How has music affected or touched your life? Would you consider it as a means of escape? Yes or No? Why?
This is more a question of opinion than a question of fact. Participants in the GQ forum tend to be hard-nosed skeptical realists who don’t deal in froo-froo stuff like the effect of music on one’s soul. I’d suggest asking it again in the IMHO forum or having a moderator move this thread to that forum.
It’s also usually a good idea to start the ball rolling with your own answers.
And yes, I think it can be a means of escape. Music (for me) tends to be very important in times of depression OR elation. In more normal times it has less effect but can still alter my mood. And sometimes it’s just ear candy.
The sound of my piano-playing has been known to induce deep depression in discerning audiences.
{ducking the baseball bats of the Hard-Nosed Skeptical Realists}
Off to IMHO.
Oh, and whenever I move a thread, for some reason I hear Rhapsody in Blue*. Go figger.
Really? For moving threads, I would have thought **Felix Mendelssohn’s Song without Words in C major, Op. 67, No. 4, “Spinnerlied.”
“The magic music makes your morning mood”
“Got the magic power of the music in me”
I don’t care one whit if someone finds this to be corny, but I firmly believe that rock ‘n’ roll has magic powers to keep one young (in spirit if not in body).
My standard line has always been that, while I do a fairly convincing impersonation of a responsible, functioning adult, inside I’m still a 21-year-old rock ‘n’ roller (add 28 years to that for the chronological age). What makes this so interesting is that it’s uncharted territory…no other style of music has by its very nature been so completely wrapped up with the IDEA of being young. So as its original patrons age, you end up dealing with phenomena such as Mick Jagger still prancing about onstage playing/singing it well into his sixth decade. (I say more power to him, and sod anyone who makes any smart-ass remarks about it. Of the two, I sure know who I’d rather be.)
Certainly, music is as vitally important to me now as it was then, as both a listener and a player. Nothing else gives me quite the feeling of freedom I get when I’m doing either, the latter in particular. And I’m not sure that escapism has that much to do with it. The feelings and emotions I go through, even when singing the simplest Beatle song from 1964 or rockabilly ditty from 1956, are still very real to me – certainly more real than anything I experience doing my day job.
Music also comprises probably 80 percent of what I talk about or do online. The online world has been a great boon to my music freakdom, in that I’ve been able to connect with so many others like myself to share our mutual passion (I used to think I was the only one as wrapped up in all this stuff – in fact, there are many even worse than I am!). Happily, some of these connections have moved from the virtual to the real world, with great results.
Yes, of course music is a means of escape!! 
Its what I turn to when I’m in a bad mood, upset, happy or otherwise.
I usually associate a song with an ex girlfriend or interest.
Nope. Music means virtually nothing to me.
Pays the bills.
Keeps me sane.
But mostly, pays the bills…
Elly
It’s the only thing I wouldn’t trade for sex.
(I’d still be allowed to masturbate, right?)
I’ve always seemed to be less “into” music than most of my peers. Never bought a lot of albums, never had a favorite radio station, never asked for a stereo for my birthday, never was willing to pay a lot to go to a concert. I liked some music, of course, but I just wasn’t into it like most other people I know.
I do find that listening to music can cheer me up or otherwise alter my mood. It also helps me stay on task if I’m doing something boring or tedious.
I’ve been thinking alot the past couple days of this very topic…how music affects us. I was watching one of those VH-1 shows about fan clubs, this particular one on AC-DC fans. I have never really liked AC-DC–in fact they are one of my least favorite bands. However, watching all the different fans talk about what this band and their music meant to them…people coming from all different walks of life. From an attorney, to an animator, to a guy living in the Everglades, the music touched them all. Then it was very interesting watching the guys in the band talk about how the fans affect them and how the music is their lives. It almost made me become a fan! They were all just guys that want to ROCK! Something about that is just so great.
Then I thought about music’s affect again today when I was at the CD store. I was looking to replace some CD’s that I had lost over the years and that I had been looking for in several different stores. I found them, and when I plugged them into the CD player to listen, the music just made my brain click…like there were circuits in there that weren’t working but now are. I hadn’t heard the songs for YEARS, but I remembered all the words and even conjured up some memories of where I was in my life the first time I had the CD.
I have always said that if I would rather be blind than deaf, because I don’t think life would be worth living without hearing music.
Very good example! As a child of the greatest musical decade in history, the 60s, I found most standard 70s music to be bombastic, pretentious and often downright ugly. But I have to admit that AC/DC is a band (one of the very few, by the way) that I’ve actually changed my mind about. I didn’t like them at all when they were in their prime, but I’ve developed a bit of affection for them, precisely because they’re so straightforward and unpretentious.
Persistence of musical memory has always amazed me. Awhile back, someone sent me a tape of an album I used to listen to A LOT back in high school. For whatever reason, I hadn’t listened to it in a very long time…I’ll bet 25 years at least. But as it played back, I knew EXACTLY what was coming next…every single vocal nuance, every single note of a (very long) guitar solo. As you said, it just clicked. And yes, along with this it evokes memories and feelings that go beyond the music.
You’re telling me! This is something I’ve always said too.
Oh god! GuanoLad would you move in with me (you have to promise you will hide from my wife).
Nobody seems to understand or accept that music is completely meaningless to me. It does not move me emotionally, and it barely has the ability to entertain me. Some of it is easier to ignore than others but ignore it is what I do.
I respect the skill and artistry that goes into making music, but I also respect the skill and artistry that goes into laying bathroom tile and I don’t want to spend half my day paying attention to that, either.
Nobody believes me, but music is just noise to be ignored.
(Now, tie music to a good stage production and I am right with you. I love musicals but rarely purchased the album from a musical because without the visual element I have no desire to listen to the music.) I have been to one concert in my life and it was a KISS concert. After the show I told my wife that I enjoyed the show very much, but had absolutely know idea what music they performed because I wasn’t listening to the music, I was just watching the show.
Short answers:
Has music touched or affected my life? No (unless you count the wasted hours trying to convince people that it isn’t just an issue of not having experienced the right music (sometimes I feel like I’m a lesbian warding off men convinced that I just haven’t experienced their magic and can be cured)).
Would I consider it a means of escape. Yes, an escape from doing anything remotely interesting, thought provoking, or worthwile (again, just my opinion; I don’t have a problem with the people who disagree).
Why? Because I can’t read and listen to music at the same time (obviously I can read with music on, but then I’m completely tuning out the music). Spending every waking moment of my childhood reading meant I had no time for music.
Ah likes to pretend ahm playin’ the gee-tar when ah lissen.
Music, music, music! Oh, how I love music!
Music has always been a very improtant part of my life. Some of my most cherished memories have a sound track.
My grampa was a minister in a little (I mean LITTLE) town here in Texas. Some of my best memories of him and my gramma are accompanied by either the tinny, slightly out of tune piano that the church had for its Sunday school class or by the sounds of hymns played on the big organ in the sanctuary. Sometimes when we’d visit, my mom would play for Grampa’s service and give the regular organist a day off.
And sometimes, when we knew noone else was around, my mom would play other stuff on the organ in the sanctuary.
At home, we have a player piano, and many nights mom would play and we kids would sing. When my dad was still alive, he loved to hear her play. The piano was a wedding present from my dad to my mom. ‘YES, We have no bananas!’, ‘Five-foot two, Eyes of blue’, ‘Ain’t She Sweet’. These and many more are the songs on the soundtrack to my childhood. And that doesn’t even include the songs we had on music rolls that the piano played by itself (what a marvel, it plays ITSELF!).
We always sang. My dad would sing to my mom. Mom and dad would sing to me and my little brother. We sang in the car, we sang around the house. I now sing to my kids.
The radio is nearly always on at my house. My mom exposed me to all sorts of music, and I am doing my kids the favor as well. They get to hear (and sometimes enjoy,lol) classical, rock&roll, country, WWII era songs, showtunes. My seven year old son can be found sometimes playing in the backyard singing ‘Hey Big Spender’. My 12 year old son has recently become an Ozzy addict, and plays ‘Crazy Train’ in a loop on his cd player.
I even made a website for my all-time favorite singer/songwriter, Tony Carey. (how silly is that? 
)
Music has always been vitally important to me. It remains so now, and I have the pleasure of seeing it take root in my kids. What would life be without music?
Too damned quiet, if you asked me…
For me, music isn’t an escape; it’s sanity.
My tastes are ecclectic, i.e. hopelessly untutored and undoubtedly wretched. Oh, well.
My primary input seems to be words, absorbing and reflecting the world that way. But sometimes overload happens and music cuts right through to the synapses. (I rarely remember lyrics; the music itself penetrates the fog.) I understand print criticism but music criticism baffles me. Both are intensely personal but music delves right to the core. Probably because I’m untutored, hmmmmm?
When life generally sucks and I’m too tired to cope there’s no replacement for drowning my brain in Handel’s “Water Music” or Bach’s Third Brandenburg. Weird comfort music, but mine own. Or miscellaneous jazz, rock or whatever combination of math, sound and art soothes the kinks.
The “quality” of the music? Depends on what I need to hear.
Veb
For me music is a very powerful drug and I am an unrepentant addict.
I’ll take a hit of rock and roll when I’m driving to work in the morning, it get’s the synapses crackling. If I’m driving in traffic and my nerves start to get a little frayed I listen to classical to calm me down.
When I get home I’ll put on some swing or jazz and dance with the girls. My daughters love swing and jump jazz, if I play it they cannot help themselves and will dance with me, each other, or just by themselves.
Then there’s blues for later in the evening.