2007-04-02
### Love Letter [](/space/2007-04-02)
> I also like lyrics - how do people listen to music that has no words? What
> do you do with your brain during that time? I'm missing that part of musical
> understanding.
>
> _-DCM, [Just another in a long series](http://otherendofsunset.blogspot.com/2007/03/just-another-in-long-series.html)_
Among other things, my freshman college roommate and I bonded over music.
[Tool](http://toolshed.down.net/), in particular, and later [A Perfect
Circle](http://www.aperfectcircle.com/). To be fair, you could skip to the chase and
say we bonded over [Maynard James
Keenan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_James_Keenan).
We quickly noticed that we appreciated very different things. He was inspired
by Maynard's lyrics; they're poetic, disturbing, and wryly amusing. I marvelled
at the drummer's unsettling, byantine rhythyms, and the bassist's delicate
balance between harmony and noise. We bonded over A Perfect Circle's
constituent parts the same way.
As a long time classical pianist, I can happily, if needlessly, reassure you.
Music without words still has substance. On the contrary, most instrumental
music has _more_ substance than lyrical music. Gershwin, and jazz in general,
may be an exception. Maybe opera, too, but I avoid that like the plague, so I
wouldn't know.
Just like lyrics, music also has a few different orthogonal dimensions. You
listen to the words, but you also hear their rhythym and aesthetics, right?
Same with music. I love lots of pieces for themselves - Debussy's _La Mer_,
Barber's _Agnus Dei_, [Imogen Heap's _Hide and
Seek_](http://imogenheap.co.uk/player/) - but I also love listening to the
way they're arranged, interpreted, and performed.
Bringing it back to lyrics. You've heard the so-called
[Phish remix](http://www.phish.net/faq/ginandjuice.html) of
[Dr. Dre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre)'s
_Gin and Juice_, right? Or
[Jonathan Coulton](http://www.jonathancoulton.com/)'s
[cover](http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Baby%20Got%20Back) of [Sir
Mix-a-Lot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Mix-a-Lot)'s _Baby Got Back_?
Same words as the originals, but man, vive le difference, huh? That's some
quality orthogonal dimensions right there.
Anyway. You knew all that. You were asking, what do you _do_ when you listen to
music without words? Personally, I do the same thing that you probably do when
you listen to music _with_ words. Absorb it. Turn it over in my head. Compare
it to other pieces by the same composer. Compare it to other pieces, other
composers. Listen for individual layers, voices, instruments. Try to trace the
music back to events in the composer's life, or the performance to the
orchestra's.
At least, that's the idea. I'm usually lucky if I get past the "turn it over
in my head" stage. Still, I just heard
[Mozart and Sibelius](http://www.sfsymphony.org/templates/event_info.asp?nodeid=250&callid=93&eventid=1077)
at the symphony, so you can probably chalk all this up to nostalgia, because I
love Sibelius, especially live, and because it's past the halfway point of the
season.
...and because I miss the piano. [I have low-grade RSI](/space/2006-11-18), and
playing piano is even worse on hands than typing. My RSI isn't bad, but still,
I'm working hard to keep it that way, so I can't really play piano much. I have
to go with the whole bread-winning thing.
Instead, I listen to music I used to play. I listen to music I hoped to play
one day. I go to the symphony. And I sit here and log a few thousand
unnecessary keystrokes on my hands' odometers. Perverse, huh?
