurice Ravel*. I see a man trying to coax a woman to go out with him. His agitation is building up every second by her rejection.

So any thing will work. Colours, pictures, shapes, etc...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I never see anything when I listen to music unless it's specifically programmatic in which case I deliberately try to see the scene it attempts to evoke. However, there was _one_ exception when I listened to Grieg's Piano Sonata for the first time perhaps 8-10 months ago. For some reason, it immediately conjured some kind of dusky forest, covered with fog and a small amount of ice; thin trees and not much sign of life except for a frozen stream. The image has stayed with me and I don't know why it happened because it had never happened before and has never happened since.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Modest Mussorgsky - Night on Bare Mountain

I see that giant devil/demon thing from Fantasia atop a dark grey mountain at night. That scared the bejesus out of me when I was a little kid. I also see the opening level from Earthworm Jim on the Megadrive.

Generally though, without extramusical influences I don't picture anything when listening to music, I just feel emotion. Like if I'd never heard NoBM before and someone played it to me without telling me the title I wouldn't picture anything.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Similiar thread here: http://www.talkclassical.com/6315-program-music-without-program.html


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## Jaime77 (Jun 29, 2009)

Sibelius 6th and Tapiola take me so deep into Finnish forests I can't find my way out... it's magical. 

Vaughan-Williams Pastoral does something similar in giving me pictures of the French countryside.


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## Bartók (Dec 10, 2009)

Actually, I have synesthesia, so I do literally see colors when I listen to music ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia ). Some notable composers have also had synesthesia, such as Gyorgy Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Franz Liszt, Jean Sibelius, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Amy Beach, Leonard Bernstein, and possibly Alexander Scriabin. Out of all of them, I think that Ligeti's music looks the best.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

When I hear Vers La Flamme (Scriabin), I think of descending into the throes of hell. However, there isn't any imagery involved. I don't believe hell is so much a place of fire and brimstone, as it is simply a state of guilt, confusion, passion, just a feeling of utter failure. And that's what I hear in the piece, as you "move toward the flame".


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

I won't claim to have synesthesia, but I do see certain colors that I assign to certain works. I do not assign this to individual notes, however. And some works I see no color or images at all.

In Sibelius 6, for example, the color I see is like a milky grayish white. I also see images of Gothic cathedrals. Sibelius 5 is a brilliant, blazing orange-yellow and a deep black. Ballata Sinfonica by Ifukube is pitch black to me.

Of course, I try to imagine what's going on in program works. I, too, cannot get Chernabog out of my mind when I hear Bald Mountain. (He's the big devil.)


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## Bartók (Dec 10, 2009)

Tapkaara, it sounds like you might actually have a form of synesthesia called associative synesthesia. This is when the colors are not actually seen, but the music would give the sense of a certain color. Some people with associative synesthesia see the color in their minds, or they hear a piece of music and just know it is a certain color. Synesthesia does not have to appear for every song you listen to. I know someone with synesthesia who can tell what scale a piece is written by what color he sees in his mind, but he can only do it for certain scales. Perhaps you are associating colors with the key that the piece is written in.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2009)

I see only the _orchestra, musicians_ and the _Conductor_, sometimes the audience but mostly the orchestra, I have to try very hard to see anything else such as scenes.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Though I am a visual person I rarely "see" scenes when I listen to music. It is more abstract ideas and feelings. e.g. in Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, movement 2, I get the wistful feeling when there is some Purpose with a capital "P" that is almost within grasp but still unattainable. So I may see fleeting images of a couple who are in love but cannot consummate that love. I don't know how much the movie "Immortal Beloved" influenced this vision.

But as I say, it's usually much more abstract even than that.

Here's a few:

Bach (or other baroque) fugues. I see molecules or geometric shapes forming into more complex fractal forms - like DNA molecules, spirals, or the fractal images that were so popular a decade ago when they were newer. This is in keeping with the fortspinnung process of composing for the time.

Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No. 1, 1st movement. I also see geometric shapes multiplying and becoming more complex, joining and separating and changing over time. That, or I see Rostropovich bent over his instrument bobbing his head and making intense jabbing twitches to the rhythm as he did.

Ersnt Bloch - I recently began listening to his two Concerto grossos / concerti grossi / concertos grosso whatever you want to call them. These are simply awesome! For some reason I picture a gorge in a primitive rocky landscape with a cave a the bottom surrounded by withered bare trees. There is a feeling of expectancy that something wonderful will emerge from the cave. I have no idea what THAT's all about. Freud might have had a field day with that.

Debussy - _The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian_. I keep picturing myself turning up the volume knob when this is playing. I've never really heard this piece though I have had it in my collection for a long time. I think the whole thing must be marked pppp! Maybe I need a new version of it, or compress it so I can hear it.

Debussy - _Three Nocturnes_. For some reason I associate these with Holst's _The Planets_. They seem celestial at any rate, so I often picture astronomical scenes for this, my favorite Debussy work.

That's enough for now. More later perhaps.


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

I must have an amazing imagination, because every piece I hear has scenery to it.

*Aase's Death in Peer Gynt*, I float above a pre-existing forest that has been brought to ashes. Then I enter the forrest and have the ashes come down on me like snow.

*Beethoven's 5th, 3rd Movement*. I see roaring seas tossing about a large ship. The captain comes out and orders his men to help maneuver. The sun comes out and the seas become calm. The men on the ship tie down large drums of whiskey. The sky is bright and all is great. The captain goes into his main cabin in a sigh of relief. He thinks about how terrible the seas were and hopes that they will reach the port before it happens again. Then at the 4th movement he spots land.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

Bartók said:


> Tapkaara, it sounds like you might actually have a form of synesthesia called associative synesthesia. This is when the colors are not actually seen, but the music would give the sense of a certain color. Some people with associative synesthesia see the color in their minds, or they hear a piece of music and just know it is a certain color. Synesthesia does not have to appear for every song you listen to. I know someone with synesthesia who can tell what scale a piece is written by what color he sees in his mind, but he can only do it for certain scales. Perhaps you are associating colors with the key that the piece is written in.


How interesting. I will have to read more about this!

And the funny thing is, I cannot get these colors out of my head when I hear these works. They have always been there it seems, and always will be. I have no idea where they come from, but there they are.

Thank you for explaining this to me!!


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Same is with me. I belive that if colours does not come from particular notes they depend on keys, instrumentation etc. The most romantic symphonic music based on strings like Rachmaninoff, Wagner, some of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius (2nd symphony) are all blue to me. Deep, cold blue. Works relying on woodwinds always seem green and classical styled pieces I see in warm shades of orange, yellow and red.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

All this talk of synesthesia is fascinating to me. 

For many decades I have toyed with the idea of making visual fugues in a painting or illustration. I usually interpret the fugal subject as a line shape (what we would call a gesture I believe) that repeats itself with minor variations throughout the work, sometimes in the positive space, sometimes in the negative space. The results are mixed. The visual compositions are satisfying, but the rendering is often contrived or looks forced, like it doesn't flow naturally.

Color doesn't really play a big part in that, but I wonder if I could see using your brains I could pull it off. This synesthesia sounds like a great asset.


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## Bartók (Dec 10, 2009)

Aramis said:


> Same is with me. I belive that if colours does not come from particular notes they depend on keys, instrumentation etc. The most romantic symphonic music based on strings like Rachmaninoff, Wagner, some of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius (2nd symphony) are all blue to me. Deep, cold blue. Works relying on woodwinds always seem green and classical styled pieces I see in warm shades of orange, yellow and red.


That's actually like the sort of synesthesia I have. I see different instruments as different colors when I hear them. For example, string instruments are different shades of green, brass is different shades of red and orange, flutes are black, clarinets are blue, double reed instruments are purple, and unpitched percussion is brown. It can be interesting to see how the colors interact during a song.


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## TresPicos (Mar 21, 2009)

Vaughan Williams - 5th symphony
A rolling British landscape with dark green grass, at dusk, probably in autumn. Something like this, but later in the evening: http://www.h-j-c.co.uk/images/hjc_landscapes_rolling_hils_copy.jpg

Beethoven - 6th symphony
Nature, obviously, and whatever the title of each movement suggests.

Ravel - Le tombeau de Couperin (beginning)
Nature, again. A summer meadow, surrounded by trees, lots of undergrowth. Perhaps a small unattended, overgrown country-side cemetery. Like a painting by Pissarro.


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