Greetings folks, Music is an abstract art. So, When you are listening to music/song, not while performing some homework or house chores or other types of multi-taskings, but you're entirely focused on listening the song. what do you think about? How do you interpret the music? What type of thoughts do you get? Or how does it works in the background of your mind? What element of the music do you focus while listening lyrics, melody, rhythm, texture, progression, Message Metaphor etc.)? I've noticed so many differences in how people interpret music. Some of them relate it to an emotion. Some to imagine scenarios. Some listen for the quality of the tones. Some like the whole progression of the song. Some think back on a particular memory from the past. And so on... Share your interpretation process guys!
To be honest, I don't really listen to music for itself. It's pretty much always while I'm multi-tasking with something else, like work or so on. I still remember that the one time I bought that collector's edition of FFXV OST with all the car songs in the package, I was severely disappointed that Square Enix included them in a separate blu ray without mp3's and seemed to expect me to consume it with something like a crackling fire place, wrapped in a blanket with some mulled wine in a wine glass, just relaxing and enjoying the tunes for what they are via my audio-visual entertainment set. No, it doesn't go like that for me... it was waste of my money and I never listened through that pointless thing. To me, music has to be portable and combinable to whatever need or context I want it to play on; doubly so for commercial releases I pay money for. Oh yeah, don't mind the saltiness, it's just some of the lingering disgust from years ago that got triggered by your post.
To be honest, I just listen to music to avoid the silence. Tinnitus is a pain to deal with. Obligatory music recommendation:
I mostly listen to classical music. The one that made me emotionally be affected the most was Bach's Partita in D Minor. Specially the last movement "Chaconne". He wrote it while mourning his first wife's death. It was like I literally felt the stages his emotions went through during his mourning period. Which part of the piece is him being sad and in pain, which part of it is him being angry...and even which part is him finally accepting her death. All of them various emotions so vividly distinctive from one another, but still the same feeling of loss prevalent somewhere in that piece connecting them all in one movement. It is music that perfectly captured the absolute chaos that took place in his heart after his wife died. The music is equally chaotic, but somehow makes perfect sense. You realize that "ahh, that is probably an emotion you might feel too when you've lost someone dear, I didn't think about that." Believe it or not this piece, without any words, perfectly showed various emotions I didn't know you'd feel when you're mourning someone's death. Specially the acceptance part, I took people's word for it but never truly understood how you could come to terms with someone's death like that and move on, what type of feeling is that actually. That specific part in chaconne made me realize what people actually mean when they say they've moved on. Basically, as someone who never had someone close to me pass on...I somehow vividly imagined the process of Bach's emotional turmoil through this masterpiece he has written. It showed me a bunch of emotions without me having to experience them first hand. It was like I was watching a movie where he went through all the stages of sadness and grief and I deeply connected with that.
I can't concentrate when listening to music. If I try to listen to music while doing something else, my attention would be either completely occupied by the music, or the indiscernible noise that the music becomes when I concentrate on something else would annoy me. I tend to focus on melody/atmosphere/general composition but I appreciate well-thought out and meaningful lyrics regardless of language. No lyrics is fine too. I don't really have any feelings so can't say much on that.
Usually, music to me is just there to support something. Like, I mostly never listen to music for the sake of listening to it, there's usually something I'm doing that I give more attention on. But there are some song I listen solely for the song itself, songs like "The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel", "A boy with a coin by Iron and Wine", "A bad dream by Keane" and others. These songs have great lyrics, like the song itself can be a story and it encourages me to look deeper into it for me to properly enjoy the song. In fact, it doesn't need to have lyrics for me to understand it like a story, a good example of music like this is "Time" by Hans Zimmer. There are also some songs I listen to when I want to vibe and/or want to increase or intensify a specific emotion. I would want to listen to slow, quiet, and somber songs if I want to be sad; I would listen to fast, loud, and intense songs if I want to feel pumped. Tl;dr: Music, to me, is anything with rhthym, melody and harmony. Good music is something that can "make you think" and can bring out or intensify certain emotions.
I listen to music to jog my brain, since i mostly just listen during my work. And i don't think about anything while listening to it, i just listen for the joy of it.
I listen to music to drown out the voices in my head. Also the more ignorant the music is the better I work.
I will go with the texture of the music since it encompasses the rhythm, melody, and the harmonics. I don't usually listen to the lyrics since the music I listen to is often in languages that I can't speak or no lyrics at all.
i listen to keep my mind active.can't stand opera but just about anything else will do. my fav background tunes are Celtic. i've listened to classical.it's ok i guess. i suppose i listen to North American and European mostly. sorry, Japanese music sounds to much like anime. not to my tastes. i suppose my goto to zone out for a bit is metal. luv that shit. lol
If im simply listening and not doing anything else, I either focus on the lyrics, don't think about anything especially(relax) or i just think about whatever is on my mind at the moment. I usually(always) listen to music, so im not bothered that much from listening and doing pretty much anything else at the same time.
I can't listen to music without lyrics. Instrumentation parts themselves is boring for me. In recent years I became more open minded towards different genres of music and now I can listen everything. With exception of songs without lyrics, of course. I can't feel an emotions in instrumentation parts and for me it is just a mix of different sounds. Only singer can give that mix a meaning.
I like listening to pleasing tones and good lyrics. I sing along to my music (or hum the tune) and I need to know what my music says or I can't listen to it. It really turns me off from a song when all I hear is "I have money and I'm high on drugs everyday". I'm biased for Korean music, especially ballad genres. There's two singers that in my opinion have superb voices, Suhyun from AKMU and IU. Of course, my preference, but it cleanses my soul to listen to Suhyun sing pretty much anything. My current favorite song:
Musics usually used for vibing with me. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_XXq3XxAzugdgN0T4ZYIIdDLC8qSIeV5 theres over 200 songs in that playlist. If you wanna broaden your horizons I recommend listening to it.
Music to me is like an expression of the author's feeling. The singer and the instruments are just the medium for us to feel it. The lyrics, melody, rhythm, etc is basically a music technique to induce the feeling within us audiences.
Most of the times when I'm browsinh youtube, I'd stumble upon music, therefore I am more focused on how the particular song sounds like than the lyrics, if I like the song then I try to understand the lyrics.