7 replies to this topic

[clumsy]

I preface the following by stating that I have enjoyed classical music since I was a kid (a really long time ago), so the experience below may not be equally awesome for some.

 

After dosing myself with 10 grams of cubes as tea at 11 am, by 6 pm I was just starting to come down/be functional once again. As I have done in the past, I fell to watching a classical music video, this time of a performance of Mahler's Symphony No.1 in D Major ‘Titan’. On past trips I have watch similar vids produced by BBC Proms.

 

I was immediately transfixed: The sound was so crisp and pure. The presentation, zooming in to featured soloists and sections, and the conductor keeping it all together. I made the vid full screen: that became my (wonderful) world.

 

I post the foregoing because I am certain that the beshroomed state heightened appreciation of this art. I hope others here might also venture, beshroomed, into performance art.

[Boebs]

Lol makes me want to watch fantasia

[TVCasualty]

Absolutely!

 

I really like complex compositions lacking any vocals (for tripping). Music with vocals seems to be more anchoring in time vs. just music by itself. I can only listen, though. I can't have a TV on, and when indoors I prefer total darkness and usually silence, too. Music and darkness being a close second.

 

Baroque/classical music gets especially intense in the context of tripping (as much or more than any Tool or other intentionally-psychedelic album IMO), and in a few cases I felt like I was "seeing" or otherwise experiencing exactly what the composer was seeing in his mind's eye or feeling while composing it. That happened to me with a Jimi Hendrix solo once, too (which I suspect he did on purpose; it was like he knew exactly what image he was drawing in the listener's minds and was drawing it just to show that he could, which I thought was hilarious at the time considering what it was).

 

Anyway, listening to the best compositions of classical music feels like following the plot of a novel written in manifestations of synesthesia between the music and the underlying intent and emotions that inspired it rather than words. Or something like that.

 

Music itself seems to be a form of Puzzling Evidence since it makes no sense why it's capable of having such profound effects on us. But it has such effects nonetheless. Regular ol' sound doesn't work like music, so I get the impression that understanding the difference between "music" and "sound" would reveal something fundamental about the nature of consciousness and/or memory (since music is second only to smells when it comes to the most powerful triggers of memories). Makes me wonder if memories are localized points in our brains (i.e. "particles") or dispersed holographically (i.e., "waves"). If the latter (which I suspect is the case) then a given piece of music might act as a means of accessing certain memory waveforms by creating some sort of harmonic resonance that recalls all prior associations with that particular song or album or whatever. It can get pretty weird and intense to listen to music you haven't listened to since High School. Or for that matter any music that you exclusively listened to during a specific time in your life that is now in the past.

[pharmer]

couldn't have said it ^^^^^^^^^ better myself

[FLASHINGROOSTER]

I can associate with that feeling you described of images forming when I listened to a wordless album a few months ago. It's hard to describe, It now has me wondering if I saw some cover art and that's where it originates from. Remembering it now I am picturing these green shapes, large round and flowing. Then again it might have been from the dream I was having while listening to it. For me that seems to be the closest thing to meditation that others describe. Focus on the music and fall into dream state

 

Classical music and or soundtracks have a special place in my heart. There is a complex relationship between the memory of the music and the memory of the film and or tv show that it was in. When traveling I would often listen to the interstellar soundtrack while half sleeping, meditating, whatever you want to call it. I could get into a dream like state where you can watch the movie play back in your mind as you traverse through the soundtrack, it activates these memories and they come out in force. Now when I listen to said soundtrack at home it triggers those memories of me having that "re watching experience". Oh yeah I was in that airport sitting on the floor waiting for the plane to board.... Far out

 

One often has these experiences when sober but I feel like psychedelics can unlock doors in your mind that have been closed for a long time

 

Agreed on the old music TV. Listening to your favorite music that you have not heard in years produces great results, it will trigger these incredible mushroom fueled walks down memory lane. Try and find an old album that you used to listen to a lot but for some reason forgot about it. I had a sweet homecoming with Tool a year or so ago, their contract dispute kept them out of the limelight for a decade and they slowly slipped off my radar. That body of music never successfully made the transition from my cd binder to my MP3 player

 

Another memory trigger is when I started reading a fantasy novel series with some of Trent Reznor's music that is wordless. It became the soundtrack to that series of books, luckily for me the same series is still going decades later. I can crack a book open, place that music on and now it feels almost naked without my homemade soundtrack. So much so that when I later heard some of the tracks on the incredible Vietnam war documentary it made me go, NO that's not what this music is for, its my secret soundtrack. It's an amazing feeling to me I wish I could explain it better.

Edited by flashingrooster, 04 September 2020 - 05:16 PM.

[clumsy]

Great classical music, @flashingrooster, is it's own movie + soundtrack. Snatches of Beethoven are used in films such as the lobster (his first string quartet), but never whole compositions, because the "plot" is one that can only be expressed in music. The quality of Bach/Beethoven/Mozart/Mahler has been approached in a few movie soundtracks, such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, but again, only in snatches. To comprehend the whole plot, you need the whole composition, from beginning to end. Beethoven, in particular, is well know for a larger structure that is beyond the melody/harmony at any given point. Same goes for the Mahler piece pointed to in the original post. I do, of course, appreciate your response.

[FLASHINGROOSTER]

I muddled my point by adding classical music, like you said they really only exist in movies in snippets. Nothing really comes to mind, flight of the bumble bee and of course the valkeries, but to what movies its hard to think. I like John Williams work on star wars, Hanz zimmer has some good ones. A younger fellow as well Ramin Djawadi, I know you can't compare them to the great's but still noteworthy

I will give those two links a solid listen clumbsy thanks for the recommend. Bolero would be the only one I could actually think of off hand, guessing you have heard it o plenty. Any others that you really enjoy and wouldn't mind sharing?

[Direct Link]

Edited by flashingrooster, 04 September 2020 - 08:10 PM.

[FLASHINGROOSTER]

I dig it

 

listened to the Mahler's video it was good.