can music be life altering?

If music doesn't affect you emotionally, then the problem is one of three things:

1) Perhaps you're not listening to the right sort of music (for you)
2) You don't have an "ear" for music in general, or are tone deaf (not an insult; a great deal of people apparently don't have sufficient aural resolution to appreciate fine harmonies and subtle tones in music.)
3) You are Mr. Spock. (Again not an insult; music has the ability to convey all sorts of emotions, but only if you're "tuned" to them in the first place. Spock would have a hard time appreciating any kind of music, I reckon.)

I have been listening to all genres of music for over 30 years, starting with classics like Beethoven and Mahler when I was in my teens. They completely blew me away at the time, and still can. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING more emotionally charged than Mahler's Resurrection symphony. If that doesn't move you then there's no hope. But Rock music can do it too. In fact any type of music (providing it is played with conviction) can move me. There is something intrinsically human about music. Every musician leaves part of him/herself in their work, I reckon.

Music can also attach itself to memories in a powerful way (as in Mystic Fred's point about Queen.) When my best friend was dying of cancer, I gave him a copy of Pink Floyd's Division Bell (which had just been released then). The last song on that album, "High Hopes" reminds me of him ever time I hear it, as it was the last piece of music he ever heard. Highly appropriate too, as it happened.

Music has definitely altered my life, in all sorts of ways. I can't live without it. I write music, I write ABOUT music, I analyse it, I play it, I (used to) perform it, and even research the history of it. (see my website http://www.herring.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk)

But I still can't explain exactly what it is, or why it has the effect on me that it does. Maybe if I knew, the magic would go away (and I don't want that to happen!)
    
p.s. Read this story about one man's quest to regain his hearing and hear his favourite piece - it's quite moving. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/bolero_pr.html
    

Edited by ElwoodHerring - July 12 2006 at 09:15

Not life changing but life enhancing. Music for me also acts as a good memory-jogger, i pull out some great old album and soon remember everything i was doing or people i knew around the time of its release. Some happy memories come flooding back when i hear an album such as "Led Zeppelin 4", when i was driving round Devon with a beautiful friend (where is she now??), but it can work the other way - at the time "A Night at the Opera" by Queen came out my Dad was in hospital with cancer and died shortly after. I was so upset i still can't play the damn thing to this day.

Frasse wrote: People may find comfort in the lyrics. Music can also help people with boring lifes full of problems keep going on, for example: A guy who works all day all week spends his spare time listening to music. It gives him the pause and inspiration he needs.

Sounds like you've been reading the story of my life!  I live alone and work from home designing and maintaining databases.  I've got music running the entire day.  On weekends and vacations, I try to compose.  Music is my one true escape from a mundane existence.

People may find comfort in the lyrics.

Music can also help people with boring lifes full of problems keep going on, for example:
A guy who works all day all week spends his spare time listening to music. It gives him the pause and inspiration he needs.