12 May 2015

More than just music

Feelings of weightlessness may be experienced when listening to Lumbye's Champagne Galop, Bob Marley's Exodus, or Bach's St. Matthew Passion…  
Metaphors employed by the informants include snowflakes (Bach), stone pillars (Mozart), an incense holder (Beethoven), and a red-hot toaster (Wagner). Listening experiences are compared to having lemonade in one's legs, being cut by a piercing laser beam, going on a rollercoaster, or being nailed to the bench…  
Other kinds of feelings include satisfaction, gratitude, perfection, love, solemnity, humility, admiration, patriotism, and sex…  
Music may prove important in connection with illness and death (e.g., funeral music), as well as with love…  
Music may prompt epiphanies that suddenly change a situation completely… 
Strong experiences when performing music…include (total) involvement, experiencing no fear, no time, no self, trance, collective touch, universal humanity...
from a review essay by Sven Bjerstedt of Strong Experiences with Music: Music is Much More than Just Music by Alf Gabrielsson (2011)

See also Syncopation, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music

On the negative side: Pathways to Music Torture


Image: Ad Parnassum by Paul Klee (1932)

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