![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(1) Do you use music to influence mood?
(2) What kind for what mood?
?
Do I? Do I ever. Doesn't everything have a soundtrack? - either out loud, or the iPod or just inside my head. It's integral - music influences, and leads, and follows. It can change a mood, or reinforce one. It can bring on unexpected emotions, without warning, or occasionally, be put to use, to take you somewhere, sometime, something, else and other.
Right now, I'm listening to a documentary about stadium rock. Ahhh, you sneer, music for the masses. But - like most cliches have a thin stem of truth - maybe there is something to be said (again!) for the power of cheap music. Well, I think so. A couple of the clips here are about Live Aid - I remember that day like a generation before remembers the day Kennedy was shot. The conflict of the hunger, the scenes from Ethiopia and the smoothly caressed spectacle of watching Wembley on tv, safe in the arms of the western world... that CBC-produced linkage of images of children starving, and the Cars' "Drive".
It's been aspirational for me - from when I started sleeping each night surrounded by music, as I started leaving the little radio my grandfather gave me on as I dropped off. Like Keith Richards linking up with Mick Jagger on a railway platform, brought together by the sheaf of imported albums under Mick's arm, the music became the route marker, the way of meeting, of assessing, of determining whether you might, can! be friends. I remember when buying for me became buying for what someone might see. Boston's first album as insisted upon by Verd, Toto's first in Montreal for someone I don't even remember, Led Zep before them, and the hermit on the inner gatefold leading unexpectedly to tarot. English indie rock later leading me to me marrying an English guitarist. Ahem.
Does this say anything about mood? I think it does; it's the "let me out of here!" that a writer about "Down in the Dirt's" current showing at the Toronto International Film Festival sees as characterizing the odd, the strange and the unaccepted of the bays and outports of this place. The subcultures weren't as clearly defined back then, but the weird always gravitated to music, and sharing their encyclopedic knowledge of the unknown and the arcane. I can picture the tall, somber chap in the red sweater who introduced me to Joy Division in the first or second class of first-year calculus. Rod, who introduced me to British new wave, took me to see Da Slyme at the Browned Off, and had such a sense of fashion and way of dressing the part back when to do so here was - not exactly de regieur. No doubt today's teens wouldn't believe it, but - things have changed, yes, indeed. The many faces from the university radio station, which became home, and whence three of my dearest friends came, who remain today. And of course, Roger Howse, who I met there, and whose love of the blues and ability to play them either on his radio show, or live with his band, had such a deep effect on my heartstrings.
So what and how?
Some songs are my hymns. Peace. U2's "Bad" or "One". Both give me the feeling that introspection isn't necessarily a bad thing, that you can look in but still see out. That it is possible to heal the soul, even when it feels completely rent by a three-cornered tear.
Some songs are simple joy. Unalloyed, not needing explanation, not needing. The Cure - "Friday I'm in Love" - I think I am, even if I'm not. The shimmering sparkle of "She Sells Sanctuary". "Real Real Gone" or "Brown-eyed Girl".
Contentedness - "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits, "U2's "New Year's Day", "Sometimes Always" by the Jesus and Mary Chain, 54-40's "Ocean Pearl".
I'm a twisted old bitch, I need to feel that's all right sometimes. "Boots or Hearts" by the Tragically Hip, New Order's "Regret", "I Don't Want a Lover" by Texas, oh, some of Leonard Cohen's odes to age and bitterness...
The emotion I feel most at home with - the yearning of Del Amitri's "Here and Now" or so many others - "If You're Gone", "Iris" or "Can't Let Go", say. Blue Rodeo catches the same vibe as Justin Currie, on "Diamond Mine" or "Hasn't Hit Me Yet". Christine Perfect's perfect version of "I'd Rather Go Blind".
The best way out of anger - blast something! New Model Army's "Vengeance" has been the song of choice there on many such occasions. Monaco's "What Do You Want from Me" too, although I'm not sure why. Plenty of Nine Inch Nails comes in here too, as does "New Orleans is Sinking" by the Hip.
What works when working depends on the job. I found this past tax return season that mid-seventies bloated west-coast rock really fitted - Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Steely Dan and the like. Oes to excess, I guess. Some jobs call for a drone, perfectly suited to JAMC's wall of feedback. It's not been recent, but I had a long spell of working to the Sisters of Mercy - I think it was during a period of navigating a totally new system. Soft blues also works here, including local artists like Roger Howse and Scott Goudie.
Looking at playlists now I can see how each song immediately brings an emotion, a mood with it. Usually it's the music that carries the feeling, sometimes it's the memories associated with it. But it would be so very easy to run down a list and play mood-association.
And that's one of the reasons it's *there*.
(2) What kind for what mood?
?
Do I? Do I ever. Doesn't everything have a soundtrack? - either out loud, or the iPod or just inside my head. It's integral - music influences, and leads, and follows. It can change a mood, or reinforce one. It can bring on unexpected emotions, without warning, or occasionally, be put to use, to take you somewhere, sometime, something, else and other.
Right now, I'm listening to a documentary about stadium rock. Ahhh, you sneer, music for the masses. But - like most cliches have a thin stem of truth - maybe there is something to be said (again!) for the power of cheap music. Well, I think so. A couple of the clips here are about Live Aid - I remember that day like a generation before remembers the day Kennedy was shot. The conflict of the hunger, the scenes from Ethiopia and the smoothly caressed spectacle of watching Wembley on tv, safe in the arms of the western world... that CBC-produced linkage of images of children starving, and the Cars' "Drive".
It's been aspirational for me - from when I started sleeping each night surrounded by music, as I started leaving the little radio my grandfather gave me on as I dropped off. Like Keith Richards linking up with Mick Jagger on a railway platform, brought together by the sheaf of imported albums under Mick's arm, the music became the route marker, the way of meeting, of assessing, of determining whether you might, can! be friends. I remember when buying for me became buying for what someone might see. Boston's first album as insisted upon by Verd, Toto's first in Montreal for someone I don't even remember, Led Zep before them, and the hermit on the inner gatefold leading unexpectedly to tarot. English indie rock later leading me to me marrying an English guitarist. Ahem.
Does this say anything about mood? I think it does; it's the "let me out of here!" that a writer about "Down in the Dirt's" current showing at the Toronto International Film Festival sees as characterizing the odd, the strange and the unaccepted of the bays and outports of this place. The subcultures weren't as clearly defined back then, but the weird always gravitated to music, and sharing their encyclopedic knowledge of the unknown and the arcane. I can picture the tall, somber chap in the red sweater who introduced me to Joy Division in the first or second class of first-year calculus. Rod, who introduced me to British new wave, took me to see Da Slyme at the Browned Off, and had such a sense of fashion and way of dressing the part back when to do so here was - not exactly de regieur. No doubt today's teens wouldn't believe it, but - things have changed, yes, indeed. The many faces from the university radio station, which became home, and whence three of my dearest friends came, who remain today. And of course, Roger Howse, who I met there, and whose love of the blues and ability to play them either on his radio show, or live with his band, had such a deep effect on my heartstrings.
So what and how?
Some songs are my hymns. Peace. U2's "Bad" or "One". Both give me the feeling that introspection isn't necessarily a bad thing, that you can look in but still see out. That it is possible to heal the soul, even when it feels completely rent by a three-cornered tear.
Some songs are simple joy. Unalloyed, not needing explanation, not needing. The Cure - "Friday I'm in Love" - I think I am, even if I'm not. The shimmering sparkle of "She Sells Sanctuary". "Real Real Gone" or "Brown-eyed Girl".
Contentedness - "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits, "U2's "New Year's Day", "Sometimes Always" by the Jesus and Mary Chain, 54-40's "Ocean Pearl".
I'm a twisted old bitch, I need to feel that's all right sometimes. "Boots or Hearts" by the Tragically Hip, New Order's "Regret", "I Don't Want a Lover" by Texas, oh, some of Leonard Cohen's odes to age and bitterness...
The emotion I feel most at home with - the yearning of Del Amitri's "Here and Now" or so many others - "If You're Gone", "Iris" or "Can't Let Go", say. Blue Rodeo catches the same vibe as Justin Currie, on "Diamond Mine" or "Hasn't Hit Me Yet". Christine Perfect's perfect version of "I'd Rather Go Blind".
The best way out of anger - blast something! New Model Army's "Vengeance" has been the song of choice there on many such occasions. Monaco's "What Do You Want from Me" too, although I'm not sure why. Plenty of Nine Inch Nails comes in here too, as does "New Orleans is Sinking" by the Hip.
What works when working depends on the job. I found this past tax return season that mid-seventies bloated west-coast rock really fitted - Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Steely Dan and the like. Oes to excess, I guess. Some jobs call for a drone, perfectly suited to JAMC's wall of feedback. It's not been recent, but I had a long spell of working to the Sisters of Mercy - I think it was during a period of navigating a totally new system. Soft blues also works here, including local artists like Roger Howse and Scott Goudie.
Looking at playlists now I can see how each song immediately brings an emotion, a mood with it. Usually it's the music that carries the feeling, sometimes it's the memories associated with it. But it would be so very easy to run down a list and play mood-association.
And that's one of the reasons it's *there*.
