I came to love music at a very tender age when my mother taught me how to play Amazing Grace on the piano.

My Father was a big fan of Johnny Cash and I spent many hours listening to his records on the old Hi Fi. My sister was a big Elvis fan and I listened to many Elvis recordings while  I was growing up and even to this day my record collection includes many Elvis albums.

I feel sorry fo anyone who is not touched by music in any form, whether it be Mariah, Prog, Classicall, Jazz or whatever. When I come home I put something great on the turntable rather than turning on the idiot box to view a retarded sitcom or the bad news from CNN.

If my wife happens to be at home she will always be singing and it always brings my spirits up. Music always results in happiness, and noththing less. Sometimes we do duets on our piano, which gives us so much joy, and believe me she is way way way way better than I am!

I would like to hear from members  on why you love music so much.

Good topic

I love music because it expresses and demands emotions, ideas, visions that cannot be articulated any other way. Whatever feelings or dreams lie deep inside you, music can directly stimulate them, bypassing all the usual crap. I love literature, poetry, painting and film (even some television!), but even the best of it is filtered and artificial compared to the mainline rush of music.

For me, music is intensely personal. I've always placed concerts and other social musical situations way behind the pleasure of a putting on a pair of headphones. I guess when it gets right down to it, I'm an escapist...

Music is creation, rather than destruction.

Music is structure and beauty from nothingness.

Music is fragile but enduring magic -- it only exists when it is being played, and there are ears to hear it.

Music lifts us above the mundane.

Music is pleasure. 

Music is love.

Music is life!

I believe that art can be the noblest of human endeavors.

Peter that was beautifully said.

My high school music teacher who recently passed away was from Germany. His name was Helmut Winkler and he really appreciated the work of Glenn Miller and the Army Air Force Band. During WWII he was the conductor of a Wermacht marching band. Glenn Miller music was forbidden to be listened to in Nazi Germany as at the the time as it existed as a morale booster for allied military men. Mr. Winkler would listen to Glenn Miller music broadcasted from England on a piece of crap short wave radio he rigged up in his attic at the risk of being shot by the Gestapo. In high school he would always emphasize that we were playing the same arrangements of Glenn Miller pieces in our stage band, String Of Pearls, In The Mood and Moonlight Serenade. We won a top prize at a music competition as a result.

Music resides inside of us. We will die for it.

When I was a kid I had a very severe case of Asthma and on those days Sports were out of limits for asthma patients, so I had to find something that could take the place of whet healthy kids could do, thanks God my Mother always gave me good music (Classical) and suported me when I started to listen prog', at the point that she's a Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel and Patrick Moraz fan today, something strange for a person that started to listen Prog' when her son was 13.

When I was 14 I stoped caring for my asthma and started to surf all the year and play football (The real one, not the USA) but never lost my love for music.

Music is part of my life, I couldn't survive without it, music is with me when I'm happy, sad, worried or in any humour, it's one of my best friends.

Iván

Ivan,

 Great story. Music is one of my best friends as well. It has followed me throughout my life journey . It has never let me down and won't leave me alone for some strange reason. What would we do without this good friend?

We love music for many reasons, but I'd like to put forward the real, physical, provable reason (such is my wont!).

Music consists of soundwaves. Nothing earth-shattering there.

Each soundwave has it's own effect on you in a physical way - not just through your aural receptors, but your entire body. You will find the vibrations caused by the soundwaves individually and in concert with each other cause you to feel good or bad about the music in many ways. You really are "picking up good vibrations..."

Another physical way in which music can have a direct effect and make you "love" it, is chemical. Put simply, the vibrations caused by the soundwaves cause your body to produce chemical reactions. Combine those with powerful lyrics, and a song can move you to tears (a chemical reaction). Sometimes music alone can do this - such is its power.

It's easy to demonstrate just how powerful soundwaves are - a soprano singing the C two octaves above middle C can famously smash a wine glass, because the sound waves resonate at the same frequency as the glass. A very low frequency can also cause a building to crumble into dust.

Combining certain frequencies into pleasing patterns is the art of composition. Since different bodies resonate sympathetically or negatively to different combinations of frequencies, we have different tastes. If the composer gets the patterns right for you, he/she has succeeded at her art, and you have a piece of music you love.

I have been surrounded by music my whole life. It is THE universal language. I've noticed that people tend to be a bit more polite and social in places where music is playing. Conversations flow when the music is soothing and played at an "ear comforting" level. I've started more conversations (not just pick ups, eh!) because the person seemed to enjoy the music. A simple, "I like that tune, too" and the ice is broken.

Music heals. John Lee Hooker nearly said it all with "Blues is the Healer." I have seen that and felt it. Music can pull you out of a depression, mend a disagreement with a loved one, ease the pain of a migraine or help blow off a bad day at work or school.

On the other hand, music can move you to do stupid things. It's a dis-inhibitor, not unlike alcohol. It can be intoxicating in it's pull. Maybe even addictive. I know I gotta have it and I feel sh*tty when I don't.

Certif1ed wrote: We love music for many reasons, but I'd like to put forward the real, physical, provable reason (such is my wont!). Music consists of soundwaves. Nothing earth-shattering there. Each soundwave has it's own effect on you in a physical way - not just through your aural receptors, but your entire body. You will find the vibrations caused by the soundwaves individually and in concert with each other cause you to feel good or bad about the music in many ways. You really are "picking up good vibrations..." Another physical way in which music can have a direct effect and make you "love" it, is chemical. Put simply, the vibrations caused by the soundwaves cause your body to produce chemical reactions. Combine those with powerful lyrics, and a song can move you to tears (a chemical reaction). Sometimes music alone can do this - such is its power. It's easy to demonstrate just how powerful soundwaves are - a soprano singing the C two octaves above middle C can famously smash a wine glass, because the sound waves resonate at the same frequency as the glass. A very low frequency can also cause a building to crumble into dust. Combining certain frequencies into pleasing patterns is the art of composition. Since different bodies resonate sympathetically or negatively to different combinations of frequencies, we have different tastes. If the composer gets the patterns right for you, he/she has succeeded at her art, and you have a piece of music you love.

Good scientific stuff, Certo!

And then of course Cert, there are also the lyrics (poetry) which, sung rather than spoken, have the power to move us to tears, laughter, etc. One well-penned line can seem to say so much, to so many....

Distilled emotion and life experience. 

others are always far more eloquent than I

Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness.
--George Jean Nathan

Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.
--E.Y. Harburg (Edgar Yipsel) (1898 - 1981)

Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.
--Anais Nin

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Without music, life is a journey through a desert
--Pat Conroy

Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.
--Yehudi Menuhin

It is only by introducing the young to great literature, drama and music, and to the excitement of great science that we open to them the possibilities that lie within the human spirit -- enable them to see visions and dream dreams.
--Eric Anderson

I improvised, crazed by the music. . . . Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.
--Josephine Baker (1906-1975) French dancer

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
--Albert Schweitzer (01/14/1875-1965)

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.
--Victor Hugo

Where words fail, music speaks.
--Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) Danish short-story writer, poet

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
--Maya Angelou

All the sounds of the earth are like music.
--Oscar Hammerstein (1895-1960)

It had never occurred to me before that music and thinking are so much alike. In fact you could say music is another way of thinking, or maybe thinking is another kind of music.
--Ursula K. Le Guin

In music one must think with the heart and feel with the brain.
--George Szell

You are the music while the music lasts.
--T. S. Eliot

Katie Greenwood
Music isn't just learning notes and playing them, You learn notes to play to the music of your soul.

Red Auerbach
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

Benjamin Britten
It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.
 
Thomas Carlyle
Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.

George Eliot (1819-80), [Mary Ann Evans] British writer
There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
 
Geoffrey Latham
Music is the vernacular of the human soul.

Theodore Mungers
Like everything else in nature, music is a becoming, and it becomes its full self, when its sounds and laws are used by intelligent man for the production of harmony, and so made the vehicle of emotion and thought.

 
Friedrich Nietzsche
Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines even God singing songs.

Charlie Parker
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

Zimbabwe Proverb
If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing.

And finally….
 
Frank Zappa
Remember, information is not knowledge; knowledge is not wisdom; wisdom is not truth; truth is not beauty; beauty is not love; love is not music; music is the best.
 
Noel Coward
Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.

but of course, I'll have a go...

My first memories of music are as a toddler being dandled on my mother's knee to her humming the Archies 'Sugar Sugar' and her favourite Neil Diamond songs. It's been with me ever since, music no the Archies thank God!

From the moment I saw Marc Bolan playing Children of the Revolution on TOTP at age 7, which made me believe the alien and other-worldly to the vast vistas opened up by Sgt Pepper's to the childish dleight I take in the naffest three-chord trick, I have always found my greatest pleasure in music.

It inspired me to listen and to play and thus whole new vistas were opened up when my own fingers could articulate the inarcticulate - no matter that it was all rubbish.

Music is part of my waking and sleeping, dreaming and daydreaming, musing and grooving. I cannot imagine an existence in which music does not form the driving impetus of my experience of the world. It is my soulmate, my bugbear, my downfall and my resurrection, my fury and my respite, my lover and helpmeet. To quote Wilco's Jeff Tweedy - I am defined by rock and roll.

In short, it f***in rocks.

Certif1ed wrote: We love music for many reasons, but I'd like to put forward the real, physical, provable reason (such is my wont!). Music consists of soundwaves. Nothing earth-shattering there. Each soundwave has it's own effect on you in a physical way - not just through your aural receptors, but your entire body. You will find the vibrations caused by the soundwaves individually and in concert with each other cause you to feel good or bad about the music in many ways. You really are "picking up good vibrations..." Another physical way in which music can have a direct effect and make you "love" it, is chemical. Put simply, the vibrations caused by the soundwaves cause your body to produce chemical reactions. Combine those with powerful lyrics, and a song can move you to tears (a chemical reaction). Sometimes music alone can do this - such is its power. It's easy to demonstrate just how powerful soundwaves are - a soprano singing the C two octaves above middle C can famously smash a wine glass, because the sound waves resonate at the same frequency as the glass. A very low frequency can also cause a building to crumble into dust. Combining certain frequencies into pleasing patterns is the art of composition. Since different bodies resonate sympathetically or negatively to different combinations of frequencies, we have different tastes. If the composer gets the patterns right for you, he/she has succeeded at her art, and you have a piece of music you love.

I have plenty of respect for you, Cert, but please tell me you're being satirical.

Why?

What do you think is wrong with the theories?

I'm not saying these are the only reasons, merely provable scientific ones.

If you think that art is purely art, and that there is no science in it, then there's a whole area of music you're missing out on - it's brilliant stuff!

Oh, I'm not dismissing the scientific value of your post; I think it is fascinating how various external stimuli can provoke a emotional response, backed up by the mind's constant endeavor to put some kind of order to meaningless perceptions.

A couple of bright musical types made some observations on this topic:

http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/wire96b.html - http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/wire 96b.html

But when it gets right down to it, that's not why we love music. I read your post and imagined a device which is programmed to directly cause specific chemical reactions in the body. Ceratinly the inventor who makes that happen will be respected (and rich!), but such a machine will never be loved like an inspired piece of music.

I don'y think sub-moronic entities such a s as yourself should not even exist. I offered you an appology and and you did not even have the manlinliness to aknowlege it.

I spent 9 years flying your American junk as a pilot in The Canadian Forces.

Because of you, I am leaving this site and will formally ask Max to remove all my reviews.

Go to Hell.

VB: I have a different view of what went down, but I was hoping to let it all go.

At first, you didn't apologize- you referred to an apology which, if you wrote it, I never read. Then when I said I'd like to see it, you replied "what do you want, my blood" or something like that, which to me doesn't sound like sincere apology material (but I may be mistaken). Then, nothing happened for a while and I assumed it was all over.

Now, all of a sudden, this outburst...which to me seems uncalled for, unless you're still talking about the old stuff (which, like I said, I had thought was over with).

Before you get the wrong idea, I didn't really care then and I don't really care now...just wanted to make it clear how the situation appears to me.

Cert: if I offended you with the way I worded my response to your post, I'm sorry...I think it's a good discussion and I'd like to hear more of your reasoning.

In response to Mr Lee, who seems to be feeling like he's digging a deep pit - I'm not going to take sides between you and Vibe, having not yet discovered the post or posts in which you two found so much to disagree about. I think you're both intelligent people with a great love for prog music.

I'm in no way offended by your comments, James - I have a great deal of respect for what you think, and I'm simply interested to hear why you think my post may have been satirical (maybe I just missed something).

The first time I heard those theories postulated (at Uni), I nearly cried out "Bollocks!!" myself, until I'd heard the entire lecture, by a professor who specialised in twentieth century music with a prediliction for treating music as a science more than an art. I then wrote a paper on these theories with much relish, as I realised its potential for controversy! Hence I threw it into the mix here - expecting a few more disagreements than I got - I guess people know me too well by now!

The idea of an automatic music-making machine occurred to me at the time (1991) - since I was studying music and computing, I was at liberty to write a program that harmonised melodies in the style of J.S. Bach - which won me a starred First despite the fact that it only worked with certain melodies... but the computer science lecturer didn't catch on, so that was OK

I digress, as usual. It would be horrible to think that machines could calculate how to write music - but, as Mr Eno and co have proved, people actually want to try to create such a machine... the potential is incredibly intriguing

Vibrationbaby wrote: I really enjoyed that one. There is a drummer here in Montreal who is somewhat of a legend. His name is Guy Nadon and he said to me once, " music is about feeling, not counting. Counting is for bankers and lawyers". This guy is probably the greatest drummer ever as any Montrealer will attest to. He blew Buddy Rich away when he was a kid. Rich just left the gig and sped off in his sports car. Another thing about Rich was that he treated his sidemen like crap. Any band Guy Nadon had he treated his fellow musicians with utmost respect and I never heard anyone say a bad thing about the man. And he is also very approachable and will talk to anyone whether it's in between sets or in a restaurant. Music is about love and inner peace. And it can also be interpreted by scientific methods as cert has demonstrated. I could add a few points here but cert has pretty much hit the nail on the head. Nice thoughts cert!

MAN! Je l'ai vu Nadon au Parc Lafontaine dans le Plateau Mont-Royal: il donné un show gratis un soir d'été, il y a une couples d'années! Il drummait avec des boîtes de conserves! Il n'arrêtait pas de parler à la foule! C'est un phénomène, ce gars-là! Peut-être pas aussi hot que Buddy Rich, mais definitivement pas loin derrière! T'as bien raison: c'est un homme super simple qui ne se prend pas pour un autre! Ïl y en a pas assez du monde de même!

T'es pas mal hot d'avoir été choisi pilote d'avion de chasse! Mon frère a tout réussi ce qu'il faisait dans la vie, sauf une chose: pilote de F-18: ses oreilles ne supportaient pas la différence de pression. Tu dois être doué!

Ee bah gum!

Pixel Pirate wrote: Jeg kan også være blærete og skrive på et språk ikke mange kan!

En tråd Nordmenn

Just to pick up again on Certif1ed's posts, I flicked on the radio this afternoon and caught a short report on a music composing program at the University Of Plymouth, UK. The Brazilian researcher (or lecturer?) hooked it up to the reporter's brain via an electrode skull cap and the reporter could change the speed of the music and - apparently - the sequence of notes. The program basically composed in the style of Mozart, but a unique sequence of notes. It's a start, anyway.

The interview was not detailed, but the implication was basically "yes".

The reporter was, in real time, using thought alone to change the tempo and mood of the piano music that the program was playing. I forget the name of the university's department, but it seemed that these guys are doing some interesting research.

I had a quick look - and it seems these guys are heavily into the scientific angle - and then some! 

http://cmr.soc.plymouth.ac.uk/ - http://cmr.soc.plymouth.ac.uk/

"The Computer Music Research team is formed of scholars from different backgrounds and from different departments across the University, including musicians, media artists, engineers, neuroscientists and psychologists."

(my bold type!).

Oh, yes, the reporter mentioned department of something, something and neuroscience.

I used to think that *true* AI was a load of hookum - I should point out that I used to be a software engineer, so I'm not saying that out of ignorance - but I'm not so sure anymore. There was a report in the papers a couple of days ago about a simple brain of 25,000 neural cells grown from rat cells learning to fly an F-22 flight simulator it was hooked up to:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/05/wbrain05.xml - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12 /05/wbrain05.xml

I've always thought that sensory perception is an integral and essential part of intelligence, i.e. it would be impossible to build an intelligent machine without it having both sensory perception and manipulatory abilities.

OK, the 'brain' was only keeping the aircraft steady in level flight, but the way technology is advancing, perhaps in a few hundred years what seems impossible today will be possible. Just like what has happened in the past.

What would music be like if composers could generate it directly out of their heads?

Would musicianship eventually disappear as no one would have to learn to play an instrument?

What if a device could read your mental state and spontaneously generate the perfect suitable accompaniment?

Will everyone be trading personally generated compositions rather than selecting from the available professional recording artists?

selling_echoes wrote: I thought I'd have my turn at this, even though I'm pretty late. Because music is everything your irises cannot perceive. Ever think about the fact that for a blind person, everything becomes music? I see it this way... music is an art, but it is also a generator of foreign feelings. During songs like Mood For A Day (Yes) and Horizon's (Genesis) there are certain emotions running through me that I cannot name, and I love that feeling. Music is the most powerful, most universal, most personal form of art that I know. It is an escape, another parallel reality. I don't know, when I listen to a song I particularly love the song takes me away completely, wraps me in the cascade. It brings people together, it even brings a single person together into one emotion, one song, one silence. I guess I love music because it is timeless. My music timeline : Britney + BSB --> NSYNC + O-Town --> Sum 41 + Simple Plan + Good Charlotte  --> Nirvana + Red Hot Chili Peppers --> Coldplay --> Pink Floyd + Genesis.

Very well said. Looking forward to what comes after the next "-->"

James Lee wrote: What would music be like if composers could generate it directly out of their heads? A real mess, I reckon - I don't know about you, but when I write music, I tend to have many, many ideas happening, sometimes simultaneously - then I go off on tangents, try different stuff, realise it didn't work, so try to go back to the original ideas, try the original ideas with different sounds and instruments, improv around these ideas, have more ideas, get writer's block... and all within a single jam session Would musicianship eventually disappear as no one would have to learn to play an instrument? I doubt it, as to compose using an instrumental technique, you need to understand the technique - simply imagining the sound isn't enough, IMO. What if a device could read your mental state and spontaneously generate the perfect suitable accompaniment? That was what my "AI" project was partly about - granted I had to feed the melody in manually, but the program "read" the notes, and harmonised it using rules that I gave it. It also presented options, where the rules of harmony could be interpreted in ways that might be considered "better". I think Brian Eno was working on a similar project. Will everyone be trading personally generated compositions rather than selecting from the available professional recording artists? Instead? I wouldn't think so!

New ways of creating music have got to be good - but there is also a lot to be said for tradition 

why do I like music so much?Because I can actually penetrate into it.

zappa123 wrote: why do I like music so much?Because I can actually penetrate into it.

Funnily enough that's why I love female Prog fans.

Proghead wrote: Sheep

Nah, it's Cert who likes the sheep.Dig up his post

Reed Lover wrote: Proghead wrote: Sheep  Nah, it's Cert who likes the sheep.Dig up his post

I said nothing about sheep - I was talking about wellies.

Honest...

Oh sorry Cert,Dont know how I made that mistake!

How is Flossy BTW ?