soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2011-10-13 02:29 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2011-10-13 02:29 pm
Entry tags:
In which I am really earnest about my love of music
I went to my first ever concert-y concert a little over a year ago, when I saw Great Big Sea in Toronto, and one of the things I learned at that event is something that is continuing to stick with me in all my bandomy stuff. Which is that people at concerts sing along. When what you've previously been to is small-venue concerts with singer-songwriter types, singing along is not so much a thing that happens. And yes, singing along happens at folk festivals, but that's because it's folk and that's what's supposed to happen, and why should I expect it elsewhere?
But I keep on seeing in fic, over and over and over again, that if you're making it as a band even a little bit then you will have fans singing along, and that's just -- mindblowing. I always used to feel really sad that modern western culture didn't have many socially acceptable ways for people to just sing for the fun of it. I was always in some choir or another at the very least so I had an outlet, but that's relatively unusual and it made me so sad that a lot of people just...never really sing ever.
EXCEPT I WAS WRONG.
Because people who go to concerts sing.
And they might be crappy singers, but that doesn't matter, because they know the songs and they love the songs and being able to connect in with the energy and excitement of it with their voice is a powerful thing and I just... oh, I have so many ~feelings~ about this, you don't even know.
Because -- and you may have caught on to this given ALL THE POSTS I have been doing in these last few months about music -- music is a thing that is really important to me. In so many ways. At my peak in high school I was in four different choirs and two different bands and also private trumpet lessons, all at the same time. (...I know. I don't know where I found the time to do anything else either!) I got up before 5:30 in the morning almost every day in order to be at early-morning rehearsals, and I did so willingly despite being the opposite of a morning person.
I'm not as involved in music activities these days, because it's harder to do outside the structure of school, but it still means every bit as much to me as it did back in the days when I was making music an unholy number of hours every week. Music just means so much to me, you guys, and the thought of making music with other people like that is enough to make me cry sometimes.
And I can't even find the words to explain or describe what it is about it, just that it's something -- something amazing, and so to know that people who don't have the musical background I do can still experience something like that, every time they go to a concert? That means a lot to me. A really fucking lot.
(...Also it makes me want to go to more concerts but that's kinda beside the point. But I am so bitter that MCR was in Toronto like a month after I started getting into their music, and I was oblivious to the fact that they were there until weeks after. I am willing to bet it's going to be a very long time before any of the bandom bands is back playing in a place within a reasonable distance of me again. And MCR is the one I want to see the most. And I missed my chance.)
But I keep on seeing in fic, over and over and over again, that if you're making it as a band even a little bit then you will have fans singing along, and that's just -- mindblowing. I always used to feel really sad that modern western culture didn't have many socially acceptable ways for people to just sing for the fun of it. I was always in some choir or another at the very least so I had an outlet, but that's relatively unusual and it made me so sad that a lot of people just...never really sing ever.
EXCEPT I WAS WRONG.
Because people who go to concerts sing.
And they might be crappy singers, but that doesn't matter, because they know the songs and they love the songs and being able to connect in with the energy and excitement of it with their voice is a powerful thing and I just... oh, I have so many ~feelings~ about this, you don't even know.
Because -- and you may have caught on to this given ALL THE POSTS I have been doing in these last few months about music -- music is a thing that is really important to me. In so many ways. At my peak in high school I was in four different choirs and two different bands and also private trumpet lessons, all at the same time. (...I know. I don't know where I found the time to do anything else either!) I got up before 5:30 in the morning almost every day in order to be at early-morning rehearsals, and I did so willingly despite being the opposite of a morning person.
I'm not as involved in music activities these days, because it's harder to do outside the structure of school, but it still means every bit as much to me as it did back in the days when I was making music an unholy number of hours every week. Music just means so much to me, you guys, and the thought of making music with other people like that is enough to make me cry sometimes.
And I can't even find the words to explain or describe what it is about it, just that it's something -- something amazing, and so to know that people who don't have the musical background I do can still experience something like that, every time they go to a concert? That means a lot to me. A really fucking lot.
(...Also it makes me want to go to more concerts but that's kinda beside the point. But I am so bitter that MCR was in Toronto like a month after I started getting into their music, and I was oblivious to the fact that they were there until weeks after. I am willing to bet it's going to be a very long time before any of the bandom bands is back playing in a place within a reasonable distance of me again. And MCR is the one I want to see the most. And I missed my chance.)
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And okay when I saw MCR... er... it was a few days after my last exam last year, not sure when exactly, but Gerard DEFINITELY mentioned something about seeing Montreal again soon. Which I assume would be coupled with a Toronto show, because that is a logical sequence of cities. But maybe he lieeeeed, because I see no such thing on the website.
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The website is tragically short on future tour dates! Six shows, five of which are in the Australian part of the world: NOT HELPFUL, MCR. Does this mean that's the end of the tour, or does this mean the website simply hasn't been updated with what comes after? I do not know! I am unversed in the way these things are done! But I dearly hope MCR comes back to Canada at some point in the not-too-distant future, and will cherish what you say about Montreal in the hopes of my heart.
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But you are totally right, all people should always want to come to Canada all the time because Canada is the awesomest. Clearly. PSST MCR TAKE NOTES PLS.
(what is this RSS feed, and is it one that I should be interested in?)
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(Me, I've got this crazy weird relationship with music. Have I talked your ear off about it before? Probably. People who mention music around me tend to hear about it. ;P *has obviously been reading way too much Terry Pratchett, is not usually this self-deprecating*)
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(I don't think you've talked my ear off about your crazy weird relationship with music! Please do so!)
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So - I'm not exactly tone deaf. I can enjoy music; in fact, I love it. Love love love. ♥ But... well, most people have a natural ability to tell what notes go together, how far apart notes are (approximately - like, they can tell that C-E and C-F are two different things), and to remember how tunes go.
Me, OTOH? Well, imagine if you could see the whole electromagnetic spectrum, radio waves to gamma rays. It's all gorgeous. Look at the subtle gradations between x-rays and ultraviolet, the stunning glow of infrared, the wonderful contrast between x-rays and palest microwaves. People paint the most amazing pictures; they may only use the visible light spectrum, but you can see all the other colors reflecting off their paint as well, and it is fabulous.
Now try to paint a picture yourself, for other people to enjoy. o_O
That's me and music. I have one very simple problem: it all sounds good. I can't tell what's "atonal". If I try to jam with friends, they have to tell me what chords to play so I won't just make discordant noise.
...er, yeah. But I love music! It is important to me! (It keeps me sane! *g*) I want to make it! And because I am crazy stubborn - I learned.
Well, sort of. I learned to play sheet music on the piano, melody only, so that I could remember tunes (apparently musical and spatial processing follow the same neural pathways). I learned that one thing I can do is mimic a tone I hear, so I learned to sing with the piano and many, many repetitions of "Do-Re-Mi". (So, do, la, fa, mi, do, re... I learned how the thirds and fourths and so on feel when you sing them.) I enlisted my family - all naturally musical - to sing in my ear until I learned how to make a specific note come out of my mouth without having to hum around first looking for it. And I sang along with CDs of opera stars (not singing opera! lol) to learn focus and breath control and all the rest of it, so I wouldn't sound like a yowling cat anymore.
And I can make music! XD I can sing well enough that people in church tell me I have a beautiful voice (well, at 2.5 octaves and the general tone of a trumpet solo, maybe I do *g*); I can not only sight-play most melodies on the piano or recorder, I can transpose them at will; I can make good noises come out of a guitar. If I have the right songbook.
(I still can't play anything fancy with both hands at once on either piano or guitar, nor "play by ear" at all, but eh. I can fake a lot of stuff. When I don't get all grouchy and start pointing out that yeah, I know music theory better than any of my siblings because I have to... it's fun. *wry grin* And I've learned a lot - I can even tell, sometimes, when something is violently out of tune - so who knows? Someday I might even be able to jam.)
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(And fwiw, I cannot jam for the life of me either...)