What is it about some music...

[cheerful_deviant]

... that it can move us so much?

I've just been listening to Sheryl Crow's latest release, a version of Always On Your Side. It's a re-release that she's done with Sting. The first few lines of the song are a piano solo with her vocals and to me it's an amazingly powerful performance and I'm not really sure why. It just calls to me.

I think it's just the purity of the piano and the single voice. Sometimes less is much, much more.

 

[3113]

... that it can move us so much?

I've just been listening to Sheryl Crow's latest release, a version of Always On Your Side.

I just downloaded that myself. Lovin' it...but I'll also be the first to admit that I'm a softy when it comes to music and I wouldn't ask anyone to trust my taste in it.

Not that I'm condeming yours...I'm just not someone who can analyze music. Ask me to analyze poetry, stories, novels, movies....fine. Music, however, is a mystery to me. I can't even tell you why I like what I like.

But I do tend to go for acustic versions over heavily orchestrated--less is more pure and beautiful to my ear, and more true, somehow.

 

[sophia jane]

The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice is like that for me. It breaks my heart everytime I hear it.

 

[Guest]

... that it can move us so much?

I've just been listening to Sheryl Crow's latest release, a version of Always On Your Side. It's a re-release that she's done with Sting. The first few lines of the song are a piano solo with her vocals and to me it's an amazingly powerful performance and I'm not really sure why. It just calls to me.

I think it's just the purity of the piano and the single voice. Sometimes less is much, much more.

You ask an eternal question there. I've been a musician almost since I can remember and it constantly amazes me how -- even without words -- certain combinations of tones or sounds arranged in certain ways just make my brain, heart, and soul active.

Sometimes words are what get me going, but a lot of the time it's either a combination or just the music. Tori Amos' last album, The Beekeeper, has a song called "Toast", which has the combination of words and music that just make my heart shake. I want to perform the song one day, but I don't know if I could get through it without crying. The old Tears for Fears song "everybody wants to rule the world" has a completely different effect -- I remember being 19 and despite the shit in my life, feeling ready to DO something. When I was trying to get through college (at 34) , I'd listen to that song to catch some of that 19 year old energy. That feeling of being able to go on forever is the only thing I miss about being 19.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

I just downloaded that myself. Lovin' it...but I'll also be the first to admit that I'm a softy when it comes to music and I wouldn't ask anyone to trust my taste in it.

Not that I'm condeming yours...I'm just not someone who can analyze music. Ask me to analyze poetry, stories, novels, movies....fine. Music, however, is a mystery to me. I can't even tell you why I like what I like.

I know what you mean. Except I can't analyze anything. I can't even proofread storys well. I get to wraped up in them and glide right over any faults I think.

As the man said, "I may not know Art, but I know what I like."

Also, don't trust my taste in music either. My iTunes download list looks like skitso nightmare.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice is like that for me. It breaks my heart everytime I hear it.

Damn, now there's another one I have to download.

 

[sophia jane]

Damn, now there's another one I have to download.

It's the main song from the movie Closer. I watched the movie and before the movie was over I'd downloaded that song.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

You ask an eternal question there. I've been a musician almost since I can remember and it constantly amazes me how -- even without words -- certain combinations of tones or sounds arranged in certain ways just make my brain, heart, and soul active.

I think music is one of the few completly universal things. There are very few people who cannot be moved by at least one peice of music. Everyone is affected by something because everyone has at least one song that they can really relate to.

You're right, there is something in the tones and sounds of music. They hit a chord in the brain that resonates in the soul.

 

[Guest]

I think music is one of the few completly universal things. There are very few people who cannot be moved by at least one peice of music. Everyone is affected by something because everyone has at least one song that they can really relate to.

You're right, there is something in the tones and sounds of music. They hit a chord in the brain that resonates in the soul.

I have a "tuned" wind chime by my front door, 5 metal tubes with a particular A chord that just says "hope through sadness" to me. I've had it for years and we have a steady breeze at the front of the house most of the time, so I hear it playing. I can't explain exactly the emotions that I feel when it rings, but sometimes I could just about cry -- for an instant -- when it rings, and sometimes it makes me want to laught out loud.

If I knew why, I'd bottle it. Maybe I'm just weird. (Well, there's no MAYBE about that).

 

[Huckleman2000]

... that it can move us so much?

I've just been listening to Sheryl Crow's latest release, a version of Always On Your Side. It's a re-release that she's done with Sting. The first few lines of the song are a piano solo with her vocals and to me it's an amazingly powerful performance and I'm not really sure why. It just calls to me.

I think it's just the purity of the piano and the single voice. Sometimes less is much, much more.

This is so true. Here are some of my minimalist favorites:
Case of You - Joni Mitchell (Just before our love got lost, you said, "I am as constant as the Northern Star", and I said "Constantly in the darkness - where's that at? If you want me I'll be in the bar.....I could drink a case of you, and still be on my feet...")
Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen (Screen door slams, Mary's dress waves...)
Kiss Off - Violent Femmes (...and 8, 8, I forget what 8 was for and 9, 9, 9 for a lost god and 10, 10, 10 is for everything, everything, everything, everything...)

I need to get the Sheryl Crow

 

[hugo_sam]

... that it can move us so much?

I've just been listening to Sheryl Crow's latest release, a version of Always On Your Side. It's a re-release that she's done with Sting. The first few lines of the song are a piano solo with her vocals and to me it's an amazingly powerful performance and I'm not really sure why. It just calls to me.

I think it's just the purity of the piano and the single voice. Sometimes less is much, much more.

Great Thread CD
Yes, Music can move us so much and it definitley does me.
(See "What Are You Listening To Now" thread)
In contrast to many here, the music has far greater depth and meaning to me.
When I was young, amd for much of my early life, I was a muscian. Maybe that is why it affects me so, or maybe it affected me so I was a musician. Who knows?
I do know that the 'music' generally has a far greater affect on me than the words. Dont' really know why.
With the "Lit Radio" thread, I have gone to download the words to some of my favorite and personally most powerful songs and had some rude awakenings. I have found most have sparce words, poor wording and/or very negative words.
Maybe my preference for the music, moves me to the sparcer worded songs, again who knows.

Thank you for the thread
JMHO

Hugo

 

[amicus]

A 'thank you' to the thread starter, lovely topic, I wish it could go further, or is it farther, I hate those two words....


I am doing a series of historical novels, fiction, about the early beginnings of humankind.

I have not yet approached a scene portraying music and voice and would appreciate any one who wishes to expound upon their ideas concerning the original creation of music.

In writing that, I reminded my self of the film, "Cave Man' with Ringo Starr, of the Beatles, when they gathered around a campfire and discovered music, with voice, rythym, harmony and melody. It was an amazing scene.

I am thinking of tribal chants, the mourning voice of a woman over a death in the family or clan, the first wooden flute sounds, the sound of the wind or a babbling brook.

Someone said, 'truly Universal', I think so too, but how to present that as a natural occurence, which of course, it had to be, is a challenge.

And if you can listen to Rachmaninoff's Opus 51, Variations on a theme by Paganini, and not shed a tear, tell me about that also.

I know, this right wing neo con, ignorant capitalist and all around greedy, egoist, selfish and old entity should not have such thoughts. Guess I slept with too many liberal women. It must have rubbed off on me.

amicus....

 

[impressive]

It's usually lyrics & voice that "make" a song, for me. (The exceptions being in classical music.)

Take incredible lyrics -- the kind that can stand alone as poetry -- and add a gripping (usually female) voice & I can get lost in a song.

The Streisand/Crawford rendition of "Music of the Night" from Phantom is one of the most balanced pieces of vocal music I've ever heard ... and perhaps THE most seductive.

I heard more in Clay Aiken's cover of "Unchained Melody" than I ever heard in the original. Same with Celine Dion's cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Both very well-known songs which never spoke to me until performed by these vocalists.

Off to download a couple of the suggestions, here.

 

[Guest]

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything. ~Plato

no need to think about it. music....is.

 

[Liar]

What's really astounding about music is that it's often quite impossible to say why something works for you and not. It just does. There's no scientific definition for catchyness and artistic 'punch'.

Personally, I'm a sample addict. A whole song is to my ears often not that consistently great. There are short snippets in songs, maybe a few seconds somewhere in the middle, an intro, a bridge, where an artist have gotten it just that right, and it grabs a listener by she spine and sends a jolt. And for that short moment, I can buy a whole album that may otherwise be total crap. I wrote a coumn for a music mag about those hooks once. In that I listed a few moments from both classical works and pop/rock from recent decades that I thought stood out as especally grand.

Ami mentioned Rachmaninov's Variations. It was on my list, namely the second repetition of the main theme some minute into the piece, when the full power of the orchectra kicks in. Make me shiver in delight every time. Other snippets mentioned was the intro to Nirvana's Smells like teen spirit and the second verse of U2's One, some verse in an old Leadbelly recording that I can't remember the title of, as well as a few more obscure acts.

And then I asked readers to send me their favourite snippets. I've never been so flooded with mail.

 

[amicus]

vella_ms]Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything. ~Plato

no need to think about it. music....is.[/I]

~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you Vella, for the quote. I started a new file to refer to and yours is the first entry.

amicus...

 

[amicus]

Ami mentioned Rachmaninov's Variations. It was on my list, namely the second repetition of the main theme some minute into the piece, when the full power of the orchectra kicks in. Make me shiver in delight every time.

~~~~~~~

Hello Liar, nice post. I thought I had committed a fatal faux paux in my spelling of the composers name, however, it appears both are acceptable:

".......Research into the life and works of the Russian composer, pianist and conductor Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff.

Rachmaninoff.co.uk - Rachmaninoff - Rachmaninov - Rakhmaninov ..."

amicus...

 

[Liar]

Hello Liar, nice post. I thought I had committed a fatal faux paux in my spelling of the composers name, however, it appears both are acceptable:

".......Research into the life and works of the Russian composer, pianist and conductor Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff.

Rachmaninoff.co.uk - Rachmaninoff - Rachmaninov - Rakhmaninov ..."

amicus...

Hmm, yes. I guess it's a moot point, since it's spelled properly only w. the Russian (What is it called now again...cyrillic?) alphabet.

 

[cloudy]

CD - Sheryl Crow's Riverwide is another goody. It damn near brings me to tears when I hear it.

 

[Guest]

Dire straights brothers in arms