4 ms·

I like to think music is just tickling peoples' eardrums. Musicians really are just vibrating the air, creating sound waves, thus music is inherently ephemeral.

I like to think music is just tickling peoples' eardrums. Musicians really are just vibrating the air, creating sound waves, thus music is inherently ephemeral. Written and recorded works utilize our memory and psychology to take us on a journey through time, telling us a story, conveying message and meaning through many moments of ear tickling.

tasty_freeze 7y ago
Music is just tickling peoples' eardrums in the same way that looking at your newborn baby is just indirect light illuminating your retina.
- kalium_xyz 7y ago
  Tickling is surprisingly complex and specific, random noise like wind blowing on skin will not tickle you, you cant tickle yourself, you clothes dont tickle you, etc. How is it a bad metaphor for music? Id even go as far as calling music a form of humanity pleasuring itself not as in the act of emulating sex but emulating the most interesting parts of a language
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  Music is primarily for entertainment and evocation of emotion, as well as secondarily for dance, exercise, distraction, community building... All of these require a vibration of the eardrums, and such is my temperament that I love to have fun and stay light-hearted, so most of my music fits the tickling vibe. Not intensely sad/slow music, granted, but I very rarely play that myself :)
sudosteph 7y ago
As someone with ADHD, I can confidently say that music is one of the least ephemeral things in my mind. Music is much more like a heuristic for generating patterns based on limited data points. You just need a key, a rhythmic base and a sentiment and you're off. Memory is a small part. it only works because you can regenerate the idea of a song based on small cues. There are so many songs where I couldn't tell you the exact words to a particular verse, but if I can grab onto another part of the song I can imagine the rhythm of the lyrics and rhyming scheme, then work backwards to something that I think I might recognize, but really it will probably be off in some way. Perhaps my head rendition is at a slower tempo and higher key, but if I tried to sing it from memory you would still recognize the song. So I'd argue that music is a more of a exercise in pattern recognition and pattern generation than physical memory recalling or story telling.

tasty_freeze 7y ago

Music is just tickling peoples' eardrums in the same way that looking at your newborn baby is just indirect light illuminating your retina.

kalium_xyz 7y ago
Tickling is surprisingly complex and specific, random noise like wind blowing on skin will not tickle you, you cant tickle yourself, you clothes dont tickle you, etc. How is it a bad metaphor for music? Id even go as far as calling music a form of humanity pleasuring itself not as in the act of emulating sex but emulating the most interesting parts of a language
WhompingWindows 7y ago
Music is primarily for entertainment and evocation of emotion, as well as secondarily for dance, exercise, distraction, community building... All of these require a vibration of the eardrums, and such is my temperament that I love to have fun and stay light-hearted, so most of my music fits the tickling vibe. Not intensely sad/slow music, granted, but I very rarely play that myself :)

sudosteph 7y ago

As someone with ADHD, I can confidently say that music is one of the least ephemeral things in my mind. Music is much more like a heuristic for generating patterns based on limited data points. You just need a key, a rhythmic base and a sentiment and you're off. Memory is a small part. it only works because you can regenerate the idea of a song based on small cues. There are so many songs where I couldn't tell you the exact words to a particular verse, but if I can grab onto another part of the song I can imagine the rhythm of the lyrics and rhyming scheme, then work backwards to something that I think I might recognize, but really it will probably be off in some way. Perhaps my head rendition is at a slower tempo and higher key, but if I tried to sing it from memory you would still recognize the song. So I'd argue that music is a more of a exercise in pattern recognition and pattern generation than physical memory recalling or story telling.