How do you perceive meaning in music?

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Same here - I tend to memorise songs quickly (unless they are in other languages...)

The only music I have found 'meaning' in is Information Society-Ozar Midrashim because of the tone or music. If you found meaning in the lyrics you'll have to be crazy. Download it from hear - http://beemp3.com/download.php?file=247 ... +Midrashim to see what I mean. It's the second half that I like, but it’s different than ant thing else I've listened to.

I memorize songs in other languages too

My husband is like this. I will be singing a well-known song and he acts like he's never heard it and I'm like "What?? Yes you have! Everyone knows that song!" and then we will hear it on a commercial or the radio and I'm like "See this is the song" and he always says "Yes, I do know that song, you sang the tune incorrectly!"
Some examples are Pour Some Sugar on Me - Def Leppard and Never There - Cake. So I'm not a very great singer... but do I really mangle the tunes that badly?? I think he doesn't pay much attention to lyrics so can't recognize the song without the music.

I do pretty well when watching the game show Don't Forget the Lyrics and I sing along to everything in stores or restaurants (quietly of course) and my husband commonly tells me that I know every song

As can I, but it takes a little bit longer...

I listen to music to sort of get me going. I don't listen to music for the lyrics. If for whatever reason I need to listen to the lyrics, I noticed I have a problem understanding or even hearing what they say in a musical context even if the words are perfectly comprehensible, but once I read the lyrics I understand it.

I have also found that, I'll really like a song, then I read the lyrics and then I am disgusted by the song.

Sometimes I do.

I love this website: www.songmeanings.net I love seeing the viewpoints of others, it helps me understand the song.

Lyrics are my favorite part of music.

Hmm here is a question, for the ones who pay more attention to the music itself, do you sort of picture anything along with the music you listen to?
I sort of hear all the different parts to the music separately, and I see a sort of equalizer for each part to the music, but the equalizers are in a sort of scene, like the guitar riffs are the ocean, the drums are flashes in clouds, etc. I don't think its always like that with me though, unless the music is really uplifting or moving and I heard it before.

Also here is another question, do you externally express how you enjoy music ?

For instance, in a car full of people we will be listening to rock, metal, whatever, and everyone is banging their head, and me I'll like the music too but I don't jump around to it or anything, I'll just sit there and then people tell me that I am not "feeling it" or they think I don't like the music but I do.

Not sure how often I externally express enjoyment when listening to recordings, but to live music, sometimes I dance, and sometimes, I stare. And the latter I think could be easily missed by the casual observer. And the equivalent with a recording would be, well listening without doing anything.

If anything I struggle with lyrics, I find them hard to make out and on the rare occasion I know enough words to sing along to something, I ALWAYS stuff it up..

As for melody, if I listen to music while sat at the keyboard I can pretty-much replicate it as I'm hearing it, I can see music in my head it comes out as textures and shapes, and this juxtaposition can be so moving and beautiful.

But lyrics, nah, I just avoid them!

For me it is more the music than the words. As to lyrics, most lyrics are trite and banal. If you don't "get" them, you are not missing much.

ruveyn

i see music as structure. i see the patterns that a musical sentence can trace in a structural way.
some patterns are extremely gifted and they are crafted by the structure of tonic assemblies.

musical sentences are parts of musical stories and their relationships in a structural way are intriguing to me.

i think of music i compose and play as just my internal algorithms that i perform with a simple structural musical conversion program in my genes.

but i hear mozart as a person gifted beyond the capacity of expected human achievability.

mozarts music is like a symphonic volcano of expanding structures that are eternally inevitable and unquestionable. it is like the song of a galaxy majestically swirling about it's furious but seemingly stable axis.

i am in awe of mozart. i find some of his music (symphony 41 (jupiter) for example) somewhat unsettling as it draws my mind in like a black hole sucks in even simple dust.
it is so well constructed that i feel paralyzed with intrigue but the song ends and he is dead now and there you go.

i feel sorry for right brainers, listening mainly to the lyrics or having music as simply a background device...they're missing out on so much...

i hear music analytically, am able to break down the layers and notes instantly and then gain any emotional response i need from that. lyrics, if used well, can add an extra element to a song...but the human voice is such an expressive instrument that you could be singing made up words and as long as you sang it intensely and beautifully i wouldn't care...i kinda always thought that lyrics were there to give the non-musicians something to enjoy, lol x

Patterns and rhythms. Lyrics mean little to me, but the singer(s) (if present) can also affect me, but its nearly always the beat. That's why I enjoy such a wide variety of music. I find a single song can change my mood simply by the little parts about the beat such as tone, pitch, frequency, intensity, those sorts of things.

I listen to one "line" of music at a time. I can follow one instrument playing melody or percussion or vocals, but generally I don't hear them as an integrated whole (there are some exceptions). I'm curious as to how common that is.

Usually I concentrate exclusively on lyrics, which I usually memorise, and I sing all the time (well, when there's noone around, that is!) I do listen to instruments or percussion when they have a distinct "voice", though.

I can't enjoy music where the lyrics are garbled. I read about Mars Volta, and got a CD, but the words were all but obscured. I gave it away.