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Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: onewheelwizzard on 07 Jun 2007, 10:38
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So I'm working in a neuropsychiatry research office right now, and the girl sitting next to me is (no joke) working on a scientific study that requires that subjects listen to music (instrumental only, mostly movie soundtracks as far as I can see) and respond with the emotion that it elicits from them. I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff going on in the study but that's about as much as I know about it right now.
So I figured there was a cool topic here ... what instrumental music evokes the strongest and most distinct emotions in you? What makes you happy, sad, fearful, etc.?
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Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Their songs, depending on the moments within the songs and the state I'm otherwise in, can ellict pretty much any emotion imaginable.
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Gordian Knot...their first album has this song that sounds like the guitar is depressed about something, like it's not an inanimate object without feeling...if that makes any sense.
John Butler's "Ocean" is a happy song.
Negura Bunget's "Tesarul De Lumini" makes me scared of the Swamp King.
and Coil's "Red Birds (long title)" gets me lost in my own head and all the micro and macrocosms therein.
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Usually minimalist compositions relax me and help me clear out my mind. Favorites are works by Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Free Jazz and Hard Bop can make me feel the same. Although the more adventurous works (Coleman's Free Jazz and Dolphy's Out to Lunch for example) are kind of difficult to listen to, and sometimes exhausting, but allways rewarding. Drone usually has the same effect too.
This reaserch sounds really interesting. Do you know exactly what the subjects are listening to?
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Do you mean music that's entirely instrumental, or instrumental passages in songs with vocals?
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GY!BE, Mono, Labradford, etc. The first 10 minutes of Lift Yr Skinny Fists... is one of the most uplifting, joyous things I can imagine. Mono usually make me feel sad. Labradford's instrumental stuff makes me think of empty warehouses.
I thought it had been pretty much already proven that certain chords and chord progressions produce certain emotions, eg minor chords make you feel sad, etc.
If she's working mostly with movie soundtracks, it could be a little more interesting, because movie soundtracks tend to re-use the same tricks from movie to movie and so we develop inherent reactions to those sounds based on the kinds of scenes we've heard them while watching.
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"The Work Which Transforms God" by Blut Aus Nord (I uploaded it to the sendspace thread a while ago if anyone's intrested) scares the shit out of me, it's like a journey through a deranged nightmare. I guessed 'fucked up' would be one way to describe it.
I'm no expert on music theory but I think it's a pretty interesting peice, especially in light of what Zerodrone mentioned about chords and progressions having an emotional effect as Vindsval's mentioned in several interviews it was recorded as an experiment in writing Dissonant and Atonal music.
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and Coil's "Red Birds (long title)" gets me lost in my own head and all the micro and macrocosms therein.
The title you're looking for is 'Red Birds Will Fly Out of the East and Destroy Paris in a Night'. It is a truly awesome song.
The one that instantly came to my head was another Coil track, Disco Hospital, which contains 40 seconds of pure joy in the middle.
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Zerodrone, I think that's basically why movie soundtracks are being used ... they're much more "reliable" pieces to use because they're so easy to relate to specific emotions. The cause-and-effect there is a bit ambiguous (are they used in movies for sad scenes because they're sad pieces, or do we think of them as sad pieces because we've heard them in sad movies?) which is why I'm really not entirely on the boat with regards to using them (I don't like the idea of getting research results that are based on conditioned responses rather than new experiences). To be fair, however, I know jack shit about the actual research so I'm not really sure what the purpose of it all is, or whether or not it means anything that a piece used in the research protocol might have a preconditioned response associated with it due to having seen it associated with a sad movie scene or something.
So since I'm writing this at work, I'll just pick up the papers she's referencing!
"Cardiovascular and respiratory responses during musical mood induction" sounds like a cool one. Apparently the researchers gave 12 music clips to subjects, 4 each to induce happiness, fear, and sadness. Cardiovascular and respiratory responses were measured (surprise!). Results: people breathe fastest when happy and slowest when sad, and the heart beats slowest when sad and fastest during moments of fear. Conclusions: subjective reports say that the mood induction from the music was successful, but we don't really know if we've come up with anything, because analysis shows that the tempo of the music might have something to do with it. It seems that people unconsciously match their breathing to tempo when listening to music at least a little bit, and given that this physiological response is part of the definition of an evoked emotion, well ... gain, looks like there's a cause-and-effect ambiguity here (music evokes emotion evokes change in breathing? or music evokes change in breathing evokes appearance of emotion?).
Since I'm working here all the time I expect to be updating this thread quite a bit.
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Here's an fMRI study on "Investigating Emotion with Music." Basically, researchers played "pleasant" and "unpleasant" music to subjects and then got MRI images of their brains to see which bits of the brain were lighting up.
Here's the cool part ... the way they gave people "unpleasant" music was by taking the "pleasant" music (mostly classical dance pieces, with a Jaco Pastorius piece and a couple that might not be classical but that I don't recognize) and overlaying two electronically pitch-shifted versions of the same music onto it, one a tone above and the other a tritone below the original. Basically, to turn music "unpleasant" they just remixed it with 2 dissonant versions of the same piece overlaid on top. Is this anything like what Blut Aus Nord might be talking about?
The results were mostly a bunch of neurological gibberish that even I didn't really understand (and I go to school for this). It's all parahippocamal gyrus this and Rolandic operculum that. But it did come up with the result that if you manipulate music the way they did in order to make it "unpleasant," it apparently really does become a nasty chore to listen to. All the data apparently suggests that the "pleasant" music really was pleasant, and its modified "unpleasant" remixes really were unpleasant.
New band idea: take an average trio (drums, bass, guitar) to play songs, and then add in a second and third bassist and guitarist, playing the exact same song except a tritone below and a tone above the first. Enrage/depress/alienate audiences everywhere!
Oh, one other cool bit ... the amygdala, the bit in your brain that's in charge of negative emotion (like fear, anger, etc.) actually gets suppressed when you listen to pleasant music.
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Mogwai's Stop Coming to My House and Tracy (specially the remix) are two of the saddest pieces of music i've heard.
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New band idea: take an average trio (drums, bass, guitar) to play songs, and then add in a second and third bassist and guitarist, playing the exact same song except a tritone below and a tone above the first. Enrage/depress/alienate audiences everywhere!
Avant Grade and 21st century composres often used Dissonant counterpoint (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissonant_counterpoint#Dissonant_counterpoint) and Sonorism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonorism). Sonorism often use Micropoliphony (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropolyphony), Cluster Chords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_chord) and Microtonality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtonal_music).
Or you can just go straight into Dodecaphony (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodecaphony).
I recommend Arnold Schönberg's A Survivor from Warsaw and all of Pierrot Lunaire (Dodecaphony), Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 1 (Sonorism, mainly Micropolyphony), Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima and String Quartet No. 2 (Cluster Chords and Dissonant counterpoint).
These are all "unpleasant" music, but I really love all of these pieces. They really annoyed the rest of my music class though.
All I'm trying to say is that it has been done before and really well.
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Sigur ros for me. Jonsis voice almost seems like another instrument, maybe because i dont understand icelandic?
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Sigur ros for me. Jonsis voice almost seems like another instrument, maybe because i dont understand icelandic?
You could speak fluent Icelandic and not understand Sigur Ros, they sing in an invented language last time I checked.
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( ) was in hopelandic, along with a few tracks from takk. The rest is icelandic.
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Ever since I bought You, You're A History In Rust it's re-hit me how instrumental music is much more effective at producing highly specific emotions/feelings in me over music with singing/lyrics. Nick Drake makes me intensely sad because I kind of know what he's singing about, but Do Make Say Think often have me imagining entire scenes or complicated series's of emotions using only music.
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I recommend Arnold Schönberg's A Survivor from Warsaw and all of Pierrot Lunaire (Dodecaphony), Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 1 (Sonorism, mainly Micropolyphony), Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima and String Quartet No. 2 (Cluster Chords and Dissonant counterpoint).
These are all "unpleasant" music, but I really love all of these pieces. They really annoyed the rest of my music class though.
All I'm trying to say is that it has been done before and really well.
Before I got to your post I was planning out almost exactly the same post, but I also had Alban Berg's Wozzeck in the mix as well.
It's crazy shit but it's damn good.
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I'm surprised no ones mentioned explosions in the sky... that's some of the most explosively emotional music I know. In terms of soundtracks... Clint Mansell's score for the fountain is pretty amazing. It combines the talents of both the Kronos quartet and Mogwai to produce a really frightening, sad and powerful sound. His soundtrack for Requiem for a dream works much the same way.
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A Silver Mt. Zion usually invoke a feeling of loss and mourning whenever I listen to them...a deep anguish that almost makes me sick in my stomache...if I'm in the right frame of mind, and my surroundings are just right, I can sometimes find myself just sitting and weeping while I listen to them, and I don't ever really understand why. It's strangely cathartic...
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Explosions in the Sky can evoke different emotions from me. For instance, "Your Hands In Mine" makes me feel really happy, especially when the drums kick in. Also, "KC Accidental" by Broken Social Scene, makes me really energetic and happy for some reason. I was walking to school one time, and I was listening to them. This song came on, and the first time the crash symbols were struck, my face got instantaneously tingly, and I felt really cool.
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So I figured there was a cool topic here ... what instrumental music evokes the strongest and most distinct emotions in you? What makes you happy, sad, fearful, etc.?
I think about 2/3rds of the music I listen to is instrumental, so I find this question a bit weird. I actually think it'd be pretty hard to isolate what formal traits evoke certain feelings.
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Ever since I bought You, You're A History In Rust it's re-hit me how instrumental music is much more effective at producing highly specific emotions/feelings in me over music with singing/lyrics
That's interesting, I think the strongest tracks on that album are the ones with singing.
I'd recommend their second and fourth albums as better instrumental records (Goodbye Enemy Airship the Landlord is Dead and Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn).
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I think the interesting thing about instrumental music is that it's so subjective... it's how the listener hears it and it isn't limited to particular emotions the way music with lyrics is. I mean, I know different chord progressions etc. are associated with a particular mood... but still it is so much more open to the listeners own perspective and experience.
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I have to second the minimalist music. I love that stuff. Philip Glass, I think, is one of the best film composers. His style is very evocative of emotion to me. I also love the stuff from Danny Elfman, Clint Mansell (Pi, Requiem for a Dream), and Michael Andrews (Donnie Darko).
One of the best pieces, and one that lots of musicians agree as the saddest song in all of history, is Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.
Another composer that I discovered this year is Henryk Gorecki. Listen to his Symphony No. 3, recorded with Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta. It really is mindblowing. It's featured in the movie Fearless and really makes the end of the movie.
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Anyone mentioned Pelican yet? Or Steve Vai? Both are extremely expressive and enjoyable.
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I'm listening to Samuel Barber's Adagio. Pretty fucking sad i got to say. I'm sure I've heard it before. Have you heard Clint Mansell's score for the Fountain... I think it's even better than the Requiem for a dream one.
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I think the interesting thing about instrumental music is that it's so subjective... it's how the listener hears it and it isn't limited to particular emotions the way music with lyrics is. I mean, I know different chord progressions etc. are associated with a particular mood... but still it is so much more open to the listeners own perspective and experience.
Sorry lex, its less subjective than music with vocals due to certain msuical nerdiness manipulating you.
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You'e argument intrigues me... though I'm not sure it makes sense...
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I come from a strong jazz background, so I think I'm a little biased in matters concerning the emotional impact of tunes. Autumn Leaves, the Johnny Mercer tune gets me everytime, though.
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Naima is one of my favorites for jazz.
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ya I'm new so dont flame for mentioning bands that are as far from indie as possible, and besides, if they'er still respected after 40 years they must be doing something right.
"Jessica" by the Allman Brothers always makes me feel exited, as if i'm trying something new for the first time.
And although its not completly instrumental (2 min of soft singing out of a total 23 min)
"Echos" by pink floyd evoke about 5 different kinds of emotions for me.
At the beginning I feel like I'm slowing falling into some bottomless pit
Then after the first 5 min, its as if I lift up and then I'm soaring
Then when it goes into that weird funk beat, I feel like killing someone in exchange for a hammond organ and richard wrights fingers
The whole storm and whale song, I dont know what to feel
Final the whole climax at the end feels like a breath of fresh air after a long car ride
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I'll call your "Echoes", and raise you one "Careful With That Axe, Eugene".
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Since we're talking instrumental...ONE OF THESE DAYS.
JESUS.
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Beethoven's late quartets are by turns terribly melancholic, cathartic, joyous and soothing. Truly they are the greatest music cycle ever written. The high point is the "Heiliger Dankgesang" movement from the Op 132 (that's the slow one). It helps that it is one of the most masterful and effective (and affecting) uses of modal harmony ever.
Brahms 4, 4th movement is so oppresively tragic that sometimes I just want to stop listening, but I'm transfixed. It's one of the most emotional pieces of mid-to-late Romantic music, but paradoxically it's tremendously old-fashioned (even by Brahms' standards ... of course it makes perfect sense - I have little time for Wagner and find Mahler etc too overblown almost to the point of absurdity). It is not only a passacaglia, a standard Baroque form, the ground bass theme is totally ripped off from a Bach cantata. But it just gives this sense of complete and utter dread for something that everyone knows is coming but is unstoppable and is absolutely dreadful. And then there's the middle bit which I won't spoil for you but absolutely makes it AWESOME.
Yeah.
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Was it really neccessary for you to rip on Wagner. I don't claim to be well versed in baroque and classical music but Wagner is easily my favorite composer, the shear grandiosness of he's music just reaches out to me and gah I'm lost for words but I think Wagner's music is very good, it's a shame you can't find time for it...
Grieg is a composer I've been getting into recently but i find he's music just doesn't have the depth to it that Wagner manages, it's nice to listen to but at the same time it's unfulfiling. I like some of Mozarts symphonies a lot.
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Oh I don't mind Wagner all that much really; I'm just very much firmly in the Brahms camp in that silly 'war of the Romantics' dealio they had going in the late 19th century. I actually do like Bruckner and Mahler very much when I'm in the right mood (and want to sit down and listen intensely for an hour), but I'm not a huge opera guy so Wagner's never really done it for me very much. But yeah, I have always thought that Brahms was just much better than the other guys.
'Cept Dvorak, and really I only say that to counter all the wankers who treat him as some kind of lightweight ersatz 'Czech Brahms', when he was so much more. The last four symphonies are at least equal to all four of Brahms'. At least he had the guts to write some before he turned forty, without being all 'oh no people expect me to be Beethoven' and whinging all the time. Jeez, Romanticism didn't begin and end with Germany.
Actually, on that point, Franck needs more time too. His symphony (he only did one because he was a piano guy; so was Brahms but Brahms was a natural orchestral writer really - the comparison should really be Liszt who thought he was too cool for symphonies?) is absolutely wonderful, and while we're talking about emotional music it is absolutely orgasmic. I mean, it's meant to be about the joy of religious faith (the orgasm moment is commonly referred to as the 'faith theme'), but we depraved godless sexual beasts can appropriate it can't we?
So, in conclusion; Brahms is a cool dude, Wagner is an opera dude and is probably cooler than I give him credit for, and Bruckner and Mahler are pretty alright, and GIVE DVORAK A CHANCE YOU TOSSERS (and as tossers you will enjoy Franck).
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You'e argument intrigues me... though I'm not sure it makes sense...
Lets put it simply -
If say we have a sad song with vocals (minor key) it could be interpeted as happy, or make us feel happy because of lyrical content
If we take the same msuic without the vocals (minor key, minor progressions, basics Alex) it will ALWAYS be sad, no matter what.
Now of course things can change and once we start dealing with diminished, suspended, augmented, tritones, etc then the basic 'emotions' become SLIGHTLY more coloured and things a little more confusing. But still will relate to 'sad' or 'happy' in the same way major and minor will.
Its just subliminal music, everyone reacts with the same base emotinos to the same musical 'rules'. Artists know this, musicians know this and can use it, its how the more powerful songs are created. (Mogwai for example.)
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That completely ignores arrangements, timbre, etc. It also ignores the fact that music isn't received in a vacuum - our responses are at least to some extent taught. If I hear a progression or even an arrangement that's similar to something I know, and which I already have formed some reaction to, then this will influence how I respond to the new music.
Stuff like Mogwai makes me react with mild boredom and frustration, sometimes punctuated by rolling my eyes at how tedious it is. I'm not writing this to be a hater, but to demonstrate that your theory doesn't actually hold in practice.
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The real question is whether or not the emotional reaction to harmony is 'hard wired' or socialised? I've always assumed that it's the former, but that's just fucked up and really I can't get my head around it. Do we associate a minor key with sadness because it is 'inherently' sad, or is it because it's been used in the past to represent sadness? I guess if it's the latter then it's similar to language - I mean, it seems intuitive that a minor key is sad, but it also seems intuitive that the sound 'dog' represents a dog (or the conceptual signified that corresponds to whatever it is a 'real' dog is, to adopt Saussure's terminology, but let's not get too technical).
I mean, a minor triad is made up of the same elements of a major triad (if you look at it one way) - a minor third and a major third; it's just that in a major chord the major third is below the minor third, and in a minor chord it's the other way around. Why the hell should this be 'sad' or 'happy'?
Music is insane if you think about it. How does it even WORK.
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Oops, edited my post as John Curtin made his... basically I'm suggesting that it must at least some extent be socialised.
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That completely ignores arrangements, timbre, etc. It also ignores the fact that music isn't received in a vacuum - our responses are at least to some extent taught. If I hear a progression or even an arrangement that's similar to something I know, and which I already have formed some reaction to, then this will influence how I respond to the new music.
Stuff like Mogwai makes me react with mild boredom and frustration, sometimes punctuated by rolling my eyes at how tedious it is. I'm not writing this to be a hater, but to demonstrate that your theory doesn't actually hold in practice.
I wasnt trying to get in depth, merely show that intrumental music, generally, operates on moving people through musical 'laws', certain notes will sound sad (for whatever reason, we'l talk about that later). If we are talking about opinions take it as a song, it can sound similar to, but not the same as a song, theres a racer X solo thats alot like a rage against the machine solo, difference? Minor third. While when listening to either I'm reminded of the other song it doesnt change the fact RATM is sadder than Racer X, because of the minor third.
As far as emotional response due to some kind of osmosis from other songs, or memories; I have no idea. Thats not an area of music and psychology i know anything about and wasnt really what I was getting at, good point and well made, food for thought.
In refernce to mogwai, it doesn't matter so much as whether anything enthralls you, a song written in a certain way, whether you like it or not will sound sad. You cannot argue minor music sounds joyous, neither can you argue a full orchestra reaching crescendo after a major fugue sounds sad. Thats how it is.
The real question is whether or not the emotional reaction to harmony is 'hard wired' or socialised? I've always assumed that it's the former, but that's just fucked up and really I can't get my head around it. Do we associate a minor key with sadness because it is 'inherently' sad, or is it because it's been used in the past to represent sadness? I guess if it's the latter then it's similar to language - I mean, it seems intuitive that a minor key is sad, but it also seems intuitive that the sound 'dog' represents a dog (or the conceptual signified that corresponds to whatever it is a 'real' dog is, to adopt Saussure's terminology, but let's not get too technical).
I mean, a minor triad is made up of the same elements of a major triad (if you look at it one way) - a minor third and a major third; it's just that in a major chord the major third is below the minor third, and in a minor chord it's the other way around. Why the hell should this be 'sad' or 'happy'?
Music is insane if you think about it. How does it even WORK.
I'd disagree that its socialised, its not as if people when we were Labelling and writing the mechanics of music decied; 'this note is sad'. During the Baroque era when alot of modern music theory was founded, emotional responses (or even names) were based on traditions, sad songs had a minor 3rd and a raised 7th, for example. HOWEVER the this is not a fact that pertains to that era, or time or culture, or geography, the exact same things happen all over the world and those musical events that are called minor will ALWAYS sound sad, no matter whether your 5th mutist or a 21st century harpsichordist, Western Classical composer or Arabic cleric.
In regards to how does music work, it just does. Dont try to look into it as brain waves adn psychological responses, you'll die of confusion (and it makes music alot less fun). Eventually it gets to the point were almost every note can sound right, because, if you know how, you can manipulate the music to suit you (in the sense of adding diminsihed, augmented, suspended coloured notes to a chord, as well as infite other manipulations). That being said, in order not to contradict myself, thats another dimension upon a basic 'sad' or 'happy' note. Its creating another level to that chord, they'll still be sad or happy (assuming we are ONLY sticking to minor and majors here) but prehaps more melencolic, or more climactical.
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I actually just meant that music with lyrics immediately involves specifics... yeah the chord may be minor but it is only accompiament (is that how you spell that fucking word) to the singer's narration of a hard night at the bar etc. Because of this it limits the listeners abillity to relate to it... often they need to have experienced a hard night at the bar to really be on the same level as the lyricist. The lyrics are the singers interpretation of that minor chord, where as purely intrumental music is open wholly to the listeners interpretation based on their own experiences. I don't doubt that musicians are using the emotional implications of the chord they're using to heighten the songs power.
Nosebleedkid, please spare me your patronising use of superior music theory knowledge. I can see right through the arrogant facade at the fragile Mr. Mattie lurking beneath the surface. Go suck a fat one.
Interesting ideas there about whether our interpretation of music is taught. I have no idea.
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Arrogance? Confidence? Or maybe passion? (PS I am smarter than you, I go to school - SNAP! :laugh: :mrgreen:)
I take your point about the lyrical content. However often it doesnt matter what someones singing about (I think your devotion to sigur ros and their pretnecious BS proves this) eventually its all notes and peoples reactions to them on some level.
But, if you take a sad song with sad lyrics, and make the lyrics happy. Ins tead of death or loss about puppies and happy rainbows the mood of the song is changed as an intellectual interpretation fo what the listener SHOULD be feeling.
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In refernce to mogwai, it doesn't matter so much as whether anything enthralls you, a song written in a certain way, whether you like it or not will sound sad. You cannot argue minor music sounds joyous, neither can you argue a full orchestra reaching crescendo after a major fugue sounds sad. Thats how it is.
Yeah, sorry, I thought you were suggesting we ought to react a certain way to a certain piece of music, which I think is not the case. When it comes to descriptions about whether something is sad or whatever, I agree with what you're saying here.
Have you heard much music not based on the even-tempered scale? It's pretty interesting, wrt having no reference points for what's supposed to be happy or sad sounding. I'm not meaning academic microtonal or whatever stuff, spectralism, etc. just thinking of e.g. stuff on a bazouki or an oud or gamelan or whatever else. Even the slightly off-even-tempered ragas of Indian classical. This kind of thing does suggest to me that our responses to tonal music must be at least partially socialised, because if it were all hardwired wouldn't every culture get there eventually? Find the magical formula for sad or happy or whatever else and get right into making stuff that way? Maybe that's an entirely flawed conclusion... Dunno.
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Thats defiantely an interesting thing to take into consideration, music theory adn the like is really something I dig, so excuse my wordiness.
I was actually listenting to some idian/arabic world music today with an oud in it. To me it sounded quite upbeat (didnt bother to thinka bout chords and the like, didnt need to) however the vocals, which are very unique, sounded strained and a little sad.
"hardwired wouldn't every culture get there eventually?"
Thats the point. I certainly beleive that everyone is handwired to some extent. Thats my argument that at the basics all people react almost the same to a particular chord (I am talking quite simply here because if I branch out I dont think i'll stop writing).
"Find the magical formula for sad or happy or whatever else and get right into making stuff that way? Maybe that's an entirely flawed conclusion... Dunno."
Well alot of classical music is composed this way, at least initially, dont know what you think about that. Personally I dont think tis a very soulful way or fun approach to music. I like to know about it so I can become better at music, know more, play more intricatly, but I dont think anyone sits down to try and formulise music as dos and donts, there plenty of them already, musics supposed to fun!
But its a good point and the intellectual elitism alot of musical theory nerds and gurus exhibit can certainly leave this impression.
Conclusion - A good instrumentalist will be aware that people react a certain way to certain things and make use of it, thus leaving no room for basic emotional interpretation.
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Aw snap, Sam...you burned both Def Leppard AND everyone posting in this thread at the same time! That's effiency right there, son.
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I take your point about the lyrical content. However often it doesnt matter what someones singing about (I think your devotion to sigur ros and their pretnecious BS proves this) eventually its all notes and peoples reactions to them on some level.
Sigur ros doesn't have lyrics per se... the vocals are used purely like the instruments... it's not about what they're saying but how they're saying it. It may be all notes... and I deffinitely agree with you that it's how people react to it... but if those notes are sad and the singers lyrics are... "I'm so fucking happy/ everything's great/ the world is beautiful... that's just a contradiction.
So, in closing, I'm talking about lyrics that refference specific emotions drawn from the lyricists own experience... I'm not saying every band with a singer does this.
Anyways I think we should, as suggested by the previous post, cool it on our bullshit know it all argument.
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I mean, a minor triad is made up of the same elements of a major triad (if you look at it one way) - a minor third and a major third; it's just that in a major chord the major third is below the minor third, and in a minor chord it's the other way around. Why the hell should this be 'sad' or 'happy'?
Music is insane if you think about it. How does it even WORK.
Every note has Overtones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtones). If you press the C key on a piano and listen carefully, you could hear not only the C you're playing, but also another C an octave above it, a major third above the C (E), a fifth above that C (G) and then another C an octave above the second one. So basically, the overtones give us a major triad: CEG.
So what happens in a minor triad? The major third, the third being the strongest element in any triad, is dropped a half step. In this case to an E flat, giving us this minor triad: CEbG. Because the minor third is a half step below the major third in C's overtones our mind immediately translates the dissonance to "sad".
*I'm not sure about the order of the overtones, and I really don't want to start calculating it with the Wiki article.
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As a physics student I can tell you that the first three overtones are not the octave, fifth and major third. There's a perfect fourth in there which clashes with both the perfect fifth and the major third, and I think that's evidence to suggest that there's something more complicated going on than just 'we like the first few overtones just because'. Sure, harmonies get less pleasant as the frequency ratios get closer together - hence minor seconds are pretty 'dissonant'. But it's more complicated when you have three notes playing.
Let's see.
C's fifth is G.
G's perfect fourth is C so it's nice both ways; its fifth is D. Why doesn't CGD sound nice? The C and the D clash.
C's perfect fourth is F. Again, that clashes with the G.
The next nice harmonic is the major third, then the minor third.
C's major third is E. E's minor third is G. CEG is a major C chord, like you said.
OK, so there you are, it's a nice rationalisation. But it's getting pretty complicated. Additionally, it doesn't explain why a major triad is 'happier' than a minor triad, which is the real mystery I was talking about; a minor triad has more or less the same interrelationship of intervals, and it seems pretty arbitrary that it's the 'sad' one. There's something exceptionally strange about it all.
(This post is very messy and I apologise for that!)
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All I was trying to point out is that a major chord sounds "good" or "natural" because every note's overtones produce a major chord. Our mind interpets dissonances and consonances differently.
I'm not a musicologist, of course, but I've studied music theory (although very basic music theory) and plan on studying music theory.
Your post isn't messy at all, Overtones are pretty tricky.
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I'll call your "Echoes", and raise you one "Careful With That Axe, Eugene".
damn you, I'm gonna have to fold, ummagumma is the only pink floyd studio album i dont own, I think im gonna go dl it now.
"any colour you like" makes me feel like I'm driving through downtown las vegas with my head out the sunroof and I'm passing all those neon signs.
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Things like symphonies or other works performed by a large orchestra are great for the "big sound", but the first thing I thought of was solo acoustic piano or solo acoustic guitar for evoking pure emotion. To me, it doesn't get any more personal than someone who knows their way around an instrument. When I hear a sad, contemplative piece on guitar or piano, and just have to close my eyes and sink into it. Ahhhh!
I've had acoustic pieces bring me to tears because they were so beautiful. That's a level of emotion I just don't get with electronic music (though I do like my electric guitars and synthesizers for rocking out).
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For overtones, think of a trumpet (or any other brass instrument for that matter). If you play with open valves, the notes you can play are as follows: C, G, C, E, G, etc... I don't know all the notes above that, partly because I don't play trumpet... But yes, the first few, and most audible, overtones create a major triad. After these notes, the intervals continue getting smaller and smaller.
But then you have to remember, the intervals don't fit into our modern scale. The intervals get smaller, but not in line with our scale. There's equal temperament tuning, well temperament, just intonation, and quite a few other tuning methods. By actual science, the scale we use today is "out of tune". The reason we use it though is because back before it, if you transposed or modulated to another key, or even if you jumped an octave or two, it would sound very different from your original key. That's why Bach wrote The Well-Tempered Klavier, and that's why Benjamin Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, which uses a natural horn, sounds "out of tune".
It's a really interesting concept, all the different tuning methods, that a lot of composers explore at school. I mean, most of us grow up thinking that the scale we always hear is the only way to tune...
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This overtones stuff is really interesting, I don't know much about it. I started an acoustics course at university, but I found the lecturer so boring that I quit. Dumb me.
I remember Eno saying he went through a period of getting distracted just holding down the sustain pedal on a piano and hitting a single key as hard as possible... just listening to the quietly ascending notes that tail off... gave it a try once, but it was in the middle of a party, so mainly everyone thought I was really hot and tried to have sex with me. No wait. It wasn't quite like that.
I also remember that bells have pretty dissonant overtones, which may help to explain why no gamelan tunings go near an even-tempered scale...
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Well, Gamelan is just intentionally tuned a little bit off from each other. You always buy the gamelan instruments as an entire ensemble and they're always just a tiny bit out of tune with each other in order to give that characteristic little bite of distortion.
As far as bells, though, they definitely are interesting. Arvo Part has spent a good chunk of his life studying and composing in the style of Tintinnabulation, a term he's coined that deals with the overtones of bells.
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I'll call your "Echoes", and raise you one "Careful With That Axe, Eugene".
Yeah, as some people above have said, Echoes, One of These Days, etc.
A lot of Pink Floyd songs, such as Mudmen, Any Colour You Like, Interstellar Overdrive :lol:, Atom Heart Mother, Obscured By Clouds/When You're In, On The Run, and Terminal Frost.
Now for some non-Pink Floyd songs:
YYZ - Rush
Almost anything by Jean Michael Jarre
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Okay, so, tell me if I'm wrong, I'm just kind of guessing out of the blue, but, I have this hunch that you might like Pink Floyd
is this correct sir
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that may perhaps be just the slightest bit true... *glances around shadily*