How to hear/write a music story

Ok, this might sound a little strange, and I'm having trouble finding the right way to put this, but how do you hear the story in music? I look at videos and I hear people saying that you have to hear the story to understand, and it seems that they have story that everyone agrees with. I can formulate visions in my head, but how do you write and hear a music story? Do you have to know the background story or do you guys just understand the music like you understand words?

Hopefully, after my question is answered a discussion will arise because other wise this is a pretty pointless topic.

No, that is total bs. You hear what you want to hear. Music works on a subconscious emotional basis and doesn't necessarily have the same effect as the composer intended. Its general, abstract, and vague. There is no story. Even if the composer used a story to help him come up with the music doesn't mean you will experience even a similar story or a story at all. (although music isn't specific it tends to still have similar effects on similar people)

The music should effect you in ways you don't understand. I love Beethoven's symphonies... theres so much power that it makes me want to shake my fists when here something like the intro to the 5th.

Don't expect there to be a story. If you don't feel the music then find different music. Its that simple. You don't have to get emotional over it either. If if you like it then you like it, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't mean you are a savage if you don't like Mozart... just means you don't like him. (doesn't mean mozart is bad either.... but for some reason his music is not connecting with you(but later on it might))

Basically the whole idea of the story thing is essentially to popularize music. Some think its easier to understand music if you can visualize it but that is wrong. Music is only about one sense and that is the sense of sound and how it bleed's over into the other senses, at least possibly.... its not about trying to make it work better. If you want that you look at opera.

Note that there are a lot of things in music to listen for besides the immediate sonic impression. It opens up a whole can of worms but can help you get more out of music.

I have to agree with JonSlaughter to a point, however, there is a full band piece called Tubby the Tuba. It, through the use of a narrator granted, tells the story of a tuba named Tubby and his problem of wanting the melody but never getting it. The piece makes complete sense without the use of a narrator though. If you listen to it without a narrator, you can hear the "conversation" that the narrator exaplains, minus his or her voice.

But I do really have to agree with JonSlaughter. A story told through music is completely perceptional and individual. No two people may hear the exact same story for any piece of music. I listen to Beethovens Pathetique piano sonata and see something different each time I listen to it.

I do enjoy trying to write with a story in mind though. Makes it more of a challenge and it makes it special to you.

Ok, I thought that maybe I was studying the music too much when I listened (I mostly will just think of how the instruments interact in the piece) and I thought that maybe I was missing something. I'm very, very new to classical music, and I used to listen to rock. Just to make it so this isn't a worthless thread and maybe a discussion can be made out of this, do you think it's possible to make music in which everyone will feel or visual the same things?

Richard Strauss' "Don Quixote" is quite an extraordinary example of a "music story". But you have to know the story to understand what each section represents, though. I totally love the part with the sheep :P

When music requires a context to be enjoyable it no longer is functioning purely as music. I'm not saying this is bad or wrong or anything but music that is meant to be heard and enjoyed without external story or imagery or whatever else never needs a story to be enjoyable.

If a composer intents the music to go with something else for it to make sense then he better make it explicit to give it context and make it work. But even then of course the music might stand on its own.

When people that are not the composer make up there own stories then they are just doing that... making it up. It has nothing to do with the music or the composer and IMO should be looked on negatively when those people try make their story innate to the music. In fact, that is just how they see the music BUT music is not to be seen but heard(unless its supporting imagery or ideas in which case it is secondary).

When people that are not the composer make up there own stories then they are just doing that... making it up. It has nothing to do with the music or the composer and IMO should be looked on negatively when those people try make their story innate to the music. In fact, that is just how they see the music BUT music is not to be seen but heard(unless its supporting imagery or ideas in which case it is secondary).

Well, we all get certain associations when listening to music. Everything we experience (emotionally/intellectually/whatever) when listening to music can to some degree be called an association. Personally I see nothing fundamentally wrong with visual associations, or associations in the form of "stories". At least as long as those associations don't become so independent that they begin to suppress the actual music.

The problem is that what ever people feel isn't exactly the same or even close enough to be considered similar and its not right for one person to try and "force" that interpretation onto another person.

When I listen to music I do not hear birds chirping or cannons firing or see a woman walking down the road while its raining. In fact, anyone that does is pretty much nuts! Music cannot express those things at all. Now sure you might make those associations and I suppose theres nothing wrong wtih that but the moment you start to believe that the music is "saying" that and/or try to convince others that is what the music is saying then your wrong.

Even when a composer does it I would say its not completely correct but since music does have that effect of association to some degree its not completely wrong(and since its music it doesn't hurt) but it can only be done by the composer and by no one else. (since if the composer did use imagery to help compose then that is most likely the closest to being correct or at least lets us see it through the composers "eyes"... which again, its suppose to be music though)

If some jo blow music commentator says something like "This Beethoven's piece has extreme tension and reveals the inner struggle that Beethoven was having with himself ...", which is somewhat abstract, is just complete nonsense and shows just how much someone like that doesn't know about music. The more concrete stuff is even worse. Those types of commentary stuff is just to try to get the public to understand the music and make it extra-musical but it is totally wrong because music isn't about being extra-musical but only about the music(assuming the composer did not give any imagery himself).

All I can say is that its up to each person to do what they want with the music as that is what it is for. Anyone trying to force conceptional ideas about music onto another is just wrong. (of course people do it all the time and not just in music)

Wow, Jon, nice way to be open-minded and non-judgmental. It really isn't your place to say that a composer with a programme in mind for his composition is "correct" or not.

When a composer writes a piece of music that describes a "story" he's writing a programmatic score. You can enjoy the music with or without that programmatic element when it is well-written music.

If a composer has gone out of his way to create descriptive musical narrative, then that is his decision to make.

Isle of the Dead is meant to evoke the feelings that Rachmaninov felt when looking at that particular painting. If you don't feel the same thing, then that is no failing of the music, it's composer, nor of you as a listener, but rather the very nature of the beast.

My own 2nd symphony is meant to be programmatic, but has no "story" per se. If someone doesn't get the same sensations while listening to it that I got while writing it, well, c'est la vie. I can't say I didn't try.

One's interpretation of music is their interpretation of it. You really can't tell anyone what to hear, it's pointless. If you like something, fine, if I like something, fine.

Play middle C on a piano. What do you hear? Is it good? Why does it sound like that? Like what?

Oh yes. Middle C.

Play middle C on a piano. What do you hear? Is it good? Why does it sound like that? Like what?

Oh yes. Middle C.

I can't answer if you don't give me the exact tuning in Hz, the length of the note in milliseconds, and the exact curves of amplitude development for every overtone. Oh, and an analysis of the acoustics of the room I'm in.

But jokes aside: I can sort of understand the concern with forcing a subjective interpretation of a piece onto others. I do see that sometimes in newspaper critiques and the like, and it annoys me too. I just can't understand why everyone who hears birds in a piece is "nuts". Of course, if you hear birds in a Bach fugue, that is most unusual and probably something that Bach didn't intend at all. But as much as you don't have to hear the program in programmatic music (as has been mentioned), you don't have to hear "absolute music absolute". While music may not be able to accurately tell a story, that doesn't mean you can't hear a story.

And well, then there's pieces where the references to actual sounds are so clear that it's hard not to connect them. Take Messiaen's bird calls, or "La poule" (the chicken) by Rameau. And especially in electroacoustic music you will often be reminded of real life sounds, whether that was intended or not, because we try to order the sounds in our minds, and because we can't connect them to instruments we "invent" other connotations.

The point is not that you make these associations but that you assume, if you do, that everyone else does or should. I have no problem except when you try to force others to hear the same or expect them to. Music is sound and since it is ambiguous there is potential for "confusion" with other sounds. This does not mean every other human being will associate the same things with the same sounds.

The point is that when someone demeans another because they don't hear the same thing then its wrong and thats all. Let each person hear what they want. Also, who gives that person the absolute ability to determine what music is "saying" and if someone else feels something different then they must be wrong or unsophisticated or a savage?

I feel that if your listening to music trying to find the story in it then you have no clue what music is about and have no clue how to enjoy it. (well, you are enjoying it in your own way I guess but it is a non-musical way and IMO contradictory)

I feel that if your listening to music trying to find the story in it then you have no clue what music is about and have no clue how to enjoy it. (well, you are enjoying it in your own way I guess but it is a non-musical way and IMO contradictory)

the only problem with this statement is that you are doing exactly what it is you don't want others to do. YOU are now telling others how to listen to music, and if they aren't doing it your way, they're wrong somehow.

if someone seeks imagery to go with the music he listens to, then that is his choice, his way of listening to music. Who are you to say that it is the "wrong" way to listen to music?

or... maybe it's not middle C, but rather B# or Dbb?

Who are you to say that it is the "wrong" way to listen to music?

The point is not that you make these associations but that you assume, if you do, that everyone else does or should.

You say that everybody that makes associations necessarily thinks of them as universal? :mellow:

I can quite certainly hear music in a specific way without thinking that everybody else should hear it like that...

Nobody here disagreed with you about forcing others to "hear music your way", only on the "extra-musical thoughts about music are bad" statement.

And well, others have already pointed out the obvious contradiction between "Let each person hear what they want." and your rejection of any non-musical thoughts.

Ok, this might sound a little strange, and I'm having trouble finding the right way to put this, but how do you hear the story in music? I look at videos and I hear people saying that you have to hear the story to understand, and it seems that they have story that everyone agrees with. I can formulate visions in my head, but how do you write and hear a music story? Do you have to know the background story or do you guys just understand the music like you understand words?

Hopefully, after my question is answered a discussion will arise because other wise this is a pretty pointless topic.

Hearing a story in any piece of music is a highly individualistic experience. The "story" of a piece you may hear in a certain programmatic piece (let's say for example Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain) may be different from my story. Even if the composer intends certain themes to represent certain characters, if you have no access or you have not read the program or if you have no knowledge of the title at all, it is highly probable that you'll end up with a different story altogether than that of the composer.

Or to put it in another light, let's say you hear "Bald Mountain" for the first time and you don't know the title. Probably, you'll get the impression that the piece is somewhat scary but would you for certain identify which motives represent Chernabog or which measures would play out the chatter of the witches? You might think that those tremolandi, trills, and certain fast passages in that piece could sound like flies or insects buzzing instead of chattering witches. This is the reason why composers associated with program music needed to include a programme for their audiece to read so that these listeners would know what the music is all about (this to account for, as stated earlier, highly individualistic perceptions and interpretations).

I think some composers had the goal of being able to put in concrete ideas to their audience with their music (I for one am guilty of that goal but have yet to realize it, which could be something impossible). If I can recall things correctly, I think that Debussy once had the idea of having his pieces played out without the audience knowing the title or programme to see if the audiece could figure out what his pieces were all about. I would assume that it could have been a failed effort (unless his audience had some idea about it one way or another).