# What is the strongest musical experience you've ever had?



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

What is the strongest musical experience you've ever had? What were the circumstances, piece, concert, etc.?


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

Just yesterday I was listening to the Liebestod from _Tristan und Isolde_ sung by Waltraud Meier, and I felt like I had an out of body experience. I was shaking uncontrollably and felt cold shivers throughout my body, as if I was in a bath of freezing water. When it was over, I remained breathing heavily and intensely sobbing for minutes. Felt like the best workout of my life! :lol:

Actually I've had a lot of moving experiences with that opera. What a composer that Wagner was...


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Mine too is from a Wagner opera. I recently saw a great production of Parsifal, twice within a week.


I never cry with music, but by the end I had tears streaming down my face, I couldnt concentrate on anything for a few days and certainly didnt try listening to any other music. Something changed inside me.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

When I was still in grad school, my wife was working on the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. She was also playing in an orchestra. I was just starting to like classical music, and that violin concerto was probably the first major piece I really liked. Elmar Oliveira played the Tchaikovsky with my wife's orchestra, and from the very first violin note until the end, I was captivated. Time seemed to stand still, and suddenly the performance was over. It was simply magical for me. I had heard that he won the Tchaikovsky competition with that piece, but I can't confirm that.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

That's a hard one. We have a 20-piece band in our church, and there are times when we're playing and something unplanned happens to us - I can only explain it as a rush of adrenaline, and our intensity increases - and then the congregation feels it. It's completely different from anything I've experienced in a secular environment. 

My most memorable experience was when I played for a friend's funeral. The singer had practiced with the pianist, then later I was asked to play soprano saxophone, so we had never rehearsed together. When the time for the song came, we were all nervous. Funerals are nervewracking enough. So the singer went through the verse, and as she got to the chorus, I started to play. 

What happened next was magical. I could hear an audible gasp from the audience. It was one of those transcendent moments where I was both playing and standing outside listening, and I didn't want it to end. The pianist felt it also, because as we reached the last chord and I held the last note, she kept on the sustain pedal until the strings stopped vibrating, and we both faded out together.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Once, when I was listening to Tristan, I unpluged an appliance and got an electric shock! do you see?









Martin


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

They say that in the premiere of Ligeti's Volumina for organ the fuse box of the instrument caught fire!, that must have been a strong (and noisy! ) experience!


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## Iforgotmypassword (May 16, 2011)

Well a several months ago I went to bed while listening to a Cd. I don't remember what it was but that's not important. I woke up that night after sleeping several hours and the disk had changed to a movement in Vivaldi's Trio Sonata No. 1. I was in a very strange state of mind where I knew that I was awake, but my perception was very much altered by the deep state of sleep that I had just come out of. I lay in bed and couldn't for the life of me figure out what disk it was I was listening to. I felt as if my entire being were effected by the sounds that came from the speakers, filling the room. The tones elevated my mind to a place that words can't describe and I experienced a mental euphoria that I can't really describe either. Sheer joy is all that I can say that I felt. Pure, unadulterated joy. 

More recently I've been waking up at 3 am to go to work at FedEx. I work there until about 8 or occasionally 9 in the morning and then return home to sleep again until about 12 or 1... though sometimes later. Anyway when I sleep only a short time I awaken to have my body vibrating and this strange floating sensation enveloping my body. I digress however, so let's put this into context. I recently finished an electro-acoustic composition based around a violin improvisation that I did in a sub-road drainage ditch tunnel and I listened to it a few times during the day making slight alterations before I was happy with it. 

Well, I know that this has happened to me several times but this is the only one that I can totally remember so it's the one that I shall tell you... I fell asleep while listening and woke up a little more than half-way through the composition to the familiar floating sensation and with my mind still heavily drenched in sleep and as I lay there, still asleep but slowly waking, I was aware of a deeper meaning that the music (that I didn't realize was my own at that moment) had. As if the sounds were words themselves and were speaking to me a direct message. The message that I woke with was that god did not exist. I don't know why this is and I don't really feel that way when I listen to it most times, nor did I feel that way when I played the music but I felt it in a very deep subconscious level at that moment and it was Quite very powerful.

Therefore, my conclusion is... firstly that the pineal gland plays a part in a deeper understanding of music as a whole.

And that I'm subconsciously an evil, nihilistic, dark-minded individual.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I honestly have very strong reactions to music very frequently...it would be impossible to nail it down to one or even a few moments that are stronger than the others. Sometimes its when playing sometimes when listening. A lot of it has to do with how receptive my mood is. But moments like that are hard to put into words, I find when I try to put them into words I just end up cheapening the whole thing somehow... words just don't cut it sometimes.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

It's one thing to cry to music, which I've done a ton of times. But if there were 2 special ones, it was these.

I was in my room alone, listening to Glazunov's 5th symphony with CD player. It was when I was really getting into it, weaving through all its details, feeling it at its core emotionally. Getting to the 3rd mvmt I had an uncontrollable reaction to cry. I went to the bathroom, I think just to look at myself in the mirror to see my ruined face for once on the verge of crying. I just tipped my head into mirror and bawled...

Another came with Prokofiev. You see, I really love his music, but it's very rare that I actually cry to it. But when I got to hear his music for Cinderella live, that just did it for me. The theme of Cinderella's dream, which is a soft but powerful melody in C major, I choked up on the first note. It comes in the Introduction, and the Final Amoroso mvmts. At the end of the concert, I was glad that only my mom was around to see me tear up. Because it wasn't just Cinderella's theme, I felt it was mine as well. And I'm equally as yearning for something good in my future as she was, only it hasn't come yet. I was in a daze for days, as I liked to describe myself, where even just thinking of the melody made me tear up. Heh... even while I type, now as I think of it...


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Either watching Tristan und Isolde or watching people sight read my own piece "Cataract 3/Yon."


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## Il_Penseroso (Nov 20, 2010)

When I was 13 years old, I wrote a sonata, as the first movement was completed, I went to a famous composer and conductor for his comments and advises. "such a stupid beginning! you see my son, the basic motive is so common, with your poor childish taste of music." (attach. #1) 14 years later I got to know Glinka songs, found the famous L'Alouette (The Lark) begins with the same motive! (attach. #2). Well, just a reminiscence!


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