How do you perceive meaning in music?

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I'm mostly interested in the music in 90% of what I listen to. In fact I find lyrics and singing can be a distraction and downright annoying if it isn't quite right. There are many bands that I start liking the music... but then the 'singing' comes in and I just hate it.

But then there is that other 10% where the lyrics mean everything to me. It has to be clever and maybe slightly profound... but with a hint of mischievous fun that on the surface sounds silly but deep down there is meaning and explores some facet of life.

They Might Be Giants do this to me very often, and Sparks.

I really don't go in for 'quality' singing either... to me a great singer almost sounds phony to me.

To me I listen to music on multiple layers. I like relatively simple catchy melodies, like the music is telling a story perhaps. I also like many layers and stuff going on in the music, to hold my attention. I also go for complex rhythms. I like complex rhythms that are still somehow memorable and fun to listen to.

I also like some emotional expressiveness... but this surprisingly isn't the most important thing. I like extracting deep emotional feelings out of more simply played music... with improper technique... or music played on lesser instruments... or music created with/by a computer. This is from growing up with video game music as my primary inspiration. For most of the old NES/SNES games, the emotional content of the story was delivered through the music... and much of it resonated very deeply with me. So I can get great feeling out of the most primitive of computer music.

I have a excellent memory. I can pick up on the lyrics quickly. In fact I almost always have lyrics in my head and can hear the music. I fidn meaning through the lyrics. Also lets say I heard a song in a movie then I can kinda find the meaning. I can also tell by the way the music sounds. This prob doesnt make sense.

If I could perceive the meaning in music then it wouldn't be music.

If music doesn't have lyrics, I usually won't listen to it. If it has lyrics but the lyrics take too long to start, then that's really annoying to me. I'm a very verbal person so it better have lyrics and they better not be stupid (forced rhymes, bad singer, etc.).

This only applies to contemporary music. I can tolerate classical, but you can't dance to it so there's really no point.

For me, the lyrics are yet another element of the music. Though they really aren't an element music, when lyrics are set to music, I treat them that way sort of. I cannot just ignore them. Music is also a language, expressing meaning, and I love to compare the meaning of the music to the meaning of the lyrics to see how well the composer captured the meaning of the lyrics, with his music.

I totally agree!! !! It's not that I don't care about lyrics but I get SOOOO much more out of the actual music. I actually don't know how other people can listen to music, if they don't experience it the way I do.

On another topic, I think you might be synethesic. When you say " I like a long round note." you imply that you can "see" the music in your head. 1 in 20 NT's are like that but only 1 in 10'000 autistic people are. When you hear music do you involuntarily visualize colors, shapes and textures? I do. This is why I love music so much. It could be why you do too.

I'm sorry I have to correct myself. Synesthesia is acutally MORE common in people with autism...I was missinformed.

I mostly listen to foreign music. I get round to translating most of the songs eventually, but before that I generally just enjoy the instrumental and the way the words sound (as opposed to what they mean).

This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qExd-3oCTl4) is my favourite song at the moment, and I don't know what the lyrics mean, except for the title ("Colgando En Tus Manos" = "Hanging In Your Hands") and some of the chorus. The best bit is "Marta yo te digo, me tienes en tus manos. No importa que diga el destino, quedate conmigo. Lo quiero todo de ti, tus labios, tu carino, lo prohibido"; it just sounds so awesome!

I am good at memorising lyrics, even foreign ones. It helps if I know what they mean, but I can still memorise them even if I have no idea what they are in English.

I am the same, I rarely understand lyrics.

I like language for its own sake. I like words for the emotion I associate with them, rather than their literal meaning.

I never really pick up on the lyrics unless I really take my time listening to them.
It's always the instruments/sounds/overall vibe that hits me. I have a hard time finding meaning in song lyrics, though sometimes I'll be able to understand it... when I get the meaning (or my interpretation thereof) I can appreciate the lyrics or feel that they add to the instruments.

I sometimes find classical works to be pointless. I feel like the composer is just banging on his mental keyboard.

The meaning comes in the structures and the emotions portrayed. I particularly like to hear new things in familiar pieces, like an echo of a theme used early in a work.

Sometimes, I really feel like I understand what the composer is trying to say. I have that experience with Shostakovich's 5th Symphony.

Of course, there's always humor. Beethoven is a great tease. Prokofiev's Classical Symphony is based on a humorous proposition: what would Haydn sound like as a 20th Century composer. It's the most humorous piece I know, outside of Mozart's Musikalischer Spiess (Musical Joke). Mozart's piece was an elegy to his dead starling. It seems that starlings are great mimics, but have absolutely no sense of timing.

Download Dave Matthews Band - Minarets

Utterly beautiful.

Music doesn't have any real meaning imo. It's just an arrayed/harmonic combination of melodies/tones with different frequencies and amplitudes. I don't care much about the lyrics.

right to the drums. sometimes i pretend im the drummer i cant help it because its just so facinating and ties everything together