You people hve a favourite instrumental music song?

[owotrucked]

I admit that I'm a pleb that doesn't get it. Like, I listen to music that I don't understand and if I only listen to it I really don't get it.
I mean when I watched some reviews for music and seen that these notes reference this and this part has this cultural background so it's super awesome, and this note is like this while this is like that which is very cool - I guess a piece of instrumental music is good?
Or when it is accompanied by a movie or even a dance, or some animation.
I just don't understand it by itself. No, I can understand when I'm supposed to feel sad or happy from the way a song goes, but I always feel like "eh"... rarely does it evoke some feeling from me.
I mean I could dance to it but I don't feel it, y'know?
On that note, do you people have any purely instrumental music that you love on its own? Explain why if you can

Do you only listen to song with non-gibberish lyrics then?

I usually enjoy instrumental more than songs. The enjoyment is in the patterns of the successive harmonious and dissonant sounds, as well as the rhythm. But I think our response to it isn't only partly cultural (similarity with language) but mostly inborn.

I don't like pop music that I feel too repetitive, and I prefer instrumental because the lack of lyrics force the composer to have strong interwoven patterns to be interesting enough to listen to. On the other hand, I don't like classic music a lot because the patterns can get too complex and are like a full blown journey that requires your entire attention (which makes sense because the audience are people who sit down for an hour while doing nothing but listening).

I find game and movie music great because they are quick to pay off (analogy to short stories/novella as compared to big epic novels). There's pleasure to witness the patterns unfold and recombine to portray new feelings.

I like this piece of music (a violin following after a cello) and its second version (a violin going unhinged). I can't tell you why I like them, I could try to analyze the chords and the beats but it'd be a pain in the ass. It's like trying to reverse engineer the brain to explain why I like sugar.

Mainstream western music is tonal music. There's a sense of relief when the chords return to the tonic chord of key (particularely when it's from the V (5th chord). And there's a sense of progress/switcheroo when the composer switch chords from outside the key, or imply different keys, or outright change key. And doing all of that while layering more instruments, countermelodies that enrich the main melody, and hype up the rhythm.

It is true that melody notes may relate to the chord played underneath. This gives an emotional color to the melody note, but it's something that is felt instinctively, not something that you're supposed to know to enjoy it. The only good thing it does to know it, is if you want to recreate the feelings in your own music.

If you can't enjoy those patterns, maybe you're so big brained that the patterns are trivial and uninteresting. Or maybe you simply don't have interest in musical patterns (maybe you're more focused on the sensory quality of the sound itself than the patterns they describe).

 

[Plantorsomething]

I admit that I'm a pleb that doesn't get it. Like, I listen to music that I don't understand and if I only listen to it I really don't get it.
I mean when I watched some reviews for music and seen that these notes reference this and this part has this cultural background so it's super awesome, and this note is like this while this is like that which is very cool - I guess a piece of instrumental music is good?
Or when it is accompanied by a movie or even a dance, or some animation.
I just don't understand it by itself. No, I can understand when I'm supposed to feel sad or happy from the way a song goes, but I always feel like "eh"... rarely does it evoke some feeling from me.
I mean I could dance to it but I don't feel it, y'know?
On that note, do you people have any purely instrumental music that you love on its own? Explain why if you can

you don’t have to like it if you don’t want to- you can’t really force yourself to enjoy something. If it’s just explanations you want, I rarely listen to the actusl lyrics of songs on the radio but I still like them. Same principle, it’s just a fun mood. Even with lyrics I do know, I stop paying attention after the first ten times or so unless I want to sing along.

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

 

[gaylolis]

this is just so cozy

i like this as well

got a lot of favorites but these are ones i got hooked to recently

and i do like listening to this quite often

 

[ElijahRyne]

I admit that I'm a pleb that doesn't get it. Like, I listen to music that I don't understand and if I only listen to it I really don't get it.
I mean when I watched some reviews for music and seen that these notes reference this and this part has this cultural background so it's super awesome, and this note is like this while this is like that which is very cool - I guess a piece of instrumental music is good?
Or when it is accompanied by a movie or even a dance, or some animation.
I just don't understand it by itself. No, I can understand when I'm supposed to feel sad or happy from the way a song goes, but I always feel like "eh"... rarely does it evoke some feeling from me.
I mean I could dance to it but I don't feel it, y'know?
On that note, do you people have any purely instrumental music that you love on its own? Explain why if you can

I tend to prefer music where there are either no voices, or those voices are in a language I don’t know. Because I tend to get distracted from the music and focus more on what is literally being said/sung.
The big issue for your enjoyment is that it seems that you are not able to feel many emotions from the music. So, a way is to imagine a story for what is happening in the piece, or look up the story behind it. This can give it a bit more umph, but I doubt this alone will fix it.

You can try getting really immersed in the music, so immersed that you are practically doing nothing else. One good way to get into the music, at least for me, is to turn up the volume, close my eyes, and separate the different instruments, or the different voices of an instrument, and then focus on one until the rest creep in and start you are no longer consciously focusing on the one but it all. You can also try tapping your fingers or foot to the piece of music.

There is a lot of instrumental music I enjoy, be it Jazz, Classical, Folk, etc. but I think a good way to get into the music is to know its context of being written. So here is a piece from Bach, his wife was a violinist before she passed. Her passing was seriously impactful on Bach’s life. She helped him with learning and practice on the instrument, and every time he picks it up he is reminded of her death. The joy he found from the music was lost, yet he still played the instrument to remember her. Here is the story of how he confronts that grief: