You're not alone. Sticking the finger in and making yourself cry is one of the best experiences that we can give ourselves. I have been doing this with music all my life. 53 years old, and I don't know what I would do without this option for emotional outlet.
There are too many good songs to mention, but a great one for me is "Backseat" by Carina Round. She's wonderful. Goosebumps just thinking of it.
Listening to "Without You" made my brain throb, like it always does when I listen to music that touches my heart and soul, but I had no idea there is a technical reason why. It has always been my favorite Nilsson song. Probably why I like if not prefer down-tempo music is the dissonance often heard in them.
Reading this reminded me of a poem from the Prophet by Khalil Gibran
'Trees are poems the Earth writes upon the sky, we fell them down and turn them into paper, that we may record our emptiness'
You are not alone in this world despite the solipsistic nature of experience. We are here and we're listening/reading and connecting our experiences to weave the fabric of our collective consciousness.
Music is also my favorite medicine, I can relate to your experience. And I grew up on Harry Nilsson. He was a wonderful songwriter. Thank you for the mindful inspiration.
Have to be honest I actually am getting kinda mad/annoyed that you're ruling out relationships for yourself. You're not 70 or 80 years old there is plenty of time for that in your life. If you have things to work on about yourself and about relationships, there is plenty of time to do that. Ruling it out seems unnecessarily hurtful to yourself, to me. obviously, it's your life, but I think ruling it out might be too strict like your therapist might say. Trust me I feel the same way about dating in current times.. and I'm not practicing what I'm preaching here. it's funny because I always thought 'gay men have it easier' but only in regards to having an easier time hooking up. I'm not sure what relationships are like as a gay person.
I don't quite often break down when listening to music, but at lower times in my life I think that happened. It became something I did though to 'wallow' in my negative feelings. I actually don't think it's healthy anymore to do that too much. Maybe sometimes. Like for example I watched the movie 'the whale' and cried more than I usually do (ever) at the end. Sometimes I think those releases are good, but just wallowing in negative emotions is something I always have done, and I know it's not good. I had periods of just watching depressing dramas and just wallowing in the sadness, etc.
Sometimes music is tough for me. It brings back a younger me, before the days of craziness and evil. Life was so simple back then. But then I tell myself to have such memories is a privilege and I realize I have to make today good for today. Will never be the same as yesterday. All things change.
Oh that song. As a young teen I used to revel in the intense longing and yearning it inspired in me. I was at the age where I didn't know exactly what I yearned for but felt it just the same.
Josh, you always drop a great post when I have zero time to contribute. Your recent hiatus is especially meaningful to me. I could go on about this subject for days.
But for now: I was explaining one of our kids the other day about how I skipped back to the beginning of "A Letter to Elise" (The Cure) countless times during a one-man road trip from Dallas to College Station sometime in ~1995 I think. My mind was so scattered that day and I could never get to the end of the song with the satisfaction that I'd given it the full and commensurate attention it deserved.
Driving windows down at 80 MPH in a 1994 Nissan Hardbody Pickup with the tires of 18 wheelers screaming on both sides while blasting the guitar solo in "Alive" (Pearl Jam) is another random moment I can never reproduce, but that I'll also never forget.
Sailing by Christopher Cross's, I've looped it over and over again. It helps while it hurts and hurts while it helps. https://youtu.be/3KG74xOhXHI?si=Q4wYB8QdWMzgKY2V Thanks for sharing, not maudlin at all!
Musically-induced catharsis isn’t maudlin, it’s a sacrament — which is why all great religions invest their most emotional rites with music (prayers, funerals, marriage etc.).
We don’t need to know how music works technically in order to be deeply moved by it, fortunately.
That said, your analysis and the “How Music Works” video’s exposition are both spot-on (speaking as someone with a doctorate in classical composition).
Another supremely merciful gift of music — in addition to the tragic catharsis — is its miraculous ability to elevate mood better than medical interventions can: Bach is my Luvox as well as mouthpiece of my despair (as in his Lotti-inspired Crucifixus).
Thanks for your beautifully-articulated thoughts and insights.
“Life without music would be a mistake.” — Nietzsche
It's good to know I got the music theory right; thank you David. Since I am a dilletante, please correct me any time I get something wrong when writing about music.
It's frustrating that I did not get training as a child when it might have taken; I could have been very good. I am naturally gifted with an acute ear for musical grammar, melody, and harmony. My piano instructor told me my talent was rare (I started composing small but pretty and "correct" pieces about a year into piano training) and something she'd seen only in a few students. But I am technically awful. Sight reading is a terrible struggle, and my playing is clunky.
Your words about music (e.g., the chord change that destroys you, as you mentioned a month or two ago) and, more importantly, your deep feeling for — and response to — it tell me you’re no dilettante. Your fingers, I noticed in today’s show post, are those of a pianist, to be specific, and of a natural musician in general.
It’s a crime that you were deprived of lessons earlier in life, though it’s actually not too late to benefit from them, though they won’t make you a virtuoso at this point.
Don’t worry about your clunky technique or poor sight-reading — for the record, I have similar limitations but I don’t let them interfere with my connection to the sounds.
In light of your affinity for composition (which also is “audible” in your prose), you should know that the best composers — after Chopin, let’s say — are rarely the best performers and vice versa.
Great pianists like Rachmaninoff (or the violinist Paganini), for example, struggle with their own facility and too often settle for what their fingers can do, at the expense of originality. Wagner and Stravinsky were notoriously disappointing onstage advocates for their own work, and counter-examples (Debussy, Ives) are the rare exceptions.
Seriously, if you ever want to send me your “correct, pretty” compositions, I’d be happy and honored to savor the real, genuine ability that I suspect they evince (at no charge, ever). No pressure, but keep it in mind if you decide to further explore your talent. Unlike mastering an instrument, it’s never too late to study composition.
Gosh, those are generous things to say, thank you.
I've been thinking of doing this for years but haven't; maybe I will: I wrote a mid-tempo pop ballad instrumental piece for piano years ago. I wrote it for Karen Carpenter's voice; it's something she would have been perfectly suited to in range and style.
It needs lyrics (I have a few phrases that go in certain places, but that's it) and a richer arrangement.
I’m not so much being generous as factual -- I’ve done this long enough to be able to smell talent. And I love the Carpenters and Karen’s angelic (yet all-too-human) voice. Btw you don’t need to set lyrics to a singer’s line -- it’s called ’vocalise,’ as you probably know -- and you could also mix texted notes with wordless singing (which very few have done, and which therefore would make the impact even fresher). If the spirit moves you, you can email davidshohl at gmail whenever -- I predict it will be fun, Heaven forbid!
When I am too emotionally fragile to consume melodic lyric-driven music I turn to jazz — especially the cerebral West Coast variety epitomized by Dave Brubeck, but jumping stuff from the Bix Biederbecke era all the way through the 70s jazz fusion of Chick Corea et al works as well. But when I can take it, my musical taste encompasses the sappiest of the Boomer era from Carole King forwards. I’m also a folk/Renaissance Faire performer and there are a number of our standard pieces that I can hardly get through without weeping — “Christmas in the Trenches”, “Willy McBride”, and “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye” being the most obvious examples.
HAHAHA just this past Saturday this was an actual conversation I had with my fellow minstrels at a rehearsal -- "Do you want to resolve on the Picardy third in the last repeat? It will blow their minor-attenuated minds!"
That was my wedding song in 1985. My husband passed last May after nearly 40 years s of marriage...
I'm sorry for your loss. I'm glad you had a happy marriage.
Isn't this a break up song?
Not to me
Condolences.
I can't directly intuit what it must be like to lose a life mate like that, but it must be so difficult. I'm sorry, DH.
You're not alone. Sticking the finger in and making yourself cry is one of the best experiences that we can give ourselves. I have been doing this with music all my life. 53 years old, and I don't know what I would do without this option for emotional outlet.
There are too many good songs to mention, but a great one for me is "Backseat" by Carina Round. She's wonderful. Goosebumps just thinking of it.
https://youtu.be/yrZLaxSmY44?si=Xt4ekuZn_NUBoLGk
Fast Car is another one🥹
This is also a personal selection on my list as well.
You’re not alone.
Listening to "Without You" made my brain throb, like it always does when I listen to music that touches my heart and soul, but I had no idea there is a technical reason why. It has always been my favorite Nilsson song. Probably why I like if not prefer down-tempo music is the dissonance often heard in them.
Reading this reminded me of a poem from the Prophet by Khalil Gibran
'Trees are poems the Earth writes upon the sky, we fell them down and turn them into paper, that we may record our emptiness'
You are not alone in this world despite the solipsistic nature of experience. We are here and we're listening/reading and connecting our experiences to weave the fabric of our collective consciousness.
Music is also my favorite medicine, I can relate to your experience. And I grew up on Harry Nilsson. He was a wonderful songwriter. Thank you for the mindful inspiration.
Cheers!
Have to be honest I actually am getting kinda mad/annoyed that you're ruling out relationships for yourself. You're not 70 or 80 years old there is plenty of time for that in your life. If you have things to work on about yourself and about relationships, there is plenty of time to do that. Ruling it out seems unnecessarily hurtful to yourself, to me. obviously, it's your life, but I think ruling it out might be too strict like your therapist might say. Trust me I feel the same way about dating in current times.. and I'm not practicing what I'm preaching here. it's funny because I always thought 'gay men have it easier' but only in regards to having an easier time hooking up. I'm not sure what relationships are like as a gay person.
I don't quite often break down when listening to music, but at lower times in my life I think that happened. It became something I did though to 'wallow' in my negative feelings. I actually don't think it's healthy anymore to do that too much. Maybe sometimes. Like for example I watched the movie 'the whale' and cried more than I usually do (ever) at the end. Sometimes I think those releases are good, but just wallowing in negative emotions is something I always have done, and I know it's not good. I had periods of just watching depressing dramas and just wallowing in the sadness, etc.
Sometimes music is tough for me. It brings back a younger me, before the days of craziness and evil. Life was so simple back then. But then I tell myself to have such memories is a privilege and I realize I have to make today good for today. Will never be the same as yesterday. All things change.
Oh that song. As a young teen I used to revel in the intense longing and yearning it inspired in me. I was at the age where I didn't know exactly what I yearned for but felt it just the same.
Josh, you always drop a great post when I have zero time to contribute. Your recent hiatus is especially meaningful to me. I could go on about this subject for days.
But for now: I was explaining one of our kids the other day about how I skipped back to the beginning of "A Letter to Elise" (The Cure) countless times during a one-man road trip from Dallas to College Station sometime in ~1995 I think. My mind was so scattered that day and I could never get to the end of the song with the satisfaction that I'd given it the full and commensurate attention it deserved.
Driving windows down at 80 MPH in a 1994 Nissan Hardbody Pickup with the tires of 18 wheelers screaming on both sides while blasting the guitar solo in "Alive" (Pearl Jam) is another random moment I can never reproduce, but that I'll also never forget.
Fellow depressive creative here, off pills (again) and moving through the anxiety. Don't know why
Karen Carpenter in certain songs, like 'Superstar; really bring out the sadness and loneliness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJmmaIGiGBg
And k.d. lang's, 'Constant Craving' somehow also brings out the anger underneath the sadness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXqPjx94YMg
Sailing by Christopher Cross's, I've looped it over and over again. It helps while it hurts and hurts while it helps. https://youtu.be/3KG74xOhXHI?si=Q4wYB8QdWMzgKY2V Thanks for sharing, not maudlin at all!
Musically-induced catharsis isn’t maudlin, it’s a sacrament — which is why all great religions invest their most emotional rites with music (prayers, funerals, marriage etc.).
We don’t need to know how music works technically in order to be deeply moved by it, fortunately.
That said, your analysis and the “How Music Works” video’s exposition are both spot-on (speaking as someone with a doctorate in classical composition).
Another supremely merciful gift of music — in addition to the tragic catharsis — is its miraculous ability to elevate mood better than medical interventions can: Bach is my Luvox as well as mouthpiece of my despair (as in his Lotti-inspired Crucifixus).
Thanks for your beautifully-articulated thoughts and insights.
“Life without music would be a mistake.” — Nietzsche
It's good to know I got the music theory right; thank you David. Since I am a dilletante, please correct me any time I get something wrong when writing about music.
It's frustrating that I did not get training as a child when it might have taken; I could have been very good. I am naturally gifted with an acute ear for musical grammar, melody, and harmony. My piano instructor told me my talent was rare (I started composing small but pretty and "correct" pieces about a year into piano training) and something she'd seen only in a few students. But I am technically awful. Sight reading is a terrible struggle, and my playing is clunky.
Your words about music (e.g., the chord change that destroys you, as you mentioned a month or two ago) and, more importantly, your deep feeling for — and response to — it tell me you’re no dilettante. Your fingers, I noticed in today’s show post, are those of a pianist, to be specific, and of a natural musician in general.
It’s a crime that you were deprived of lessons earlier in life, though it’s actually not too late to benefit from them, though they won’t make you a virtuoso at this point.
Don’t worry about your clunky technique or poor sight-reading — for the record, I have similar limitations but I don’t let them interfere with my connection to the sounds.
In light of your affinity for composition (which also is “audible” in your prose), you should know that the best composers — after Chopin, let’s say — are rarely the best performers and vice versa.
Great pianists like Rachmaninoff (or the violinist Paganini), for example, struggle with their own facility and too often settle for what their fingers can do, at the expense of originality. Wagner and Stravinsky were notoriously disappointing onstage advocates for their own work, and counter-examples (Debussy, Ives) are the rare exceptions.
Seriously, if you ever want to send me your “correct, pretty” compositions, I’d be happy and honored to savor the real, genuine ability that I suspect they evince (at no charge, ever). No pressure, but keep it in mind if you decide to further explore your talent. Unlike mastering an instrument, it’s never too late to study composition.
Gosh, those are generous things to say, thank you.
I've been thinking of doing this for years but haven't; maybe I will: I wrote a mid-tempo pop ballad instrumental piece for piano years ago. I wrote it for Karen Carpenter's voice; it's something she would have been perfectly suited to in range and style.
It needs lyrics (I have a few phrases that go in certain places, but that's it) and a richer arrangement.
I’m not so much being generous as factual -- I’ve done this long enough to be able to smell talent. And I love the Carpenters and Karen’s angelic (yet all-too-human) voice. Btw you don’t need to set lyrics to a singer’s line -- it’s called ’vocalise,’ as you probably know -- and you could also mix texted notes with wordless singing (which very few have done, and which therefore would make the impact even fresher). If the spirit moves you, you can email davidshohl at gmail whenever -- I predict it will be fun, Heaven forbid!
When I am too emotionally fragile to consume melodic lyric-driven music I turn to jazz — especially the cerebral West Coast variety epitomized by Dave Brubeck, but jumping stuff from the Bix Biederbecke era all the way through the 70s jazz fusion of Chick Corea et al works as well. But when I can take it, my musical taste encompasses the sappiest of the Boomer era from Carole King forwards. I’m also a folk/Renaissance Faire performer and there are a number of our standard pieces that I can hardly get through without weeping — “Christmas in the Trenches”, “Willy McBride”, and “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye” being the most obvious examples.
Not sure how I forgot to add “The Dutchman” and “Fields of Athenry” to the list of “songs I blubber rather than sing.”
Let's play and sing medieval and Renaissance laments together. I just love all those fourths.
HAHAHA just this past Saturday this was an actual conversation I had with my fellow minstrels at a rehearsal -- "Do you want to resolve on the Picardy third in the last repeat? It will blow their minor-attenuated minds!"
Anything I could say would be superfluous...your writing keeps getting better and better.
Josh, what was your second song? The first is so good, I want to know the other.
Anne Murray's version of Danny's Song. That competes with her version of Killing Me Softly (that will have you in tears, trust me).
Wait, you're not my brother, Charles Curtis, are you?
Your brother from another mother.
:) I asked because that's actually my brother's first and middle names.
Without You definitely has a place in the song track of my life. Another is One:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqx6OrXf0b4
And for someone unknown reason, ACDC singing Thunderstruck. All my grandkids know it's tools down and get up on your feet when that one comes on.