# My Metamorphosis



## Chromeless (May 21, 2011)

Two weeks ago a musical 'awakening' occured within me. The way I percieved all sound and music suddenly changed, within the space of a minute I went from posessing no understanding of musical structure whatsoever to being able to automatically percieve forms reoccuring throuout each piece I cared to listen to. Musical 'phrases' now link together, creating continuous tension where before there was only discord. The way my mind filtered the texture of sound changed radically as well, sounds I previously percieved to be 'dry', 'wet' or 'piercing' now sound like beautiful voices which converse with each other throughout the music.

After the transformation, Beethoven's 5th became a story. A dominating 'force' was overpowering compassion, mercy and something else that felt like a 'backdoor' to the world, possibly revealing the struggle playing out before me as a facade. My ability to percieve the significance of the music was immediate, it was suddenly obvious that the structures both spoke to each other and were themselves explorable, contemplation of them in various ways leading to diffrent experiences.
It is clear to me now that musicians literally hear music as language, abstract as it may be. However, I suspect that most people do not hear this at all, instead hearing the raw sound texture directly as they would any other noise.

To state it bluntly, if most people do hear classical music the way I used to then I can confirm that it sounds like a dreadful cascade of shear noise that is very unpleasant. Hate was very much what I felt towards most 'serious' music before the 'awakening', it simply didn't make sense to me that it was possible for a human to enjoy the sequences of notes that I heard. Mozart simply sounded like a pompus idiot who tried to make things sound pretty by adding far "too many notes", Beethovens piano music was actually quite enjoyable to me (and wanting to understanding it more deeply was a goal of mine) but his symphonys simply sounded like drawn out disasters with no real power, they simply blast at you randomly.

I hope that this may help to explain why so many people are unable to comprehend the radical diffrence in musical taste that exists between people. On the other hand I now have the past 500 years of music available for me to explore as new and I hope others here will be able to aid me on this awesome journey. :tiphat:


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Congratulations! You've discovered a new world. (Maybe we should call you Neo.) I wish others were able to hear what's out there like you are.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Congratulations...this simply goes back to the topic of wy people "hate" classical...they simply can not hear it and thus are annoyed with their own inability. I feel deep inside we all know this and that even someone who has spent forty or more years never having liked this can simply one day have an awakening.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Were you moved by the Spirit?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

This post gives me hope. If random epiphanies can actually occur in people that cause them to go from hearing Beethoven symphonies as 'noise' to the articulate way in which you just described it, within a couple of weeks - that is just awesome!

For myself my appreciation of classical developed slowly over a period of years, but I too still remember how lame I thought it sounded when I was in my 'rock phase'...its crazy how these things can change so drastically once we open our minds to new things. I am elated to hear about your rapid transformation in this regard.


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## Pieck (Jan 12, 2011)

I dont know if I got in classical the same way, cause I dont really remember how that happened.
I always had CM in my home, but didnt really care for it, but one day I suddenly decided to give CM a chance, so I took all of my mother's instrumental and some choral CDs and copied it to my computer. Maybe it's because I was searching for my musical style for a while (I'm not sure if I really did), and CM was the answer. I went from Rock (Dave Matthews) to Jazz, to old Israeli songs, but I couldnt get along with these genres for a long time (although I still like them).
Bottom line is, I got to CM in one day, by a decision I still cant explain.


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## Chromeless (May 21, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Were you moved by the Spirit?


Ha ha. I'm not a man of faith myself, but I do believe that there is a fundamental connection between form and experience that exists because of the Absolute Unity, which is what allows anything to exist at all. I do not believe in a personal God, but I do believe that we all share the same absolute spirit which exists beyond space and time. If an awareness of this Unity is possible through music then I very much look forward to experiencing it.

Would Bach's organ fugues and Mozart's 41st symphony good places to start for this purpose?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Chromeless said:


> If an awareness of this Unity is possible through music then I very much look forward to experiencing it.
> 
> Would Bach's organ fugues and Mozart's 41st symphony good places to start for this purpose?


I get a lot of transcendent musical experiences from Anton Bruckner. Tintner's recording of the 4th symphony has one such event at the end of the development section of the first movement - it always puts me into the place T.S. Eliot described as the 'Unattended moment, the moment in time and outside of time, music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all, but you are the music while the music lasts."


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Chromeless said:


> Would Bach's organ fugues and Mozart's 41st symphony good places to start for this purpose?


For me - Bach's music is the best for this - works like St Matthew Passion, Mass in B Minor, and Passacaglia and fugue in C minor etc.

Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Handel are all must listen to composers obviously as well. In reality there are likely hundreds of composers that could do this for you depending on your personal tastes.


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

Chromeless, I was really fascinsted by your "Metamorphosis" post. I was just wondering if you know why or how it occurred, or was it like a "bolt out of the blue", so to speak?


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## Chromeless (May 21, 2011)

My transformation occured because I deliberately tried to bring it about. I had always loved the 'idea' of a symphony, that music could exist in the large and be both grandly epic and intimately personal on its own terms, but I found that all actual symphonys sounded rediculous to me.

However, when hearing other people talk about how the music moved them, it was clear that they percieved a certain kind of order to the music that I simply could not. Even though I could not percieve this order I still found that music was capable of aweing me. Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata was hair raising when I heard it performed by a live amature, The Queen of the Night sung by Lucia Popp demonstrated what the human voice is capable of and the 3rd movement of Gorecki's sorrowful songs shook me forcefully to tears. So I thought, if such music is capable of actually *boring* 'serious' musicians, then what they feel must be so utterly amazing as to dwarf what I am capable of experiencing.

My actual transformation occured when listening to 'that' part of 5th Brandenburg concertio. I sat down and repeatedly listened to the harpsichord solo, fascinated by what I heard while really enjoying the pase and rythm of it but not fully comprehending it. Then *it* happened. I felt a bit strange and suddenly realised that throughout the solo, a single melody was actually being played repeatedly, carried through the whole thing. Realising this I continued to listen, eventually discovering a second 'line' of music being played under the first, and then somehow being able to focus on both lines at the same time (something which I was previously incapable of no matter how much I tried). Then I listening to the full movement, realising that the melody played by the strings (which previously sounded dull and pretentious) shared the same structure of the keyboard that that this melody continued across diffrent instruments. It was only after that that I could make sense of the grand and small of a symphony put together.


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## beethovenian (May 2, 2011)

Chromeless said:


> Then *it* happened. I felt a bit strange and suddenly realised that throughout the solo, a single melody was actually being played repeatedly, carried through the whole thing. Realising this I continued to listen, eventually discovering a second 'line' of music being played under the first, and then somehow being able to focus on both lines at the same time (something which I was previously incapable of no matter how much I tried). .


Hmm great, you can identify multiple counterpoint voices in music. Soon you can pick up third, fourth or even fifth voices or "lines" of melody. 
and soon you will be so delirious, you will be imagining/creating your own line of melody in your head flowing together with the music.

i am not kidding, i am serious about it.


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## Chromeless (May 21, 2011)

beethovenian said:


> Hmm great, you can identify multiple counterpoint voices in music. Soon you can pick up third, fourth or even fifth voices or "lines" of melody.
> and soon you will be so delirious, you will be imagining/creating your own line of melody in your head flowing together with the music.


I'm actually already at that point, the ability to hear counterpoint developed over the course of a few minutes along with everything else. I'm actually comfortable listening to the Gross Fugue right now, though the monsterous nature of it is apparent it's clear that it'll take a while before I can comprehend the nature of this beast.


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## robert (Feb 10, 2007)

Chromeless said:


> My transformation occured because I deliberately tried to bring it about. I had always loved the 'idea' of a symphony, that music could exist in the large and be both grandly epic and intimately personal on its own terms, but I found that all actual symphonys sounded rediculous to me.
> 
> However, when hearing other people talk about how the music moved them, it was clear that they percieved a certain kind of order to the music that I simply could not. Even though I could not percieve this order I still found that music was capable of aweing me. Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata was hair raising when I heard it performed by a live amature, The Queen of the Night sung by Lucia Popp demonstrated what the human voice is capable of and the 3rd movement of Gorecki's sorrowful songs shook me forcefully to tears. So I thought, if such music is capable of actually *boring* 'serious' musicians, then what they feel must be so utterly amazing as to dwarf what I am capable of experiencing.
> 
> My actual transformation occured when listening to 'that' part of 5th Brandenburg concertio. I sat down and repeatedly listened to the harpsichord solo, fascinated by what I heard while really enjoying the pase and rythm of it but not fully comprehending it. Then *it* happened. I felt a bit strange and suddenly realised that throughout the solo, a single melody was actually being played repeatedly, carried through the whole thing. Realising this I continued to listen, eventually discovering a second 'line' of music being played under the first, and then somehow being able to focus on both lines at the same time (something which I was previously incapable of no matter how much I tried). Then I listening to the full movement, realising that the melody played by the strings (which previously sounded dull and pretentious) shared the same structure of the keyboard that that this melody continued across diffrent instruments. It was only after that that I could make sense of the grand and small of a symphony put together.


sounds to me like you finally got HOOKED......(ONCE YOU GET IT)


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Chromeless said:


> I'm actually comfortable listening to the Gross Fugue right now, though the monsterous nature of it is apparent it's clear that it'll take a while before I can comprehend the nature of this beast.


What's cool about the Grosse Fugue is, after you've heard the lines, listen to the rhythm shifts. It gets to where at one point for about a page all four instruments play different rhythms at the same time. That's the great thing about classical - there are many levels to listening to a piece. It's music for a lifetime.


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