Thoughts On Musical Energy?

I nice loud and awful death metal band playing in a pub encased in brick basement... That's where a lot of energy comes from. You could have 50 dudes standing there doing nothing but when that wall of noise bounces around the place, even the shy folk start tapping their feet.

Me, I shake my head around. No shame, if I'm digging the music then my body sways and makes a beat. If everyone is head banging, I'll bang my head with them cunts.

If push comes to shove in the pit, I'm elbows out.

 

Apparently there is a study that is along the hypothesis I am getting at, I believe this is not exactly addressing the same ideas in regards to musical tastes shifting as me, however this does support the the idea that there are major neurological changes associated with hearing music and aging.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4348517/

 

No one in any of the control groups played musical instruments or were professional musicians...just sayin'

Case in point, Beethoven
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/beethoven-s-hearing-loss-may-have-shaped-musical-style-1.987357

 

There are anomalies and outliers to statistical data (I more or less mentioned that in the response to op) and straight up inspiring perserverance stories. (I.e.) A modern one may be Stephen Hawking who is one of the pre-eminent experts of "bodies in motion," yet hasn't been able to lift a fucking apple to his mouth for the past ~40 years, which I think is relative to Beethoven's example.

But when we, or at least I in this instance, notice fairly widespread phenomena, it's natural to try and seek to explain it. I think many of us take it on faith that music is a purely subjective experience, yet we forget that it is directly affecting our senses and our brains, which has limited parameters of audible frequencies available to it and is likely subject to more or less the same types of reinforcement, desensitization, erc. as other stimuli in our experience.

The direct cerebral experience of music perhaps partly explains why drugs (including alcohol) and music go so well together for many, or other activities like sex and seem to often produce an even stronger expenditure of energy with music. I think this is best (or at least most explicitly) exemplified in EDM, where I've heard at least one journalist make the case that the music really becomes about as much to enhancing the drug experience as the drug experience becomes to enhancing the music. This is reflected in the genre names to some extent as well (Acid house, Happy Hardcore, Trance) where you can pretty much already get an initial sensation of how the music seeks to affect your mindstate just by a genre name, before ever hearing a note. (Goes without saying the music may not succeed in such, particularly if you don't enjoy the music)

The synergy of music and pharmacological substances is a fascinating phenomena to me and perhaps can elucidate understanding of energetic responses to music.

 

There is energy in music as there is in all sounds and I'm not talking about movement of air.



Certain rhythms and tones will cause certain responses in the human mind (animal minds as well) Tapping into that as a musician and knowing what sounds cause what response and what a certain rhythm will drive that is a very magical thing.


Don't look for this happening in popular music, they just copy what worked in the past.

 

Oh I noticed a long time ago, even the crappiest music can sound cool when you are tripping...
If only you could always perform to a fully dosed audience, right? ( rollseyes)

Thats really an idiotic comparison.

I think you might discover a little more objectivity in yourself if you gave up the 'pharmacological enhancements' mang

 

Your posts sound cranky and old, the only worthwhile thing you have contributed to this thread is a link.

If you're already not set in your ways, try and work on your own ideas rather than deingrating others.

 

http://youtu.be/SePL2w5f6dE

http://youtu.be/-EA2eWZuYDs

 

You're gonna fall back on calling me old and cranky? Go fuck yourself, drugged out punk .

 

There used to be a band who my band would play shows with...their first show was at a great venue in the basement of a building on campus. Full bar, stage, great sound system, etc. So you would enter from street level and on the way downstairs there was a landing and the direction of the stairs turned into the basement. At their first show, they had people on that landing handing out hits of acid to people as they walked by. Pure genius. I wish I would have thought of that. I assume the door guy at the top of the stairs would have given them the heads-up if the police stopped by.

 

It's not genius, it's just crass. Don't get me wrong, I have been in that place where i experienced that 'extra-sensory' musical experience, and it's pretty cool and all but it's basically false. The auditory nerve loses discrimination. Everything was music to me when I was tripping, crowd noise, traffic, everything! . ( though I remember being physically nauseous when I heard The Cars live on their premier tour while tripping, lol)
But when i started playing music on the street, I discovered a whole world of non-captive audience people who weren't drunk, stoned, or otherwise chemically enhanced. Children (especially children!), elderly, young adults, international people of all races and creeds that have the ability and attention to receive the power and energy of music as it comes straight to the head. And when you're performing in broad daylight you can see all the eyes and faces of those people you are playing for...you can see, as they receive it they are returning that energy in the form of wide accepting eye's, smiles, applause, (and fat tips!)... it becomes a giant feedback loop! I have probably received more remuneration and returned energies per hour played, on the street than all my stage time in bar venues combined.

Music is the best drug, other substances generally tend to dilute and distort the execution and reception of that magical thing we call music. IMO, of course

 

~

 

In all fairness, they didn't force anyone to take anything and it's a bar that caters to the jam band scene so I'm sure there were numerous substances in the house. There usually is.

But as far as seeing reactions to your music in the street etc......and this may sound crappy...I hope nobody takes it that way. It's one thing to play on the street for the love of playing and enjoy seeing reactions etc. It's a completely different thing being a professional musician. The venue hiring you doesn't care even a little bit if you gain satisfaction from people's reactions. The one single reason that you're there is to make the bar money. Now...it's debatable how much money the bar makes while people are tripping but if you're just starting out and you're not the headliner....it probably won't come down on you. But if people feel like they had a great experience seeing you play (regardless of whether you can see it in their eyes, etc) you're going to start packing houses. If you do that, the venue makes money and you're doing your job. And for the record....I can almost never see everyone's reactions when I'm playing because there is always at least one or two super bright lights which are blinding me all the time. I'm lucky if I can see people clearly at the front of the stage sometimes.

 

I think bass and treble create different energies in the listener.I like music that has a good balance of both.Too much top end sounds too fizzy to me these days,and I find variation of dynamics within different parts of the song structure to provide a more satisfying and interesting listening experience,whatever the genre.As far as guitar work is concerned,I really like harmonics and popped notes,and love experimenting with multi-effects to the point where it doesn't even sound like a guitar anymore.You can also get some great sound simply by running a cheap keyboard through a multi-effects unit.I find experimentation and novelty inspired me the most.I like some metal,but death metal just gives me bad vibes I don't want to entertain.I find the electronic drum sounds in most modern pop and R'n'B to be very tiny,and prefer a fuller drum sound.Also there is great fun to be had running a drum machine through a delay pedal,producing a great syncopation and colliding of beats that sounds ever si slightly out of control but exciting.I find free-form sound artistry gives me the most energy.Rock bands banging out the same old barre and power chords intoning insipid and clichéd lyrics bore me.

 

If you are a professional entertainer, there's not that much difference except you are not playing to a party scene or particular demographic. and you don't have the supplemental extraneous things like lights and amplification.

With all due respect the jam band scene is a fairly recent phenomenon.
It didn't exist when I was working, beyond Greatful Dead shows...and I gotta tell ya, after hearing numerous bootleg tapes of the deads early years, you really did need to be trippin' to make much out of all that aimless noodling, lol.

And believe me, doing it for the 'love' not withstanding, if you aren't making any money playing on the street you know you are doing something wrong and you won't be out there long if you have any self respect. Money speaks louder on the street, where your music is not there to sell beer and the money comes directly from the hand of the listener into your hat, not a check from the venue owner fulfilling a contract.

 

I don't disagree with any of that. I do love the Dead though.

And I do appreciate when I can actually see who is listening to us. I bet there are 500 to 1000 pics or more floating around out there of me on stage and in over half of them...I'm looking downward. People have asked me about it before. It's not that I'm looking at my guitar. It's the damn lights!

 

Lol, and people think wearing sunglasses on stage is just to look cool...

 

And we aren't sweating our asses off because we are raging it so hard either. The spotlight being hot isn't just a metaphor.

 

I saw this documentary called Alive Inside today. It is a documentary about using music as a therapy for patients with dementia and other diseases, some therapists in the documentary think that music should be used in concert with drug medications and some think it even exceeds the efficacy of drugs in regards to certain symptoms.