How many of you visualize scenes when playing or listening to music?

ranjit · 2024-06-06T20:58:05+00:00

I do this all the time but many of the pianists I know don't. So I thought it would be a fun poll. 🙂

TC3

Sophia I've wept from listening to music more than once, and not because of sadness but just the pure joyous beauty of it.

SouthPark

TC3 I've wept from listening to music more than once

TC3 This has happened to me sometimes. Not all the time. As in some tears coming out ... due to some thing that comes together that could be a combination of elegance in the particular music plus the particular sound, the movements, the particular sequence. And I'm normal, as in I don't get depression etc. And I don't usually get teary unless seeing some sort of movie etc where they purposely include parts that are deliberately put in to trigger our emotions.

Pallas

I'm a sap. Piano music makes me laugh, cry, and all the stuff in between. But when I'm playing it's mostly, "Oh, crap, I hope I didn't mess this up."

Sophia

Exactly! Not meaning to hijack the topic but beautiful music can bring out such strong emotions. Sometimes it's a memory, sometimes it's knowing the circumstances in which the piece was written, sometimes it's the words...

And I too am not at all overly sentimental or fragile. Mind you, I can't keep dry eyes any time I watch Dumbo visiting his mom in jail either, heck even thinking about it makes me emotional. Or Bambi when he loses his mom. But each of those too have a score that just tears at the heartstrings, so I guess there is a theme here after all 😆

SouthPark

Sophia Or Bambi when he loses his mom

Oh geez ... thanks a lot Sophia. I'm really slightly tearing up right now after you mentioned that ... about dumbo etc. It's when we have people feeling compassion and care about good things and people and animals etc.

Stub

Sophia And I too am not at all overly sentimental or fragile. Mind you, I can't keep dry eyes any time I watch Dumbo visiting his mom in jail either, heck even thinking about it makes me emotional. Or Bambi when he loses his mom. But each of those too have a score that just tears at the heartstrings, so I guess there is a theme here after all

Heck, I can tear up seeing a marching band, not that one sees marching bands very often any more. 😥

Rob

I like to compose (purely as a hobbyist, with no formal training) simple pieces, and almost every one, is based on a visual scene. An old man staring out of the window on a dismal autumn day. A sailing ship embarking on a sea voyage. A music box ballerina who comes alive at midnight to dance freely, once more. Nostalgia for my homeland, and many more.
I just can't help seeing images when I play.

ranjit

Rob That's very interesting! I have found that my dreaming and waking states are "coalescing" more, where I imagine pieces I'm playing or listening to in my sleep, and likewise imagery which I would typically have more in my dreams is something I'm more able to access more during the waking day (it feels like "day dreaming").

Stub

I have had a few pieces that brought me to tears. They were sad pieces for the most part.

Pallas

Stub Me too! I once saw the Marine Drum & Bugle Corps and Silent Drill. Tears and Goosebumps. And the Blue Angels, every dang time. And marching bands of all kinds.

candela

I don't spontaneously see images or specific storylines when hearing or playing music. It's more about moods and emotions for me, or simply the aural.
What's fascinating to me is how different we all are as humans and how our minds apparently experience the world differently.

When we were about 15 years old, my school class had a substitute music teacher for a semester or two. She was only a few years older (20+ something) and belonged to the same youth choir as a few of us. She had some kind of music education but I doubt she had the pedagogical qualifications to teach school music as a permanent teacher and she had never taught before. She was a very engaged and ambitious teacher and her lessons were often excellent but some were a bit different from our previous teachers' and could seem to indicate a lack of understanding of the variety of musicality and how it manifested in different people. (This was the compulsory music education that all pupils regardless of interest and inclinations had to take.) I remember one lesson in particular when we were asked about the stories different pieces of music were telling. The impression she gave was that this was what it was like to listen to music as a human. Stories and images would naturally unfold in the mind as you listened. I'm sure that was her personal experience, but as I said earlier that's not how I'm wired. Several people in the class also seemed awkward. I guess I just made something up that I deemed fitting but of course I knew I was faking it and at the time it made me feel inadequate for lacking this innate ability or this connection between music, visual and storytelling in my mind.

Several decades have passed and the memory has faded somewhat but for me the lesson learned was never to assume that somebody else's mind has to work similarly to my own.

Pallas

candela ... never to assume that somebody else's mind has to work similarly to my own.

I've found this to be the secret of having a happy life! When your mind doesn't work the same as someone else's, I see it as a good thing. I mean, thank goodness! Or else we wouldn't have such a rich life experience, with all kinds of people doing different jobs and contributing in different ways! I don't visualize while playing yet. Maybe I will one day. I don't know. But right now I'm busy hearing the piece in my head and paying close attention to my physicality and so forth. But to be honest, I don't visualize while listening to others play either. If it's a video, I'm watching them closely. If it's audio, I'm listening closely to the sound and if I'm visualizing anything, it's what the pianist's hands might look like while they play, or perhaps I've seen a video of them playing and I recall that.

If pressed, I can certainly free associate some imagery inspired by the music, and I suppose if I were asked to do that while listening I could turn my attention to the task and make it happen, but it's not spontaneous, I don't think. Interesting topic!

JB_PT

candela it made me feel inadequate for lacking this innate ability or this connection between music, visual and storytelling in my mind.

I feel the same way every time this topic comes up. 😕 This doesn't happen for me and I've had more than one teacher try to force it as if it was a very natural thing that everyone should be able to do.

Josephine

When I listen to music I often see moving images. When I play I see something, but I'm not sure what it is, because when I pay attention to it I don't see it. It happens all around me, a melody going upwards is often above me to my right. Is a moving substance, maybe just a little orb like thing, or a line made of faint light. It's not very clear or distracting. And it behaves like the music and gravity. I tried to explain it once but I failed.

iternabe

Josephine Don't know if this is true or not, but I have read somewhere people with absolute pitch may see color as they hear notes.

Josephine

iternabe

I don't have perfect or absolute pitch unfortunately. But I don't see colors as well I think. It's more like faint light, or ripples in a pond.

SouthPark

iternabe Don't know if this is true or not, but I have read somewhere people with absolute pitch may see color as they hear notes.

Lara6683 definitely mentioned she sees colours. She definitely has absolute/perfect pitch. Although, music sequences ... as in how the scales and chord and counterpoint and melody etc systems work and come together most likely doesn't involve remembering of colours mixing together. Because it's unlikely that 5 to 10 colours mixing together is going to be workable memory-wise, or music-wise.

I can understand the benefit of knowing reliably a colour code for each set of octave notes. Will be interesting to ask them if the colours repeat for each octave. Or if next door neighbour octave note sets have entirely different colours.

Interesting topic!

TC3

JB_PT Wow, I would not care for that teacher! If anything, visualizing distracts me from music, so I certainly don't go out of my way to try.

Bellyman

Nope, nothing visual going on when I play. About as close as I might get is if a certain song or melody is prevalent in a movie that I particularly liked, I may remember the scenery associated with it. (The opening scenes of "On Golden Pond" is an example where I'll see that New England lake in my mind while I'm playing that tune.)

TheBoringPianist

It really depends a lot on the piece. Sometimes it's quite visual (e.g. the ship amidst the crashing waves in Scheherazade, spirits whirling around in Danse Macabre, etc.). Other times it's a vibe (the Bach-Busoni Chaconne takes me through various stages of grief/hope for salvation/despair/acceptance). Sometimes it's a story (when I play Medtner's Sonata tragica, when the middle section starts after the deceptively triumphant ending to the first half, I'm thinking "BAM! midlife crisis hits. you hit a wall. try harder! you shall not pass. ugh, what's the point of trying? and ennui wins... time to coast through life... but wait, struggle keeps knocking on the door", etc.)

Josephine

TheBoringPianist

I always enjoy it most when I hear a piece for the first time, because then I'm surprised by the feelings (or vibes as you call them) and there is no story yet.

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