anyone know how melody/chords affect visuals?

how can a musical presentation paint a picture without words? by this I mean, some songs will transport me to a wide open prairie hill with tall green grass under a dark purple sky, facing an orange setting sun, with a slight cool breeze.... how is that possible? It's like the music I would hear from heaven if I ever found myself sitting on that hill in the evening. But the funny part is, I am not relating to that from my own personal experience, because I have never actually BEEN there in person. Don't recall that scene from a movie either.

I understand how we hear positive and negative in major and minor chords, and maybe that is part of it.

but how can MUSIC paint a picture with specific words or sound effects? It's just all in my head I know, but there must be some absolutes. No?

Weird question. You're asking us about how you perceive music. I'm not sure if there are any absolutes. I guess I'd point to some of the more visual-sounding bands in Rock like Pink Floyd, or Nine Inch Nails. They encorporate unorthodox sounds into their music that create distinctive images. The cash register in "Money." The moans that sound like hounds in hell at the start of the "Becoming" On the Downward Spiral.

but more than sound effects and words... have you ever listened to an instrumental and had it take you someplace you have never been before? Is that always related to personal experience? some sort of connection to a visual or a dream or something? I think it is the same that a major chord SOUNDS happy or positive and a MINOR chord sounds negative or depressing. there must be something to chord relations, the sonic tones and such that are kind of absolutes. maybe like how colors can affect moods through our eyes, sonics can affect mood AND visuals. It's possible. No one ever think about this before?

I listen to a lot of space music and it does a very good job of transporting me into outer space, even though I have never been there. But, my mind is prepared for those sonic journeys already by KNOWING it is CALLED "Space music" so that already puts me halfway there. Then there are movies of desolate, wide outer space, and sometimes they even use music like this, so there is THAT connection. But it effects my brain like I am in space. And, no I don't do any drugs.

I know how important the melody and music part of a song is, but it is just today I realized it plays a huge part in our minds "VISUALS" also. I mean I knew that already, but trying to put the effect into words here is something else:

notes that create MENTAL VISUALS or locations.

Interesting

i get an image of a hearth burning in a little home at the base of a tree at night across a cypress swamp when i'm playing. i do drugs, though.

Cool subject!

It could have some deep-seeded connection to some childhood experience even. I.E The chimes that played when you turned the page on a "read along" book.

Those chimes could be stored in your subconscience memory. When you hear a combination of those notes, good feelings, an image, or part of your imagination comes back.

Would be an interesting scientific study I'm sure.

I would guess that that its a person to person basis, rather than certain notes and melodies triggering similar thoughts in everyone.

It's fun to think about. Hmmmm. If I could only tap into this power.. I could write a song... The Ultimate song.. ONE TO RULE THEM ALL. A MERE BAR OF SAID MUSIC WOULD HAVE THE STRENGTH OF A THOUSAND HERE COMES THE SUNS.

but with major and minor feeling positive or negative, doesn't it stand to reason there are other visual or emotional directors found in music?

But happy and sad are very clear cut, polar opposite emotions. A major chord is almost pure consonance. Take the major 3rd and lower it and... oh... things aren't so perfect in the world. Not catastrophic, but sad? Yeah, sad.

Now, lower that open, harmonious 5th... Something is seriously wrong.

Consonance and Dissonance.

One single note has a series of other notes in its overtones. When you hear a C, at a lesser volume you hear a G too, and other notes. So when play a C note and a G note, those two notes and their overtones harmonize in a pleasant way. The rubbing notes are so far down in volume that rather than rub, they enhance.

But try harmonizing C with a note that doesn't share any of the same overtones.

ClASh!!#$%^

Dissonance.

That ebb and flow of consonance and dissonance can conjure up so many different emotions. There is no recipe. We are all different with different histories. But when Beethoven hit upon the famous motif from his 5th symphony, he pretty much figured someone else was going to hear this as ominous too.

Trial and error is how the composer finds those musical passages that transport us. Based on the simple concept of Major = Happy, Minor =Sad, and all the further variations far from those familiar and safe places...

...the sky's the limit.

Too many major chords make me really unhappy. Claustrophobic.

As Primary suggests, some or much of this deep emotional resonance is probably related to a complex of associations. The auditory system, like the olfactory system, is a far more 'primal' part of who we are... sound and smell appear to be among the first stimuli we perceive and process as infants. Much has been written about the powerful emotional resonances often summoned by smells... and sounds can clearly have a similar impact on us, working on our limbic system, often well below the threshold of conscious thought.

I agree with the others who suggest it comes from a system of associations. We each have our own individual experiences and associations, but we also share many social or cultural experiences and associations. So while everyone will have an individual reaction to a song, there's also a common enough bond that which would enable multiple people to share similar associations to the sounds.

I actually think that a bunch of minor chords in a row sound stagnant most of the time. I think that patterns definitely do have specific visual connotations, but I am not sure that they can be linked to memory or to some sort of archetype. I think it all depends on nurture and nature of that person. When I listen to certain albums connected with my childhood, it bring me back. and certain visuals inspire different sounds. If you write a song on the road, you can probably tell. I think it goes both ways.

I saw a band CoCo Rosie that had accompaniment with visuals. I was really struck by how the visuals which were all projections of jaundice yellow parchment and strange cartoon sodomites really jived with the music. I know that the Robin Pecksomething guy from fleet foxes does a nice little dissertation about this on Fleet Foxes first album. About how it takes him to a place that is more real than his experience of reality. And, the Chinese emperors we're known to use music as a court religion to influence their subjects and communicate their messages.

I like where Lee is going with consonance and dissonance. That tension is essentially the beginning of rock and roll. I guess somebody should mention that different rhythms have different effects on the body and mind, just as much as melodies. Some classical music analysts insist that different keys have different connotation, not just the measure of intervals. Meaning that A minor would sound different than D# minor. which is hard for mind to grasp logically, but I feel that the harmonic resonance of specific notes in specific octaves with specific relations is fundamentally different to our consciousness than the same relations in different specific frequencies.

I guess everyone here agrees that music effects the body, not just the mind. So it creates a sensation to experience and interpret through the mind, rather than an enforced scenario which the brain experience. Everybody's body is different and all. Something like that...

What are we talking about?

hehehehehe..... 42!

I've got a couple CD's from people that made scientific music to relax you or make the mind alert based on wave sizes matching brain waves or something. They are good, yet different music. I would think that some simple studies of averages would produce a commonly useful tone poem set. Like this type chording affect the majority in the study THIS way, and thus you would have the highest chance of creating a certain feel doing it that way. Yeah, a little TOO scientific for creative music writing, but I'm stunned no one has done the research yet?

On the other hand, I suspect as we get better and better at writing, we start to understand the effects instincually or primally. The most successful song writers understand it the best and can touch the most people with their melody

There was a study done to see if certain intervals or chords or dramatic musical devices truly were indicative of certain emotions. They took a series a pictures of faces with them.

Smiling

Crying

Looking frightened

Looking mad

etc.

Then they went into the jungle and visited a tribe where minimal civilized contact had occurred. They put the headphones on a native and played happy music. These are people who had never even heard what we call music.

Was our reaction due to societal conditioning? Or was it inherent? Here we have people who don't have any of the same societal conditioning other than the human experience. Birth, survival, illness, loss, etc.

The native heard the happy music and pointed to a smiling face. Then a minor key theme from a tear jerker movie. He points to the sad face. Then a suspenseful, melodramatic tune with dissonance, etc.

He points to the frightened face...

THAT'S what I'm tawkin' about.

The "Visaul" side must relate to the individual's imagination. I happen to have a very active imagination so I tend to create large SOMETHINGS where there could be nothing - like some random chord structure - so my mind fills in the blanks. I have friend with NO imagination so they may not SEE anything when listening to music, other than what is presented. But the emotional side must still work, per the natives example. Good stuff!