When do we actually "love" music?

[Jive A Turkey]

For a few years now I've wanted and attempted to discuss the process of liking or loving music with others, but the conversations have all rapidly decayed into "That's foolish, you just like it and that's all there is to it. You're overthinking it." So I'm opening a discussion in hopes of hearing some of your angles.

Here are a few quick bullets highlighting my own process & criteria:

1 - The most objective measurement of "loving" a song for me is marked by an obvious physical reaction, usually head & spine tingling, arm and leg hairs raised on end. These songs always throw my head in the clouds.
2 - I have to listen to a new song around seven times before I get a true physical reaction (the point at which I can say that I love the song).
3 - I have to listen to a song around thirty times before I start paying attention to lyrics.
4 - Rhythms are cool and they can make my body want to move, but music with no melody will not evoke the previously mentioned physical reaction (#1). Consequently, I won't love a song without melody. I'll like it at best.

So how does the process work for the rest of you?

 

[OctaviaCaesar]

Most of the time I know immediately if a song is an "I love this song and I will listen to it for the rest of my life" song. The first time I heard the song "Run" by Snow Patrol I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest (listening to music at night always intensifies my listening/emotional experience). "Deliver Me" by Sarah Brightman makes me cry every time I hear it, because it fits my life so well in both words and sounds.

I listen to the words of a song first and foremost--I have to know what the purpose of the song is and judge its worth, and if the music doesn't sound good or go along with it the way it "should" I will not like it very well.

 

[Kiddo]

It's an interesting question. The songs I love most are associated with animes that I really loved. For example, Fuu's "We are Fighting Dreamers" has been a favorite of mine since I used to watch episodes of Naruto as a Sophomore in college. Another was Linkin Parks "Numb" which I saw used in an animated music video featuring DragonBall Z. It's not even restricted to animes. Since I saw Office Space, I have been in love with Ghetto Boy's "Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta." Others are childhood favorites. "Kung Fu Fighters" was a classic we used to sing in my martial arts classes when I was a kid. ACDC, Green Day, U2, ect. were favorites of my roommates that I came to associate with other activities that I love.

I guess I'm a behaviorist when it comes to music. I associate music with other things I love and it then brings about the same euphoric feeling. For example soundtracks and theme songs, like James Bond, Mission Impossible, Mortal Combat, etc. give me an exhilarated feeling. Other music affects me in different ways depending upon what I associate it with.

 

[Vortex]

Music I love: music that brings me into another state. Music that instantly calms and centers me. Music that makes me lose myself - and that control is pretty hard to let go of, so I know it's a winner when that happens I also have to listen to the same song a number of times before I really love it.

 

[file cabinet]

mm.. for me,
...It can just be an extremely high quality recording that is enjoyable.
...or, it can be something I've listened to off-and-on and then I experience in the company with other people blasting from a car/living room
...or, it is a random song from my high school years that I like but don't own

I do not get any physical reaction beyond occasionally dancing if it is a good point in the set/track

 

[SolitaryPenguin]

I dig this thread.

I haven't met too many other people in the big blue world that get the physical reactions to certain music like I do; goosebumps, shivers, etc.

It's really a varying array of tunes that do this to me. Most of the time, if I have associated a tune with a powerful time in my life, or any other amazing experience, that song/score will inspire those feelings to all come rushing back, even 20 years later.

There isn't a specific type of music that does this to me either, it can be classical, rock, folk, soundtrack, score to a movie, drum and bass, trance; if the song hit me once at a crucial time, it will do it every time I hear it. I can still throw in Blood Sugar Sex Magik and have it make me feel the exact same way that I felt in the summer of 1992. The only other sense that is as strong for me is smell, but both sensations are tied to emotional highs and lows and how it impacted me when I heard it the first time.

 

[Economica]

... And I thought I was developing my Fi.



---

Edit: I decided that I shouldn't give up so easily! Here's what I've come up with so far:

- Lyrics are a potential dealbreaker for me. I cannot love a song if I do not appreciate the lyrics. They don't have to be sophisticated, they just have to resonate with me. For instance, I remember being frustrated with the lyrics on Hole's album Live Through This which was an album I liked and could have loved if only the themes (the objectification and abuse of women, self-destructiveness) had not been totally foreign to me (for which, incidentally, I am thankful).

I'll add things as I figure them out.

 

[white]

... And I thought I was developing my Fi.

Actually, I thought INTJs would love music in an intellectual appreciation sense?

Music I like has either rhythm, lyrics I can relate to, appealing melody (atonal, flats-based *sad* ones), or good vocals. Lyrics are not a must to me.

For it to become something I'd love though, the unifying theme across all the factors above is the use of silence?

It is the breaks which make the music what it is. So a piece I'd fall in love with would know how to use the silence to express the mood, melody and soul.

This is a piece I'm trying to learn now, I think it best explains what I'm trying to say here. In this story, the guy created this piece for a girl he loves whom he cannot have. It speaks of desire and memory to me : YouTube - Sena's Performance

** Edit: If anyone has the score for this, I'd dearly love to have it.

 

[Economica]

Actually, I thought INTJs would love music in an intellectual appreciation sense?

Maybe? Anyway, see my edit.

 

[Sandy]

I dig this thread.

I haven't met too many other people in the big blue world that get the physical reactions to certain music like I do; goosebumps, shivers, etc.

It's really a varying array of tunes that do this to me. Most of the time, if I have associated a tune with a powerful time in my life, or any other amazing experience, that song/score will inspire those feelings to all come rushing back, even 20 years later.

There isn't a specific type of music that does this to me either, it can be classical, rock, folk, soundtrack, score to a movie, drum and bass, trance; if the song hit me once at a crucial time, it will do it every time I hear it. I can still throw in Blood Sugar Sex Magik and have it make me feel the exact same way that I felt in the summer of 1992. The only other sense that is as strong for me is smell, but both sensations are tied to emotional highs and lows and how it impacted me when I heard it the first time.

Exactly!

Music of any type derives all types of emotion in me.

 

[white]

Maybe? Anyway, see my edit.

More Fi, more more!

 

[Domino]

For a few years now I've wanted and attempted to discuss the process of liking or loving music with others, but the conversations have all rapidly decayed into "That's foolish, you just like it and that's all there is to it. You're overthinking it." So I'm opening a discussion in hopes of hearing some of your angles.

Here are a few quick bullets highlighting my own process & criteria:

1 - The most objective measurement of "loving" a song for me is marked by an obvious physical reaction, usually head & spine tingling, arm and leg hairs raised on end. These songs always throw my head in the clouds.
2 - I have to listen to a new song around seven times before I get a true physical reaction (the point at which I can say that I love the song).
3 - I have to listen to a song around thirty times before I start paying attention to lyrics.
4 - Rhythms are cool and they can make my body want to move, but music with no melody will not evoke the previously mentioned physical reaction (#1). Consequently, I won't love a song without melody. I'll like it at best.

So how does the process work for the rest of you?

A very interesting question, Jive. (And I like how you describe your instinctive connection to a certain piece.)

It has to be an initial "grab". Something about the singer's voice or a sticky cadence. The lyrics, for me, get my attention almost right away. I may give a song I may have dismissed earlier another listen if the lyrics are genuinely clever or positing a worthwhile idea (whether I agree with it or not). I physically get excited, limbically irritable or hopped up if I hear something unexpectedly "Zen", and I'll dig tirelessly to find out what it is that I'm hearing. It's like falling in love for me.

A bad or unoriginal singer can turn me off faster than anything. Great music can't make up for drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa, if you know what I mean.

My mother was R&B and orchestral. My dad was classic/southern rock. My grandparents liked big band and jazz. I adopted them all, adding new wave, rockabilly, country and punk.

 

[Vortex]

I haven't met too many other people in the big blue world that get the physical reactions to certain music like I do; goosebumps, shivers, etc.

I thought everybody got that. I'm quite amazed that this doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[FallsPioneer]

The music I really like evokes something from me, usually some kind of picture or image, or a certain feeling.

Oh yeah, and it causes me to have a seizure...just kidding.

 

[Oberon]

I dig this thread.

I haven't met too many other people in the big blue world that get the physical reactions to certain music like I do; goosebumps, shivers, etc.

I get this reaction, but only very rarely... and when I do, it's a song that I have to hear over and over and over again.

Sometimes it's just part of a song that'll do it. For example, Led Zeppelin's song "Thank You" only does it to me on the three or four lines beginning with "Little drops of rain..." The rest of the song is good, but not chillingly so.

Led Zeppelin's "Hey Hey What Can I Do" had that effect on me too, but no longer does. It was the music that did it, not the lyrics. I still like the song a great deal, but I don't get the goosebumps reaction. Ditto for "Locomotive Breath" by Jethro Tull and "Southern Cross" by CSN.

Yes, all these songs are ancient. What can I say? My tastes are archaic.

 

[alcea rosea]

I listen to music in a very holistic way. I usually pay no attention to the sound of separate instruments (e.g. guitars) that are used. I listen to the melody, the voice of the singer and the beat. I do not like music where there are no singer. I don't pay too much attention to the words either. The most important aspect of the music is the feeling it brings me.

I like quite many types of music: r&b, rock'n'roll, heavy music, rockabilly, glam rock, dance music, ballroom music (my dad played that for me), even some opera etc.

It's almost any kind of music that can give me goose bumps, shivers, tears to my eyes etc. as long as that song has a feeling. One funny example: I saw the winner of Britain has talent on TV singing one opera song and I cried. The singer had some thing in him that absolutely made me cry.

I usually don't like very chaotic music or very distracting music because of the feeling it brings me.

 

[Zergling]

Music usually seems to just "grab" me, and I never really figure out why.

The types of music that never seem to grab me include ones where one part of the music doesn't fit with another part (Bands while one person screams while some instruments play in the background fit with this), music where someone tries to force some drama in (Some action music overuses choirs or dramatic music, songs from concerts often seem to do this.), music that heavily repeats certain parts too much. (some action movie music does this also.)and slow music is usually less successful, although there are a lot of exceptions to this.

Music is also effected by what I've been listening to around it, there are a number of CD's where individual songs are average or good, but that I like a lot because of how the songs follow, or there are a bunch of songs stuck together in a certain way with little dead space.

In general, there is no overall type of music I have heard and don't like except screaming rock type music.

 

[Domino]

This isn't perhaps "love", but every time I hear Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun", I have to change the channel immediately. When I hear it, it's like being dragged by my nails back into the past where everyone I knew was Janie. It was madness and survival and this wild sort of trying to escape, and I can't listen to that song without getting cold chills and physically recoiling/reaching for the radio like it's on fire.

Amazing how music can do that to a person.

 

[Sandy]

I listen to music in a very holistic way. I usually pay no attention to the sound of separate instruments (e.g. guitars) that are used. I listen to the melody, the voice of the singer and the beat. I do not like music where there are no singer. I don't pay too much attention to the words either. The most important aspect of the music is the feeling it brings me.

I like quite many types of music: r&b, rock'n'roll, heavy music, rockabilly, glam rock, dance music, ballroom music (my dad played that for me), even some opera etc.

It's almost any kind of music that can give me goose bumps, shivers, tears to my eyes etc. as long as that song has a feeling. One funny example: I saw the winner of Britain has talent on TV singing one opera song and I cried. The singer had some thing in him that absolutely made me cry.

Paul Potts!!! I was the unexpected beautiful voice and the story behind him that made his song even more beautiful!

I usually don't like very chaotic music or very distracting music because of the feeling it brings me.

Other than jazz (which I am not a big fan of), chaotic music fit my life when I was younger. Not so much now.

 

[alcea rosea]

Paul Potts!!! I was the unexpected beautiful voice and the story behind him that made his song even more beautiful!

Yes, it's Paul Potts who I meant!