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Saturday Morning Qs (Patreon)

Published:
2023-10-14 18:02:44
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
q&a

Content

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1nrL4gduoOmjD6TE8rj03C?si=d2d81c9a82904e12 I listened to a podcast this morning with Susan Rogers, a producer who has recently been writing about the psychology of music. Here, she talks about visualizing while you're listening to music, and how different people intuitively go different places: imagining the band playing, going into your own memories, developing a story based on lyrics, abstract forms and colors conjured up by the soundscape, etc. 

I've been through various phases of listening styles in my life, and I think actively cultivating multiple styles is key to continuing to have rewarding experiences with new types of music. With old favorites, it's easy to pull up a web of comforting memories attached to the songs.(Yankee Hotel Foxtrot makes me think of late-night bus rides home from marching band competitions in the fall.) I've gotten more into ambient music in recent months as a way of falling into a different part of the brain, less verbal, more free-flowing. When I'm checking out something new that's been recommended to me, or something in a genre I'm unfamiliar with, I try not to focus too much on my own emotional reaction to it, as it takes time for me to develop into a comfort zone with anything new, and feeling pressured to "like" it will often drive me in the opposite direction. Instead, I'll stick to tracking on basic details - fast or slow, time signature, instruments being used. I might try developing a story around it or marrying it to a narrative from something else I like, if I feel inspired.

What do you see (or think, or feel) when you listen to music? Do you have any tricks for staying engaged with music that doesn't hit your sweet spot right away?

Comments

Taiga

i often visualize a scene in which x song would play, either im in the scene or its made up characters in a fake movie ect

Elle!!

sometimes music makes me feel as if im moving or when a song seems to tranistion from one ear to the other it sort of becomes alive to me i feel as if im not listening to a product but something else entirely

Scott

Honestly, I usually imagine myself playing the music or imagining myself in a story based on the lyrics

neil

i struggle to listen to new things, what helps me is to listen to it in the background. keep my brain busy but at the same time get used to the sounds. that's how i got into csh aswell- let my ears get used to what im hearing before i can start to think about wether or not i like it

Raydyn

I tend to have a pretty vivid imagination when I’m listening to music, but mostly when I just allow myself to listen to the music and not do anything else. I visualize music videos/animations in my head or sync them up to memories I have. This can also help me keep listening to a song that I don’t connect with right away

uchenna

i feel the same way, when i listen to new music (even from artists i’m familiar with & like) i often am too overwhelmed to listen for very long, because to me every song has its own complexities that different parts of my brain focus on. i see the instrumental first, trying to break down each layer and acknowledge how they build upon each other. if i vibe with the instrumental i start to focus on the lyrics, which is where the more personal emotional aspects come in to play. i also heavily associate songs with certain periods in my life (fleet foxes were my fav for bus rides back from band comps), but when i’m recommended something new i go through the same process + trying to think about why the person who recommended it likes it and see it from their pov. :)

Cailyn Calder

Usually when I'm listening to music I really like I end up imagining myself dancing to it in some weird silent-disco style club. Or maybe sharing it with friends by playing it to them or something. I do usually struggle to engage with new stuff especially, it always feels like a chore listening to new music because I really can't develop much feeling for it right away unless it really grabs me. I usually end up not paying attention most of the time and that sucks. Sometimes I have a really good experience with a particular album though and I think it's usually to do with environment and how I was already feeling. Like one time I was having a really good time making spreadsheets late at night and I listened to some really good albums that are pretty high energy and I had a really good impression of them from that. I often end up associating an album with a place or experience that stood out to me while I was listening to it.

hallie hushion

my experience when listening to music is very visceral. it's impossible for me not to move my body when i'm listening to music -- i haven't been listening to anything that makes me feel particularly down lately as i need energy from music that will inspire me to not be stoic. i end up jumping around a lot. it feels cathartic. i feel like a kid again when i listen to music that excites me so much to the point that i just have to move around. i don't fight the urge to be silly, as it's so welcoming when you're intrenched in the monotony of daily life.

roi

I imagine the notes bending up, down, and bouncing from one another. As if notes could move in space and time.

Katzenbi

I mostly think of walking around/driving around the countryside, or drawings that I have yet to make. It totally depends on the mood of the song, as a lot of my more upbeat or angry songs I’ll think about detailed scenes I could recreate in the future. For songs that I don’t really enjoy at the beginning but begin to love as time goes on, I guess I just focus on the things I like about it. Maybe the background vocals are interesting, I’ll focus on that, but then I’ll start to see it as a piece of a wider picture/building block. Also just repeating it, it kind of just forces me to find good things about it lol.

ella

Most of the time I visualize directly (how I interpret) what the lyrics mean, but if the lyrics are relatable to my life they get tied up into the memories I relate them with.

Christopher Rudolph

I think I try to listen to music in different places and through different mediums to get the most immersive experience. Sometimes listening to an album on headphones feels instantly rewarding and meaningful, where other times I get the most out of a record when I only focus on the music itself somewhat, maybe while reading or playing a game while the songs play on a speaker in the background. Recently I got into the album Uchū Nippon Setagaya by Fishmans using that second idea - trying to listen for emotional beats and powerful cathartic pop moments doesn’t really lend well to that album’s musical experience (which is what I would call my “normal” approach to music and what I find generally enjoyable). Getting into a different headspace by changing location, the means of listening, and my expectations were how I got so deep in that musical rabbit hole.

kysa99

I have a very theatrical way of visualizing music- one that comes to mind is Black Country, New Road's 'For the first time', I always picture some sort of high octane chase going on during the opener but the details in my mind are always hazy. I feel like a song's liveliness and energy plays a part in visualization, more subdued tracks and instrumentation can mellow out that kind of theatricality and almost erase the element of visualization completely for me. When I listen to something ambient like Music Has The Right To Children I usually do so on speaker because I usually end up listening to it as I get other things done, yet still enjoying it.

addison

Car seats music always makes me remember the long walks i would take, going in one direction until I hit a dead end. I find that doing something while listening to music keeps me focused on the music, strangely, and otherwise my thoughts wander and I don't pay attention.

virtualdotshelf

I love this topic!! It's very interesting to me because anything I see or feel or remember is very, unreal and difficult to explain. Like those old websites where you drew a shape and it filled it in with 'cat' and you ended up with some incomprehensible monster-thing. I tend to feel more when I listen to music-- very vague and very personal feelings that I can't really describe with general emotions, and they get stronger the longer i keep listening to tracks as if those unique feelings get blended together with nostalgia. Outside of music I experience a lot of intrusive nightmare visuals, and when I (unknowingly) visualise music they leak in. Certain Alex G songs give me flashes of a very specific nightmare I had when I was maybe 10 or 11, long before that music was even made. My strongest visualisation is actually with Twin Fantasy, where I see a chain-linked fence in front of a red brick wall, and just slightly over the top of that I can see a bright grey sky. I never know what this means, but it inspires a feeling of both nostalgia and terror. I feel like the more personal a feeling gets, the harder it is to describe, like an object that gets too close to your face that it starts to become unfocused.

Emy Head

Whenever I listen to music that has memories associated with it, I usually think of said memories. The Living While Starving EP hits close to home with this as I would listen to that EP on repeat while I cleaned a church with my mom’s friend for my first job. I remember vacuuming where the pews were while I listened to Reuse the Cels, and the overall calming feeling the music gave me. I think The Beatles takes the cake for visualizing music for me, though. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ALWAYS paints a picture in my head. It never fails to do so. Honestly, most of Magical Mystery Tour has the power of picture painting for me.

Cailyn Calder

Yeah usually with songs I really love I imagine either listening to or playing them in public for some reason. Like if it's a piano song I usually imagine playing it in the common room at my university, just because there's a piano there

gumby
>>119809714

i have the exact same thing with the beatles! for some reason i can always picture a fully fledged visual story with their songs especially eleanor rigby or the benefit of mr. kite.

Macaxeiras

i usually "feel" the music more than visualize anything, if the music hits my sweet spot right away its hard for me not to move with it (at least bob my head or smth). If it doesnt hit my sweet spot right away most of the times I end up having to listen to it multiple times bc i cant stay that engaged lol but reading the lyrics while listening and not doing anything else helps me focus

gumby

i see music as colors; every instrument, note, and key all conjure different colors. sometimes a song can produce a very pleasing color pallet (“both sides now” is a nice pastel array of yellows and pinks) and other times a song has colors that are so displeasing to me, that i cannot listen to it (i can’t stand opera for this reason) perhaps if i didn’t see music in such a visual way, i could enjoy more music.

MaeveDX

I am not a very visual person, I have trouble forming images in my head a lot of the time. So there's very little visual response going on when I listen to new music, unless it's really painting a picture with lyrics (The Mountain Goats does this a lot for me). Modt of the time though it's a lot more emotional connection with the lyrics, and auditory association. Like I might recognize a synthesizer setting in one song sounding like another I've heard before. Being a musician myself I also tend to imagine how certain sounds are created, at least when I'm listening to something more electronic or noise-based. Overall this means I tend to connect more with music if it's sonically and lyrically interesting to me. When it comes to music that isn't hitting my sweet spot, usually my reason for thinking that is that the music is boring or the songs on the album are sounding the same. I can sit through albums of genres I'm not super into as long as they're engaging and hsve interesting sounds, but once the songs start flowing together it's hard for me to stick with an album. So I guess I try and stay engaged by trying to find parts I like, even if the whole isn't something I'm particularly enjoying.

wyatt (sgt. pepper’s mandatory stim camp band)

For me, it mostly depends on the energy and mood the song goes for. I am more prone to visualize the band playing with more energetic, fast paced tracks (like Weird Fishes or Vincent), whereas with slower songs (like with Nude or Dawn Chorus) I find my mind visualizing landscapes or environments that I associate with the album cover or certain lyrics.

Carmen✨

I definitely make up stories to go along with what I listen to, like my own music videos in my head. And I’ve done that since I was younger now that I think of it … in terms of music I don’t like right away I just won’t listen to it anymore 😅 there’s a lot of new music I’m like hmm that’s nice and never get back to it, but if something I really really like it becomes a hyper fixation song that I just have on repeat over and over until the next one. But that also depends on my mood!

avian
>>119816555

not sure if you know, but that does have a name! synesthesia, when your brain experiences multiple senses at the same time

avian

like others have said, it really depends on the song. when i'm listening to new music, i usually focus more on getting lost in the atmosphere of it. when i'm more familiar with a song, i start to associate very vivid imagery with it, whether it be memories ("the ending of dramamine" reminds me a lot of wandering around my college campus) or scenes created in my mind (i tend to associate "beach life-in-death" with a scene of a character wandering deeper and deeper into pitch black water in the middle of the night) for music that doesn't hit the sweet spot, i usually try to take an empathetic approach; try and see what emotions the artist is going for, and maybe come back later when i'm more in the appropriate headspace. "ugly but honest" was an album like that for me. it's sad, but in a way that's very lethargic and distant. once i was in a similar headspace, it clicked almost right away.

neimbaum

I ussualy tend to marry music to time, what I mean by this is something like "Oh this song makes me feel so young, like being an angsty teenager". Sometimes that´s a good thing, given i´m still young but I am kinda terrified that someday the same songs that today make me feel young will one day make me feel old and I know i´ll feel that the best is already behind me. But until that day I will keep on feeling young/old depending on the song i´m listening to.

mikolaj s

When I listen to music most of the time i recall the time i first heard it and what i was doing at that moment