# what do you think about when you listen to music?



## GhenghisKhan (Dec 25, 2014)

I was just wondering: what do others think about when they listen to CM? Do you try to direct your thoughts or just let them flow? 

For me,it usually evokes scenery, often they are of mundane nature (e.g. two people chatting), but sometimes it is more fantastic (battle scenes, someone rallying a crowd,etc). 

At times, it'll make me ponder about history,man or my personal life. It's hard to describe succinctly but it has the same or very similar effect on me as if I were reading a great novel. This is when I enjoy the music the most. 

How about you?


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Similar to you, I just soak it in and it'll evoke scenery, particular feelings, or memories occasionally. But "think about" probably doesn't even describe what happens best, more just feeling.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

My tax refund. Sweet!


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I don't really think about anything other than the music (and I'm not sure I'd call it thinking). With a book, and can set it down for a minute and ponder various topics. Not so with music.

I can never conjure up visual images of nature or anything like that. Or even colors. Unless I'm two-thirds asleep, then all sorts of weird abstract stuff forms in my mind.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

hpowders said:


> My tax refund. Sweet!


I received two tax refunds this year from Obama, so I'm all for giving this generous man a 3rd term.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I let the music do the talking; I just go with the flow.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

If I'm really in tune with something I usually end up imagining a film scene, usually a montage so that it makes sense for the characters to be moving in synchronization to a rhythm. For example Mozart often becomes a fairy godmother zapping things to the beat, or just characters dancing to his music. 

I only ever think about things if I come to the music with thoughts beforehand, or more accurately with feelings that are still fresh enough to be as much physical sensations as intangible moods. In those cases the music tends to determine how those feelings slosh around or tense up in my chest, especially if it's depression or guilt, and even more especially if I'm in wuv.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I usually think about the patterns in the music, the motifs if I can hear them. Sometimes if there is a memory associated with the piece it conjures up that memory of course. I cannot hear Mike Oldfiled's "Hergest Ridge" without thinking about a large painting I did way back when while listening to that album almost exclusively. Most of the time though, it's very abstract Just rhythmic patterns and intervals.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

GhenghisKhan said:


> I was just wondering: what do others think about when they listen to CM? Do you try to direct your thoughts or just let them flow?
> 
> For me,it usually evokes scenery, often they are of mundane nature (e.g. two people chatting), but sometimes it is more fantastic (battle scenes, someone rallying a crowd,etc).
> 
> ...


Yeah, I'd say it's about the same with me. Ever since I was little I always dreamed things along with the music, I never heard it as 'just music'. I would say it's a very cinematic way of listening, but I really don't know any other way to listen, so for me it is 'the' way.


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## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

Usually, I just pay attention to the music: what is happening harmonically, rhythmically, etc. and how the composer chose what to do next with the piece. I usually listen to every note, if it is a piano sonata for example. 

Sometimes I lose myself in certain memories, visions, scenes etc. It could be just flashes of pastoral scenery, or more complex memories - or an amalgam of all the above. 

As a side-note, pop music videos sometimes provide the material for me, in which case my brain is busy watching.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

When listening to classical organ music, I view myself as being in a huge cathedral, much like St. Paul's in London (UK). I am completely saturated in the music and there are no other thoughts but the music itself. 

Same is true when I am improvising at the organ console - sounds weird, but I let myself become part of the instrument, and feel it breathe with me and in me ... some of my best inspirations come out of that trance-like manner.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Angela Merkel..


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I close my eyes and think of England.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

This is very hard to explain, but when I listen in a concentrated way the music creates a sort of "space" in my mind, which I can partly see and partly feel (but really neither). There are lines in the space, which are the actual musical lines. And sometimes there are other sorts of objects or atmospheres. Often there's a vague sense of color, too.

I realize this makes me sound like a crazy person....


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## TwoPhotons (Feb 13, 2015)

I think about the melodies, harmonies and rhythms of the piece. I think about how different instruments are utilized. But apart from that I just listen and absorb whatever there is to be absorbed. It's fun and it's why I enjoy listening to classical music!


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

It depends on what I have been smoking.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

GhenghisKhan said:


> I was just wondering: what do others think about when they listen to CM? Do you try to direct your thoughts or just let them flow?
> 
> For me,it usually evokes scenery, often they are of mundane nature (e.g. two people chatting), but sometimes it is more fantastic (battle scenes, someone rallying a crowd,etc).
> 
> ...


I think about what the performer's doing, why, and what the results are.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Sometimes I imagine seeing the score going by, the notes printed out .... Often I picture the musicians themselves playing their instruments, or the conductor in front of the orchestra managing all those sounds. I don't recall many experiences imagining scenery images or landscapes ... though I suspect I've done so with something like Vaughn Williams's Second Symphony or Rodrigo's _Aranjuez_ Concerto. There's so much to take from the musical sounds themselves that "pictures" don't really (or don't often) register for me. Sounds register. The way instruments and voices produce them, the way they resonate in space, combine and transform and ....

Of course, there are the colors ... the colors ... the colors ....


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I think about the music itself as it would appear on the score. If I actually have a score in front of me I think about the relationship between different lines most often.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

To me, music often evokes images - pieces in minor often that of storms, battles or desolation, more merry pieces evoke pastroal scenes with animals dancing or enjoying themselves, or simply beautiful natural settings. Religious pieces evoke religious imagery, of course (I'm not religious though). I find this also strongly depends on the composer - to me, different composers evoke different images and atmospheres. Classical can often invoke movie-like scenes, especially ones with dynamics and movement.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Being emerged in candy canes!

/ptr


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## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

I believe listening to music is one of the very rare moments when I think to nothing else but the music itself. *Music and colors*, sometimes the picture of a *virtual orchestra*, these are the only things I have in mind. This must be why I like it so much.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bulldog said:


> I received two tax refunds this year from Obama, so I'm all for giving this generous man a 3rd term.


Double sweet!! Cue Fanfare for the Common Man....err.....men!


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## TradeMark (Mar 12, 2015)

I think about the music I'm listening to.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: I'm thinkin': sure beats pulling the weeds in the hot sun!


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

OP: Pancakes and marijuana.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

hpowders said:


> OP: I'm thinkin': sure beats pulling the weeds in the hot sun!


Geez, get a condo, powders.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Morimur said:


> OP: Pancakes and marijuana.


But not necessarily in that order!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Morimur said:


> Geez, get a condo, powders.


I had one and you are right up to a point. The downside is too many rules and regulations. The last condo I owned, the board actually had this bozo driving around the community in his car "seeing what we were up to!"


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

isorhythm said:


> This is very hard to explain, but when I listen in a concentrated way the music creates a sort of "space" in my mind, which I can partly see and partly feel (but really neither). There are lines in the space, which are the actual musical lines. And sometimes there are other sorts of objects or atmospheres. Often there's a vague sense of color, too.
> 
> I realize this makes me sound like a crazy person....


I totally get what you're saying. I think the same sorts of things sometimes.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

GhenghisKhan said:


> I was just wondering: what do others think about when they listen to CM? Do you try to direct your thoughts or just let them flow?


It depends on how I am listening to the music.

Naturally, often, I have the music on while I am doing something: reading, cooking, exercising, driving, etc. I am hearing the music primarily as an ambient background. My mind is on what I am doing, but, from time to time, the music comes to the fore.

I also make time for active listening. I put aside the books and housework and weeding and everything else and just listen. I try to follow the music, the phrases, the instrumentation, etc., simply taking it in, consciously registering it as I do so. From time to time, I might find myself caught up in a part, thinking how much I love how the composer achieved that, or how I think it could have been achieved more effectively in another manner. I bring myself back to the music and try to follow it, to get to know it, to understand what it is trying to do and how it does so.

Sure, at times, my mind will go off on a tangent, evoking all kinds of images. This is when I'm no longer listening to the music, but to my mind. Again, I bring myself back reality, the music that I am listening to. It's a matter of focus. It's easy to let the mind wander where it may, but, when I'm actively listening, my aim is to hear the actual music. I think it's a bit like mindfulness meditation, in which one's aim is to pay strict attention to a chosen subject and to gently bring the mind back to that subject, when it starts to wander.

I think that when one is caught up in one's own thought world, then one is no longer hearing the music.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I do a lot of meditation exercises to classical music in fact. Very essential for me.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Unless there is a memory attached to it, I think about and
feel the music.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

I try NOT TO THINK just listen to it often but it hard for me to think & listen at the same time.
View attachment 70043


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

"what do you think about when you listen to music?"As little as possible.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

GreenMamba said:


> I close my eyes and think of England.


Especially when listening to *Villa-Lobos.*


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> This is very hard to explain, but when I listen in a concentrated way the music creates a sort of "space" in my mind, which I can partly see and partly feel (but really neither). There are lines in the space, which are the actual musical lines. And sometimes there are other sorts of objects or atmospheres. Often there's a vague sense of color, too.
> 
> I realize this makes me sound like a crazy person....


No, this makes perfect sense. In "real" life we make judgments about spacial relations, relative positions, approaching and receding objects, the likely nature of sound sources, and so on using our ears. Such judgments depend on having a virtual mental space in which such aural events are conceived and with respect to which they are processed. It is probably natural that musical perception exploits such virtual space, as do the composers who write for it. Common musical terms - high/low, dense versus transparent textures, dark/light tones, etc., use spacial metaphor. Also, visual cues contribute to interpreting aural phenomena. There has to be cross-modal processing machinery that handles and integrates visual and aural phenomena in spacial terms.

In any case, what you describe is pretty much what listening is like for me. I would just call it musical space.


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## EDaddy (Nov 16, 2013)

Each and every time I listen to classical music, regardless of the piece or composer, I contemplate the following:

_As a multidimensional procedure being of dyadic interscopic processing cadences, in the domain of quantum sonic sequence physics, there exists a multidimensional soundsource ability to monitor or regulate its inter-modulated giga-cyles. Certain contextual features, i.e. the square inverse of the 12-tone row row row your boat, intended to assist in the sub-triadic and diatonic levels of consciousness, creates a bi-modular dilemma nodule similar to those seen in bio-quantum physics content (less the whole tone standing wave inhibitors), and may actually work to the detriment of those very processes known to sight readers and infinite noodlers alike. Inclusion of seductive details and the incorporation of interspersed gyro-notation polyps may misdirect one's attention from or may increase elliptical processing demands of the cerebral cortextures, particularly in those cases where pizzicato string physics is reduced to the 5th grade common core comprehension level. Long live the King! The questioning behaviors of Stravinsky wannabe posers also exerts excessive inertia impact on all neuro-microsensors, both real and imagined. Finally, within the context of quantum centers of contextual low school notation dropouts, the information needed to disperse sub particle atom agendas may often be rendered obsolete and may significantly decrease the number of intercept radon processors of the fields of interscopular analysis of the quadrant vectors._

Happens every time.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

EDaddy said:


> Each and every time I listen to classical music, regardless of the piece or composer, I contemplate the following:
> 
> _As a multidimensional procedure being of dyadic interscopic processing cadences, in the domain of quantum sonic sequence physics, there exists a multidimensional soundsource ability to monitor or regulate its inter-modulated giga-cyles. Certain contextual features, i.e. the square inverse of the 12-tone row row row your boat, intended to assist in the sub-triadic and diatonic levels of consciousness, creates a bi-modular dilemma nodule similar to those seen in bio-quantum physics content (less the whole tone standing wave inhibitors), and may actually work to the detriment of those very processes known to sight readers and infinite noodlers alike. Inclusion of seductive details and the incorporation of interspersed gyro-notation polyps may misdirect one's attention from or may increase elliptical processing demands of the cerebral cortextures, particularly in those cases where pizzicato string physics is reduced to the 5th grade common core comprehension level. Long live the King! The questioning behaviors of Stravinsky wannabe posers also exerts excessive inertia impact on all neuro-microsensors, both real and imagined. Finally, within the context of quantum centers of contextual low school notation dropouts, the information needed to disperse sub particle atom agendas may often be rendered obsolete and may significantly decrease the number of intercept radon processors of the fields of interscopular analysis of the quadrant vectors._
> 
> Happens every time.


Those are some pretty groovy thoughts. I also like thinking of how an ensemble or an orchestra phrases certain aspects - for eg., for Haydn's Op. 76 quartets, I've heard several interpretations by now and it's fun comparing the way different interpreters approach different moments or aspects of the piece.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

If it's Bach's WTC, I'm usually thinking-how awesome that a human being can achieve such an exalted level of creativity.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

If it is music by the great masters, then I yet again listen in awe and be thankful I can appreciate such fine music.


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## EDaddy (Nov 16, 2013)

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> Those are some pretty groovy thoughts. I also like thinking of how an ensemble or an orchestra phrases certain aspects - for eg., for Haydn's Op. 76 quartets, I've heard several interpretations by now and it's fun comparing the way different interpreters approach different moments or aspects of the piece.


Lol. Thx... I was in a cheeky mood last night as I was decompressing off what literally turned out to be one of the worst, most stressful and taxing days of my entire adult life (no exaggeration). That's my version of creative venting, I guess. I had fun with it... but I'm grateful I don't really, truly think those very nutty thoughts each time I listen to music! Can't imagine. I think I'd need to take up antipsychotics if that were the case!

And I lived through it to greet another day! 

In response to your thoughts, I completely agree. It is a pretty amazing thing, how different the same piece of music can sound when interpreted and performed by different orchestras and conductors... phrasing, dynamics, and the like. I have literally heard symphonies I just didn't care for that much until I heard a "right" performance of it that completely changed my opinion of the work. Bruckner's 8th is a prime example. I don't remember what orchestra/conductor combo it was the first time I heard it, but it just had no magic. I figured it was the score itself that was lacking. How wrong I was! When I heard it again many months later as played by Gunter Wand and the Berliners, it was a whole new, life changing experience.


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## Meditatio (May 23, 2015)

Weston, I also find 'Hergest Ridge' very 'painterly'. I visited the hill Hergest Ridge last year, and went to the house nearby where Oldfield once lived and wrote 'Ommadawn', (my favourite Mike Oldfield album). It's a beautiful place, and I can see why he retreated there in search of some solitude.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

*Right now?* Making out with Shirley Scott on top of her steemin' hot Hammond B3! That girl could play your socks and underwear to kingdom come, bless her eternal soul! (Listening to her playing on the 1959 album "Bacalao" with the Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis trio, cowabunga what a swinging band!) :cheers:

/ptr


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I find some difficulty in 'just' listening to music, and my way of listening has changed over my life time. As a young child, who was left with BBC radio's third programme in the daybed in the lounge (I had a broken leg) while Mum made breakfast, I would either imagine that I was conducting the piece, or close my eyes and see ballet dancers. And still my most natural reaction is to dance, and to short baroque pieces I still do.

When I was in my teens and we were listening to, say, Beethoven's pastoral symphony in our music appreciation class, I would close my eyes and see colours and swirls as I flew along in this imaginary world. 

Now that I'm an older adult, I can't do this any more. With longer pieces, I let the music become the background to a mundane task, such as drawing or sewing, and then it's as if I have a film screen just out of view and I notice the movement of the music and the patterns, but at a distance.

When I'm concentrating on shorter pieces, I am noticing the movement & countermovement of the music less distantly, and I am also experiencing an emotion, and feeling as if I was part of the historical moment - I sort of choose to put on a different consciousness, like a cloak. 

So in all cases, I am reacting in an emotional or imaginative way - I have never been a person who thinks about a musical score, and now I never will be. Still, it takes all sorts...


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

GhenghisKhan said:


> I was just wondering: what do others think about when they listen to CM? Do you try to direct your thoughts or just let them flow?
> 
> For me,it usually evokes scenery, often they are of mundane nature (e.g. two people chatting), but sometimes it is more fantastic (battle scenes, someone rallying a crowd,etc).
> 
> ...


I normally have some serious contemplation. I constantly want to know more about it or I want to use it to think about other themes. This is especially true of sacred music, which makes up the major bulk of my listening time. It's not so much that I'm a big smarty pants that likes to think about how smart he is, it's more of an obsessive compulsion. Books and music are my illicit drugs.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I try not to think too much, just to listen. Easier said than done.

I've also found that there's a point between waking and sleep where you can be conscious of the music, but all your normal defenses are down. Sometimes I've heard pieces in that state that I didn't normally care for, but the virtues of the music were totally apparent. I won't claim that you're truly appreciating the music in that state, but next time you hear it you'll certainly appreciate it a lot more fully!


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Bulldog said:


> I received two tax refunds this year from Obama, so I'm all for giving this generous man a 3rd term.


Hahahahaha, I wish I got my refunds from the president. If that were the case I'd be blowing up his desk with letters, as that would be world's better than dealing with the IRS. They are the bane of my existence, all the more so because their telephone service has the scratchiest sounding waiting music on the planet. It's like listening to elevator music in between radio stations.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> When I'm concentrating on shorter pieces, I am noticing the movement & countermovement of the music less distantly, and I am also experiencing an emotion, and feeling as if I was part of the historical moment - I sort of choose to put on a different consciousness, like a cloak.
> 
> So in all cases, I am reacting in an emotional or imaginative way - I have never been a person who thinks about a musical score, and now I never will be. Still, it takes all sorts...


I like the description putting "on a different consciousness, like a cloak." I am familiar with this mode of listening, which I have described to myself less eloquently as "becoming the music."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Experiencing music is different from experiencing anything else. Listening attentively isn't anything I would call "thinking," yet it can be every bit as concentrated. Thoughts do occur during the process, either about the qualities of the music itself or about "what it makes us think of," but indulging those can get in the way of really hearing what's in the music. So, unless I'm consciously trying to analyze what I'm hearing (which I usually am to some degree), my answer to "what do you think about" would be "as little as possible."


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Experiencing music is different from experiencing anything else. Listening attentively isn't anything I would call "thinking," yet it can be every bit as concentrated. Thoughts do occur during the process, either about the qualities of the music itself or about "what it makes us think of," but indulging those can get in the way of really hearing what's in the music. So, unless I'm consciously trying to analyze what I'm hearing (which I usually am to some degree), my answer to "what do you think about" would be "as little as possible."


Really? I find my thoughts ti be most active during listening to music attentively. The most attentive listening is obviously with a score in front of me and my primary focus is on the composition itself. I am thinking a whole lot, but it isn't because the music is evoking thoughts. It's because the music, the composition, the notes and how they all work together _are_ the thoughts.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Really? I find my thoughts ti be most active during listening to music attentively. The most attentive listening is obviously with a score in front of me and my primary focus is on the composition itself. I am thinking a whole lot, but it isn't because the music is evoking thoughts. It's because the music, the composition, the notes and how they all work together _are_ the thoughts.


I think you've misunderstood me. I said that "listening attentively isn't anything I would _call_ thinking." What I would _call_ thinking is a controlled process that involves a lot of "meta-thinking" - thinking about one's thoughts, evaluating them, checking them against reality, going back, revising them, etc. What I'm doing right now is thinking, and the process results in words which express the thoughts and, in turn, suggest further thoughts. This is not like the cognition of music, which is fundamentally receptive, with enough active thinking occurring to identify what I hear - to whatever degree I want to do this - but not to manipulate it. Fundamentally, the _music_ is allowed to manipulate _me_, and I find that a rewarding "altered state," which I think is what Ingelou, EdwardBast, and you are talking about.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I think you've misunderstood me. I said that "listening attentively isn't anything I would _call_ thinking." *What I would call thinking is a controlled process that involves a lot of "meta-thinking" - thinking about one's thoughts, evaluating them, checking them against reality, going back, revising them, etc. What I'm doing right now is thinking, and the process results in words which express the thoughts and, in turn, suggest further thoughts.* This is not like the cognition of music, which is fundamentally receptive, with enough active thinking occurring to identify what I hear - to whatever degree I want to do this - but not to manipulate it. Fundamentally, the _music_ is allowed to manipulate _me_, and I find that a rewarding "altered state," which I think is what Ingelou, EdwardBast, and you are talking about.


You have accurately described the process of thought I go through when listening to music, and this is what I referred to in my earlier post. It gives myself a strong understanding of the composition with or without the score in front of me. I don't know what you mean by music manipulating yourself.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> You have accurately described the process of thought I go through when listening to music, and this is what I referred to in my earlier post. It gives myself a strong understanding of the composition with or without the score in front of me. I don't know what you mean by music manipulating yourself.


Interesting. We can certainly think about music in an active way as we listen, forming and applying concepts, considering structural schema, naming chords and progressions, asking why the music is doing what its doing or why it didn't do what we expected, etc. Analytical thoughts of this nature are bound to go through the minds of listeners with the conceptual tools to dissect what they're hearing. I possess a fair number of these tools, and so I do to varying extents "think about" music as I listen to it. But my need to listen in a consciously analytical way varies greatly. Sometimes, on first exposure to music, I simply want it to get the "feel" of the work, it's overall formal and emotional trajectory, and so I don't allow my mind to be detained by details and my feeling response to be blunted by focused, directed thinking. On repeated exposure I may want to understand better how the piece "works" to achieve the effect it had on me initially; at that point I'll be giving names to the things I hear, asking questions, and listening to the work for answers. I may or may not find that I want to analyze it in detail (personally, I don't go this far with most music I hear). Then, once I know a work well and simply want to hear it because I love it, I will revert to the sort of pre-intellectual way of listening - with the difference that now I have a grasp of the music's structure clearly imprinted on a subconscious level - and, with my conscious mind focused only on the flow of notes rather than on thoughts about the notes, I will simply let the music produce and direct whatever perceptions, random fragments of thoughts, evoked images, and emotions it will.

This kind of listening - intensely conscious, yet unguided and uncensored by any agenda or act of will - is akin to the initial phases of the act of artistic creation, when the musical idea or visual image seems to form itself and must be set down rapidly, spontaneously and uninhibited by criticism, lest the feeling it embodies be lost. There is a direct line from feeling to artistic form during the "inspirational" phases of creation; and there is a parallel direct line from musical form to feeling in the "inspiring" act of listening. This is when - if EdwardBast will allow me to quote him (if you can't beat 'em, quote 'em) - the listener "becomes music."

Does that make sense? Do you listen with varying degrees of intellectualization, or is your left hemisphere always in the driver's seat?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

^Oh yes I get what you mean now!

And I guess I'm just more analytical when listening to music attentively. Sometimes, when I have music on but I tune out every so often to go do something or focus on something else I suppose I am still 'hearing' the music but just not thinking about it.


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## Guest (May 24, 2015)

I think about theory, gender, social constructs, objectivity, and other things of that nature.

Jk man, I just listen to the tunes.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

nathanb said:


> I think about theory, gender, social constructs, objectivity, and other things of that nature.
> 
> Jk man, I just listen to the tunes.


The odd thing is, organ music actually does sometimes make me think of gender and social constructs. Do I need to see a psychologist?

Usually, I just think about the music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MoonlightSonata said:


> The odd thing is, organ music actually does sometimes make me think of gender and social constructs. Do I need to see a psychologist?


It's the "organ" bit that does this to you. Maybe harpsichord would be better. :lol:


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

KenOC said:


> It's the "organ" bit that does this to you. Maybe harpsichord would be better. :lol:


It actually is. Even when I'm playing the organ, my mind wanders to such matters. I have no idea why, maybe it's just a subconscious association or something?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MoonlightSonata said:


> It actually is. Even when I'm playing the organ, my mind wanders to such matters. I have no idea why, maybe it's just a subconscious association or something?


Well, when you have a name like "E. Power Biggs," the suggestion is unavoidable.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Well, when you have a name like "E. Power Biggs," the suggestion is unavoidable.


But I don't have a name anything like that...


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> Interesting. We can certainly think about music in an active way as we listen, forming and applying concepts, considering structural schema, naming chords and progressions, asking why the music is doing what its doing or why it didn't do what we expected, etc. Analytical thoughts of this nature are bound to go through the minds of listeners with the conceptual tools to dissect what they're hearing. I possess a fair number of these tools, and so I do to varying extents "think about" music as I listen to it. But my need to listen in a consciously analytical way varies greatly. Sometimes, on first exposure to music, I simply want it to get the "feel" of the work, it's overall formal and emotional trajectory, and so I don't allow my mind to be detained by details and my feeling response to be blunted by focused, directed thinking. On repeated exposure I may want to understand better how the piece "works" to achieve the effect it had on me initially; at that point I'll be giving names to the things I hear, asking questions, and listening to the work for answers. I may or may not find that I want to analyze it in detail (personally, I don't go this far with most music I hear). Then, once I know a work well and simply want to hear it because I love it, I will revert to the sort of pre-intellectual way of listening - with the difference that now I have a grasp of the music's structure clearly imprinted on a subconscious level - and, with my conscious mind focused only on the flow of notes rather than on thoughts about the notes, I will simply let the music produce and direct whatever perceptions, random fragments of thoughts, evoked images, and emotions it will.
> 
> This kind of listening - intensely conscious, yet unguided and uncensored by any agenda or act of will - is akin to the initial phases of the act of artistic creation, when the musical idea or visual image seems to form itself and must be set down rapidly, spontaneously and uninhibited by criticism, lest the feeling it embodies be lost. There is a direct line from feeling to artistic form during the "inspirational" phases of creation; and there is a parallel direct line from musical form to feeling in the "inspiring" act of listening. This is when - if EdwardBast will allow me to quote him (if you can't beat 'em, quote 'em) - the listener "becomes music."
> 
> Does that make sense? Do you listen with varying degrees of intellectualization, or is your left hemisphere always in the driver's seat?


That is a fascinating observation and query, thank you. In my case the two, emotional response and concentrated thought about music, are not only not mutually exclusive but they feed each other and I find myself incapable of one without the other.

It is much the same way with every other interest I have and I have a hard time seeing the separation. When I am stimulated or even overwhelmed by the amount of material to concentrate on, I cannot help responding emotionally. It is the kind of mental state that I live for and I like to find as many avenues to stimulate that as I can. As far as all of my own experiences, I don't find that either of the two compulsions divert too much attention but this is largely because I tend to concentrate on one thing at a time, and as such I don't find much of anything I can't sufficiently concentrate on or feel any fatigue whatsoever from the activity. It is exceedingly difficult for me to multitask so I can't find any pleasure at all in background music. Such symptoms aren't uncommon for those on the ASD spectrum and this mental state can be trance-like, to the point that in such a moment I am utterly unaware of anything else.

Along with these symptoms come acute abilities and inabilities that go hand in hand. While I have an inordinately high threshold for concentration, I am also hampered by an inordinate disability to multitask and generally perform executive mental functions. This is why I must constantly make lists and complete tasks in order, living with regimented routines that enable me to function independently like others seem to do more easily. I'm a grown *** man that constantly has to be conscious of and tell himself "it's 7 in the morning which means the time of the day when you must shower, brush your teeth, make breakfast, and right now you need to work on this", which is a laborious and exasperating process.

So in order to recharge my mental resources I retreat into my interests, mostly music and books, and blissfully partake of this intense contemplative state of mind I've described. Without it I would be unable to handle draining activities like keeping my self imposed schedules, consciously having to think "I need to engage in about 70% eye contact with this person because he is talking to me and needs the assurance that he has my attention, it may be a lot easier for me to concentrate on what he is saying without the unnerving experience of looking at his eyes but I must do it", "what the hell does that metaphor mean", "what does she expect me to say and feel right now", "I'm really uncomfortable with that sensation, e.g. soft touch but I know it isn't rational and it's just a symptom", "don't panic, the lights, colors and sounds may be very disorienting right now but you can't make a scene, you must find a way to calm down before sensory overload occurs and everything is unpleasant and your head throbs, so just monitor your breathing and picture sheet music", "am I doing a right or acceptable thing right now", just in order to conduct a normal life and be around so many other people.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Lukecash12 said:


> That is a fascinating observation and query, thank you. In my case the two, emotional response and concentrated thought about music, are not only not mutually exclusive but they feed each other and I find myself incapable of one without the other.
> 
> It is much the same way with every other interest I have and I have a hard time seeing the separation. When I am stimulated or even overwhelmed by the amount of material to concentrate on, I cannot help responding emotionally. It is the kind of mental state that I live for and I like to find as many avenues to stimulate that as I can. As far as all of my own experiences, I don't find that either of the two compulsions divert too much attention but this is largely because I tend to concentrate on one thing at a time, and as such I don't find much of anything I can't sufficiently concentrate on or feel any fatigue whatsoever from the activity. It is exceedingly difficult for me to multitask so I can't find any pleasure at all in background music. Such symptoms aren't uncommon for those on the ASD spectrum and this mental state can be trance-like, to the point that in such a moment I am utterly unaware of anything else.
> 
> ...


Your self-portrait is interesting but, as you are surely aware, not easy for a non-ASD person to understand. It sounds as if everyday life can be hard work, and music a treasured relief from the concentrated effort living requires. Could you describe more what it's like for you to listen to music?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> Your self-portrait is interesting but, as you are surely aware, not easy for a non-ASD person to understand. It sounds as if everyday life can be hard work, and music a treasured relief from the concentrated effort living requires. Could you describe more what it's like for you to listen to music?


Sorry about that, got a bit overly tangential there... Listening to music for me is like being in a trance, a hyperactive trance where random factual information ranging from historical context to music theory and how to express music in an affective way to themes and my feelings on them, flits through my head like a hurtling freight train. I vent incessant compulsions that have tugged at me the rest of the day and often also find myself enthralled by memories or other related thoughts, especially overwhelmingly cerebral, sober, or ecstatic religious sentiments as I tend most often to listen to sacred music. It is a riveting experience wherein I can hardly control the direction or speed.

As for us relating, you're right. I can't expect you to understand my symptoms, and by the same token your lack of those symptoms is so utterly foreign to me that I cannot properly conceive that either, especially when it comes to sensory experiences (there are things that feel very, very "wrong" or "right" to me in intangible ways, like anxiety from soft touch or hypersensitivity to light). We are equally a mystery to one another, which I'm not only uncomfortable with but have some fascination for. This is why I at least try to approximate your perspective and am interested to know how exactly music feels to you.

Is there a concentration threshold? Just how many abstracts do you juggle at once? Or is it less drug-like for to try and chase many tangents the whole time? As you make more factual observations about the music or the context surrounding it do you find yourself distracted from the emotional experience?


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## Guest (May 24, 2015)

GhenghisKhan said:


> I was just wondering: what do others think about when they listen to CM? Do you try to direct your thoughts or just let them flow?
> 
> For me,it usually evokes scenery, often they are of mundane nature (e.g. two people chatting), but sometimes it is more fantastic (battle scenes, someone rallying a crowd,etc).
> 
> ...


It depends what else I'm doing at the time, but it is inevitably a mix of


the irrelevant - work, sex...er, work...and...er...
images prompted by the music...the sea, the wind, a battle, an historical event, etc
images and memories connected by me to the music from previous listenings - childhood, my children, my wife, places I have lived and worked in...
the music itself - its form, textures, dynamics etc


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Unless there is a memory attached to it, I think about and
> feel the music.


Some of my favorite pieces I consciously attach special memories to. Die Meistersinger for example - those few days in Nürnberg are a quite special memory, and when I listen to the opera, I can visualize the setting much better now.

I think about all kinds of things, depending on the piece. When I listen to the Ring, I see the entire storyline in my mind like a film, fantastically bright and colorful - a mixture of the libretto itself, all the fantasy art I have seen in my life, my travel impressions of Germany and other things (that is why I prefer listening to watching DVDs - none of the stagings come even close to this "inner movie"). When I listen to Bach's cantatas, I see myself inside a grand cathedral, listening to the music among a thousand-man crowd. I imagine natural landscapes - forests, mountains, seas - a lot. Or I simply concentrate on the music and the interplay of different instruments.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> This kind of listening - intensely conscious, yet unguided and uncensored by any agenda or act of will - is akin to the initial phases of the act of artistic creation, when the musical idea or visual image seems to form itself and must be set down rapidly, spontaneously and uninhibited by criticism, lest the feeling it embodies be lost. There is a direct line from feeling to artistic form during the "inspirational" phases of creation; and there is a parallel direct line from musical form to feeling in the "inspiring" act of listening. This is when - if EdwardBast will allow me to quote him (if you can't beat 'em, quote 'em) - the listener "becomes music."
> 
> Does that make sense? Do you listen with varying degrees of intellectualization, or is your left hemisphere always in the driver's seat?


When you said "as little as possible," I knew you meant only to exclude "nonmusical thoughts." Of course musical comprehension is a form of thought - connecting this to that, riding its expressive waves, and so on without using words to mediate ones apprehensions.

CoAG - Of course in "professional mode," as a composer, theorist, or musicologist, for example, one consciously thinks structural and analytic thoughts, and for performers this mode includes a whole different set of parameters. I suspect Woodduck, Ingelou, and I are speaking of listening in "aesthetic mode." Teaching music majors in a conservatory setting has taught me how difficult it can be to get students out of professional mode, if only long enough to remind them and invigorate them with a look from the other side. Teaching non-majors is sometimes more satisfying because they are (almost) never consciously thinking about phrasing or intonation or how their teachers suggested they play this or that passage. They are wondering what the music is doing to them and why it seems imbued with significance and why it is moving them. I hope you spend a significant amount of time in a pure "aesthetic mode" as well. I think it is healthy and refreshing.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Lukecash12 said:


> Is there a concentration threshold? Just how many abstracts do you juggle at once? Or is it less drug-like for to try and chase many tangents the whole time? As you make more factual observations about the music or the context surrounding it do you find yourself distracted from the emotional experience?


For me, when listening for pleasure, the experience is immersive. There are no words running through my head. The music feels like an extension of myself. Ideally (and ideally is the key word) my eyes are closed and I am feeling the music like it is pouring out of me, as if through my own voice - almost like my mind is singing it into existence. I become the music and lose my identity in it. "Trance-like" is not far off, although it is impossible to know if what I mean by these words is like what you mean by them.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Some of my favorite pieces I consciously attach special memories to. Die Meistersinger for example - those few days in Nürnberg are a quite special memory, and when I listen to the opera, I can visualize the setting much better now.
> 
> I think about all kinds of things, depending on the piece. *When I listen to the Ring, I see the entire storyline in my mind like a film, fantastically bright and colorful - a mixture of the libretto itself, all the fantasy art I have seen in my life, my travel impressions of Germany and other things (that is why I prefer listening to watching DVDs - **none of the stagings come even close to this "inner movie".* When I listen to Bach's cantatas, I see myself inside a grand cathedral, listening to the music among a thousand-man crowd. I imagine natural landscapes - forests, mountains, seas - a lot. Or I simply concentrate on the music and the interplay of different instruments.


Listening to opera in particular calls on our visual imagination, but this varies greatly depending on the nature of the music. Wagner, in my experience, is the king of "musical synaesthesia" - not the neurological condition, but the suggestive power of sound. His music virtually stages his operas right in the orchestra, and anyone sensitive to this sort of "cross-domain," cross-sensory suggestion is apt to be flooded with visual, tactile, and kinetic imagery. I have that sort of brain, and so Wagner's music was a revelation to me, as a young person discovering music, of a kind which has never been duplicated by anything else in my life. Wagner's theory of the _Gesamtkunstwerk_ was formed early in his life, before he learned to exploit the full power of music, and as his musical powers grew he came to incorporate more and more of the "total art work" into music itself, until music became almost articulate - a language of incredible evocativeness and specificity. Like you, I can listen to his operas "staged" in my mind with a vividness that no actual performance in the theater could ever equal. It's only the power of fine acting, when we're lucky enough to get it, that gives the physical stage an advantage over Wagner's "theater of the mind."

Plenty of other music is evocative of other-sensory imagery. Sibelius is especially good at this.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I close my eyes and think of England when I listen to English music. I close my eyes and think of Russian when listening to......you guessed it...... Russian music. But I can also transport myself in time back to the fin de siècle when I listen to Mahler. 

Or sometimes I just do a Sudoku puzzle when listening so I think about that.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Listening to opera in particular calls on our visual imagination, but this varies greatly depending on the nature of the music. Wagner, in my experience, is the king of "musical synaesthesia" - not the neurological condition, but the suggestive power of sound. His music virtually stages his operas right in the orchestra, and anyone sensitive to this sort of "cross-domain," cross-sensory suggestion is apt to be flooded with visual, tactile, and kinetic imagery. I have that sort of brain, and so Wagner's music was a revelation to me, as a young person discovering music, of a kind which has never been duplicated by anything else in my life. Wagner's theory of the _Gesamtkunstwerk_ was formed early in his life, before he learned to exploit the full power of music, and as his musical powers grew he came to incorporate more and more of the "total art work" into music itself, until music became almost articulate - a language of incredible evocativeness and specificity. Like you, I can listen to his operas "staged" in my mind with a vividness that no actual performance in the theater could ever equal. It's only the power of fine acting, when we're lucky enough to get it, that gives the physical stage an advantage over Wagner's "theater of the mind."
> 
> Plenty of other music is evocative of other-sensory imagery. Sibelius is especially good at this.


Wagner and Sibelius definately- and a lot of other synaesthetic talent as well: Max Steiner's "A Boat in the Fog" from his score to _King Kong_, Bernard Herrmann's scoring of the hydra sequence from _Jason and Argonauts_, Miklos Rozsa's or Alfred Newman's depiction of Imperial Rome in _Quo Vadis_ or The Robe, and Bronislav Kaper's scoring to the storm sequence from the MGM _Mutiny on the Bounty_ are some of the more prominent examples that immediately come to mind.


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

I usually imagine myself as the performer. During orchestral pieces, I'm dictating the beat with an air baton. During piano works, my fingers are twiddling atop an air keyboard. 

And during an aria, my mouth is open emitting an air note. That's the best. When Birgit Nilsson opens up with the heavy artillery... imagining that kind of power pouring out of my body... Sometimes I need a cigarette afterwards.


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

Since I have a condition called Chromaesthesia where my mind involuntarily associates heard sound with colors, my mind is perpetually creating patterns and sensations, which then also leads me to think about questions in World History.

Respectfully yours...


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I have that sort of brain, and so Wagner's music was a revelation to me, as a young person discovering music, of a kind which has never been duplicated by anything else in my life...
> 
> ...Plenty of other music is evocative of other-sensory imagery. Sibelius is especially good at this.


Exactly! When I first heard Wagner's music, it was as if I found something I had been looking for all my life. I used to be a fan of classic rock bands like Pink Floyd and Scorpions, and some of their music can be quite evocative, but it is simply not in the same league.

And yes, Sibelius is very good at it too. Makes me imagine snowed-over Scandinavian forests and frozen lakes


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