Note: I'm typing this on an iPad and it's terrible. Literally the worst thing I've done. Oh my gosh the keyboard just disappeared. But it still works. Picture below. I'm typing blind. No keys. They only appear once you tap them. Please help.
Music is strongly related to memory and relationships for me.
All of my favorite songs are almost universally not my favorite because they sound good, but because I have strong emotions related to them. Sometimes I first heard it during a certain event. Or I really grew to like it during one of those times. Or sometimes I really only like it because someone else likes it.
For example, I like most Irish folk songs because I strongly associate them with the trip to Hampden-Sydney.
I like My Moon My Man by Feist because Brendan played it after school one day Junior year when I was just starting to become a part of the tribe.
I like Polaroid by Imagine Dragons because Brendan likes it, I guess. I never really liked it at first, but then I sort of realized it represents my relationship with Brendan and all of our carpool talks. It's my favorite song on the album now.
And I like Toes by Zac Brown Band because, in a way, it sort of embodies my relationship with Blake. I don't really know why, it just does.
For example, I like most Irish folk songs because I strongly associate them with the trip to Hampden-Sydney.
I like My Moon My Man by Feist because Brendan played it after school one day Junior year when I was just starting to become a part of the tribe.
I like Polaroid by Imagine Dragons because Brendan likes it, I guess. I never really liked it at first, but then I sort of realized it represents my relationship with Brendan and all of our carpool talks. It's my favorite song on the album now.
And I like Toes by Zac Brown Band because, in a way, it sort of embodies my relationship with Blake. I don't really know why, it just does.
Why is this? Music, like any form of art, demands a strong emotional response from us. It's created to do so—it's emotional in nature. It's supposed to convey meaning, information, beauty. And beauty evokes emotion in us.
And yet for some reason music does this for me the most. Visual art almost never does this. I'm an incredibly visual person, but visual art never seems to evoke any emotion in me. At most I'll think "that's cool" or "that light is really interesting". Sometimes a picture of friends will do a little, but never like music does.
In the same (but opposite) way, I'm not an auditory person at all. It's incredibly difficult to separate sound into the three deminsional array of layers and reflections and textures that the visual world is. Images constantly spin in my head, revealing all of their hidden caverns and interior converging lines. But music (or sound) never does this. It remains flat, in a constant stream of static input that shows only its most obvious side.
I'm exaggerating slightly here. I really enjoy music, but I can't play with it in my head like I do with pictures. If that makes any sense. There's no spiderweb of infinite possibilities with music.
Anyway. The point is even though I tend to respond better to imagery, music conveys emotion and gets a response way more than images do. Those songs I have a strong emotional response to become my favorites. My favorite music is almost never based on the song itself, it's based on the associations I form with the song. For all I know this is a universal thing, but it's equally my thing.
I listen to music to remember. Remember my friends, remember the moments, remember the late night talks and the Tuesday afternoon river trips and the spur of the moment theological explorations in the middle of the woods.
Take a Walk, I Like Birds, Volare, Gooey, Latch, Happy, The Distance. All memories.
And yet for some reason music does this for me the most. Visual art almost never does this. I'm an incredibly visual person, but visual art never seems to evoke any emotion in me. At most I'll think "that's cool" or "that light is really interesting". Sometimes a picture of friends will do a little, but never like music does.
In the same (but opposite) way, I'm not an auditory person at all. It's incredibly difficult to separate sound into the three deminsional array of layers and reflections and textures that the visual world is. Images constantly spin in my head, revealing all of their hidden caverns and interior converging lines. But music (or sound) never does this. It remains flat, in a constant stream of static input that shows only its most obvious side.
I'm exaggerating slightly here. I really enjoy music, but I can't play with it in my head like I do with pictures. If that makes any sense. There's no spiderweb of infinite possibilities with music.
Anyway. The point is even though I tend to respond better to imagery, music conveys emotion and gets a response way more than images do. Those songs I have a strong emotional response to become my favorites. My favorite music is almost never based on the song itself, it's based on the associations I form with the song. For all I know this is a universal thing, but it's equally my thing.
I listen to music to remember. Remember my friends, remember the moments, remember the late night talks and the Tuesday afternoon river trips and the spur of the moment theological explorations in the middle of the woods.
Take a Walk, I Like Birds, Volare, Gooey, Latch, Happy, The Distance. All memories.
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