music

[Tarran]

just curious what you kinds of music you folks listen to while you are either playing or creating

[Nózmájner]

Various.
For example:
Therion, Within Temptation, Samael, Sytras, Sear Bliss, Alhana (in hungarian, but those are free to download, it's their official site), Gire has some decent (same here: ofiicial site, some free downloads).

Also I like Rammstein, Dimmu Borgir, Fear Factory, Mike Oldfield, Jean-Michelle Jarre, Kraftwerk

Precursors
or, to stay at games, Independence War 2 and Vampire the Masqurade: Bloodlines had some good tracks.

Some Animes also has very decent soundtrack, like any Ghost in the Shell (Kenji Kawai of the main films, Yoko Kanno of most of the series music), Haibane Renmei (mostly Blue Flow if I remember correctly), some from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Metropolis (Toshiuki Honda, if I'm correct), Noir, Hisaishi Jo (he made the music of every film of Myazaki Hayao).
The best thig of these japansee music is that I can't speak their language, so I don't have to bother with the lyrics, and some of their singer has wery beautiful voice.

One of the most important aspect of music to me, is that it shouldn't be too much monotone, like some electronic music. I don't like that, when they build up entire music on one or two simple bass pattern.
Also, I don't like rap music.

[Tarran]

I'll be d/l those.. haven't tried hungarian music yet..
I usually do stuff like hallucigenon, zeromancer, and timo rautiainen & trio niskalaukaus while creating..

when I'm playing its stuff like kent, tool, dimitri kokotas, and kaja paschalska

[rockstar]

Well, depending on my mood I'm listening to lots of different kinds of music. The only thing important is the songs have to make me feel happy somehow, aggressive in a positive sense or reminds me of good times. So I stick to fast, melodic, happy, positive, groovy, agressive, funny, emotional or whatever music with some kind of dancability - that's how I like it. Some well known bands, some internet radios, some unsigned heroes...
Maybe this sounds strange but music is the only thing that can save my day when things get nasty. And maybe this sounds even stranger but when I ran into trouble with creativity or just need to get myself some distance from stuff I turn up the volume and start dancing and/or singing
Anyways, it helps...

I would like to try the donwloads, but all those bandnames sound like metal or goth stuff and there's no space in my life for depressive or negative music. Maybe I'll give it a try some day...

Here's a link to a page I prefer legally downloading songs of unsigned bands:

PURE VOLUME

They have a broad bandwith of different music there, so I can just advise you to spend some time checking some bands there.

[Tarran]

Maybe this sounds strange but music is the only thing that can save my day when things get nasty. And maybe this sounds even stranger but when I ran into trouble with creativity or just need to get myself some distance from stuff I turn up the volume and start dancing and/or singing Very Happy
Anyways, it helps...

doesn't sound strange at all.. a good song or piece of music is like this conduit to take you there

[Nózmájner]

rockstar:
Nothing strange there. I think this is one of the main purpouse of music.
Anyway, personally I don't really like to dance.

My list has a lot of metal, but not really that Iron Maiden like, but mostly black metal, some are more dark, like Samael, but some are let's say, interresting. Like Therion, which has an entire album dedicated to german (viking) mythology (Secret of the Runes). Heh, they had an ABBA remake too

That Alhana piece is not really depressive or agressive metal type of music. Mostly it's quite peacefull and calm, without those violent guitar riffs, and with synthetisator, and most important: with the very beautiful voice of the women singer. Some of their lyrics are quite simple though about elves, vampires and dragons and such, but they have some really goot too, like about becoming mature unprepared.

Gire is a bit different, it is a bit more, let's say aggressive guitar play, but it has something, that I like.

Anyawy, that site you mentioned semms a gold mine to me. Thanks

Taran:
I never heard any of those you mentioned, and none of them had downloadable sample, except zeromancer, but that's not really my type of music. Anyway, timo rautiainen & trio niskalaukaus seems quite interresting. And also I found tool on shoutcast, an it's quite good.

[chuck_starchaser]

I listen to all kinds of music, but my favorite era is the 70's "progressive" rock and "fusion" jazz, but then again, I'm far older than most people in these boards... Talk about being inspired by music; I'v repeatedly noticed when I'm working on anything, I'll find myself trying hard to visualize "perfection", in what I'm trying to do, if just happen to be listening some highly polished band, like Focus or Chick Corea or Genesis ... or Thievery Corporation, even (Say what you will, but their sound is very clean; their percussion's clockwork, and the bass ultra-smooth.)

[rockstar]

I mentioned to possibility of sounding strange for people music does not mean so much. There are a lot of such people out there who can not understand people who are kinda addicted to their music and hardly can't leave their room without a musicplayer ready. I remember these really evil train rides without one... a fucking nightmare.
Dunno, are you grown up with music? When I remember the time at my family's house there was a lot of music around - radio in kitchen and bath room, my little brother playing bass in cellar, my dad listening to salsa music on the internet and my mum to shakira (she makes far better music than charts let us know) or she stealt my D.H.C. Best Of Record again 'cause she likes 2nd Wave Ska. When thinking about it I have to realise that this might be the reason why I can't live without music. Something would miss in my live... silence drives me crazy ^^

Btw. I know Therion. Especially this record. I spend 8 years of intensive pen and paper fantasy role playing games and my gamemaster prefered such music for ambience - Therion, Rhapsody, Blind Guardian, Lacrimosa and stuff like this. I had no problem listening to it as long as it was nothing more than for ambience - and they worked well for this issue. When beeing on my own this music is not giving me what I am looking for. I would never say those bands suck... it is just not my music.
I personally prefer Irish Folk when looking for lyrics about mythology and fairytales. Although the songs about battles, bitches, unity, beer and booze are more my style ^^

Did you ever listened to Queen? Guess so, everybody should know of "Bohemian Rhapsody". But did you listen to some early records from the 70s? They also have lyrics about fairies, ogres and stuff - "My Fairy King" and "Ogre Battle" e.g. When you like "interesting" music you should try to get these tracks and at least listen to them once.

Gire sounds quite interessting... aggressive guitar play rocks. I guess, I'll give it a try. You can never own enough mp3s.

PureVolume.com is a real blast. The biggest website I've seen around dedicated to unsigned music. I found some damn good bands there. Having just 3 songs or something , but who cares as long as thoses tracks rock. It's just a bit slow due to the huge db and the high data transfer.
But it's for free and that counts.

One thing about Rammstein... as said I don't want to call a band bullshit just because I don't like their music, but Rammstein is one of the worst bands I've ever come over. Stupid lyrics, no intention and definitly much too present in charts. I remember a party for younger pupils I organised with some people in school some years ago. I've seen 13 year old kids "dancing" to "Sex ist eine Schlacht, Liebe ist Krieg" und "Weißes Fleisch".
On another party I've seen people at my age "dancing" to Makarena followed directly by Rammstein. Somehow they made it to reach a totally wrong audience. As soon as bands get swallowed by regular charts and playing at Bravo Supershow they've lost everything they've ever stand for. I would rather follow Therion on a whole tour paying a dozen tickets than buying one record of Rammstein.
Living in Germany this band is very present around me on radio and TV. One day you'll reach a point you're fed up and just want them to dissappear - but of course they won't

[Edit]
Ah, chuck posted while I was writing, so a little comment here...
I personally think of Jazz to be one of the most perfect kinds of music around. People call classical music "art" and so I would call Jazz! While other music is rather a way of expression of livestyle - or just fucking business creating products for the consuming society out there.
I sometimes listen to Jazz for chill out.
Btw. my dad owns some records of Genesis. It's definitly not my generation, but I still like this more than a lot of this "modern" music genres - RnB, Techno, Rap, Pop or this TERRIBLE interpretation of chart compatible rock music played by 15 year old kids.

You should check this link to understand that whatever kind of music people are in is cool as long as not lcomparable to THIS!!

[Tarran]

I never heard any of those you mentioned, and none of them had downloadable sample, except zeromancer, but that's not really my type of music. Anyway, timo rautiainen & trio niskalaukaus seems quite interresting. And also I found tool on shoutcast, an it's quite good.

hallucigenon is techno.. kent is erm.. swedish.. sort of goo goo dolls meets mike and mechanics. , dimitri kokotas is greek (sort of poppish ballads).. kaja paschalska is polish.. style is someplace between anggun and texas.


-=to starchaser=-
if its any concilation.. I remember 8 tracks

[Nózmájner]

rockstar:
Well, my relation to music sounds simmilar to yours, but with less fammily members listening to music around me (at least in the past). Travelling would be far longer if I wouldn't have an mp3 player.
Also, I can't even imagine creative work without good music. Or just reading a book without it.

I see your point about Rammstein. Heh, yeah they are not definitely a band of quality. I just found the german language sounds quite funny for music. (no offense, It's just sounds strange and funny for me) I even enojoyed the "Leibe heist Leibe" (Life is Life) from Laibach for this reason. (never heard any other from them though)

I heard Queen a lot, cos my mother quite like them. They've got some good stuff, but to be honest I never listened to them directly, mostly theye were just something like how you listened to Therion.

chuck:
Phill Collins was in Genesis, right? Anyway, in the 70's i wasn't even planned.

[Orb99]

In no particular alphabetical order:

Akira Yamaoka, Apocalyptica, The Art of Noise, Ayumi Hamasaki, Basil Poledouris, The Birthday Massacre, Björk, BlutEngel, Deadstar Assembly, Depeche Mode, Dir en Grey, Duran Duran, Evanescence, Fleetwood Mac, Gackt, Garbage, Harry Gregson-Williams, Information Society (by extention, Kurt Harland), Jo Hisaishi, Juno Reactor, KMFDM, The Laziest Men on Mars, Led Zeppelin, Linkin Park, Lords of Acid, Lunarclick*, Malice Mizer, Marilyn Manson, Metallica, Midnight Oil, mmodule, Moby, Moi Dix Mois, Monster Magnet, Nightwish, Nine Inch Nails, Nobuo Uematsu, The Pillows, Pink Floyd, Queensrÿche, Rammstein, Schwarz Stein (and Rudolf Steiner), Scorpions, The Synthetic Dream Foundation, Talamasca, Tori Amos, Torley Wong, Turmion Kätilöt, Utada Hikaru, Violent Femmes, White Zombie / Rob Zombie, Yoko Shimomura, Zeromancer.

Add to this various artists from whom I enjoy one song, Plus various video game BGMs.

Oh, and Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor'.

[klauss]

Wow... deja vu...
(that "this same question using these same words in this same forum I have already seen" feeling)

Right now, it would have to be "Turandot" - an Opera, by Puccini.
Mostly because, as I was listening to it... something didn't feel right. So I got touchy... and started fixing the recording (it's a curse... I can't just listen to something).

So now it must have been like the fifth time I listen to it... from head to toe. That's about 2 hours each time

At earlier times, it was a similar thing with "Les Dialogues des Carmélites" - another Opera, by Poulenc.

It's not always opera, though. Symphonies. Little pieces. But the constant is: "classical".

[rockstar]

klauss, you should try some simple punk recordings... they are about 2 Minutes and generally need urgent professional retouching

Ok, I'll make it...trying to write this name!

Nósmájner (<- took me 3 Minutes only with rechecking spelling ), I feel the same about languages beeing unfamiliar to me. So there's no offense at all... I guess everybody feels like this. I checked some bands on Purevolume in the last hour and came over some ska band from estonia - weird! For me the language sounded like something's seriously wrong there and their hopeless try of singing english lyrics made me closing the player immediatly.
And maybe is Rammstein really kinda funny to listen, when you're not familiar with german, but if you are you unfortunatly understand all the senseless combinations of words they use and repeat continuesly in every song. Anyways, let's stop this discussion about Rammstein...
Apropos lyrics... sometimes I'm just listening to the music instead of the lyrics and am quite dissapointed when suddenly realising that a band is singing about the same boring shit in every song. Got one lately singing about girls and flirting and damn the songs suddenly were only half as cool as before... god bless folders and shift+del for bypassing dustbin.

Btw. Phil Collins was Genesis drummer. His solo carreer as vocalist was very successful for a drummer. Hm, Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl also startet a new band as vocalist and guitarist - recently known as Foo Fighters. And the vocalist of The Queens Of The Stoneage is a great drummer prooving this while the Eagles Of Death Metal project. Seems like there must be something about people playing drums and their full potential as musician.

[chuck_starchaser]

@klauss:

Touchy subject for me....

I grew up immersed in classical music. In fact, I pretty much knew nothing else, when I was a kid.
And my father was the saint, to me, and my mother almost evil. She was horribly strict and short-tempered, wheras my father was peaceful and friendly.

Anyhow, it was my father who had imposed the classical music taste on the household. My mother used to sing callypso while doing the dishes, if my dad wasn't around.

Logically, I should have sided with him? No, in fact, as soon as I began to have a mind of my own, early teenage years, I began to loathe his attitude of saying classical = good; everything else is inferior. That condescending air which he and his classical music friends had, kept smelling more and more rotten, until I rebelled against him and for years I would not listen to anything labelled "classical" if you offered me money to do so.

I'm getting old now, and I still have a problem with that whole culture of people who say "classical is better". I've come to enjoy listening to classical again, but I have to sort of prepair myself psychologically before I do so, like go deep within and make sure there's nothing of my father's attitude in there.

What I guess helped me the most was this guy I used to work with in Toronto. We used to talk about rock bands and music and he seemed to be very knowledgeable about rock of all the eras, as well as jazz. What I wasn't prepared for was when one day I started mentioning some classic pieces I liked, and he knew them too. I mentioned how I loved Alexander Gibson's interpretation of the Valkyrias, and he was with me on it. It turns out this guy had, I think it was the third largerst personal collection of classic music records in Canada, several thousand albums.

Yet he didn't have even the slightest amount of attitude. To him, all music was good. Music was good. Period.

[mkruer]

I’m fickle when it comes to listening to music, but I know what I like. Right now I am listening to the sound tracks for Ghost in the Shell OVA. I listed to some strange shit, but its all about the “moodâ€

[klauss]

I grew up immersed in classical music. In fact, I pretty much knew nothing else, when I was a kid. (...)

Funny. It was kind of a reverse in my case.
When I was a kid, I listened (not much) all kinds of music. And I mean all of them, well... except "Cumbia Villera" - that I loathe.
Suddenly, I found myself listening more and more classical... until I just lost interest in the other kind.
Yes... classical is another world. It's a different POV on music.
Not Mozart or Beethoven, though. Those were composing what at the time would have been labelled "pop" music, no kidding.
But most other "classical" composers (and it's quoted because, in actuality, classical is a much more specific term that encompasses just a fraction of what people normally call classical music - there's classical, romantic, neo-classical, post-modern, blah, blah...)... I was saying, most other classical composers have a very different approach on music composition.
Take Wagner's "Das Ring der Nibelungen"... it took him his entire life to make that one. Or Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmelites"... it took him years too.

For classical composers, a masterpiece is created over time and hard work.

For pop composers, though, a hit has nothing to do with hard work (although they do work hard)... it's just about popularity. They compose as if they were in a factory, piece after piece after piece, with nothing close to classical composer's dedication to a single piece.

Now, I'm not trying to demerit pop composers in general. There are good ones, and there are bad ones. But it's two very different approaches to music, and that can't be ignored.

So:

I've come to enjoy listening to classical again, but I have to sort of prepair myself psychologically before I do so, like go deep within and make sure there's nothing of my father's attitude in there.

It's normal and a good thing that one does not listen casually to classical music - at least not all the time.
As classical composers dedicate years or their whole lives to creating their work... listening to it isn't any less complex. Often you'll discover new things about a piece as you listen again, or more critically minded - or just with a more mature "musicality" given by passing years.
And... removing oneself of any (any) prejudice is also a good start. Until recently, I just couldn't listen to Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. I found all of their work "boring". But after washing out that "boredom", I came to realize what a genius Bach was... his techniques are centuries ahead of his time, and Beethoven, while lacking any kind of musical taste (really - their melodies and subjects are... poor, to say the least), he's one hell of an "architect", building impressive buildings out of poor material. I can relate to a similar thing happening to you, in the opposite direction: something compells you to dislike classical music - in order to properly appreciate it, you have to rid yourself of all prejudice.

I began to loathe his attitude of saying classical = good; everything else is inferior. That condescending air which he and his classical music friends had, kept smelling more and more rotten, until I rebelled against him and for years I would not listen to anything labelled "classical" if you offered me money to do so.

That attitude (classical iff good) is usually derived from that difference in approach I mentioned. People who expect musicians to devote years to a single piece can't accept that a piece composed in mere days, or even hours, could be any good. That's short-sightedness, though (and sadly I must count my dad in that group - he's a great musician, but he just doesn't seem to understand that): getting to a "good" point may be hard, but working your way up from "good" to "really good" is 10 times harder, and from that to "great" is 100 times harder. And from that to "masterpiece" is... like counting stars. So pop musicians, with their "quick" way of composing, can make good music. It's just that the pop world is filled with crap, and for some reason (actually, because popularity and not quality dictates what sells), really good composers not always come to good terms with the industry, and end up in oblivion.

There are very few good pop composers. But there are some.

In fact... strike that. I found out recently that most composers are rather good. They just don't know how to play their own creations. Playing is much harder than composing, and playing feeds back composing, so if pop composers can't play their compositions right, they end up having a rather low quality upper bound applied to their work that they could surpass by simply learning how to play.

Ok... big rant, I'll let other people comment it for a while... I could write for years about this.

[Tarran]

-=to klauss=-
have you ever tried such artists as joe satriani, villa de lobos, or christopher perkens?

[jackS]

much of my work, especially anything involving non-trivial amounts of written text, is done in dead silence.

What I find is that certain particular pieces, more than genres or even necessarily artists end up being tied in my mind as mood-appropriate (be it due to lyrical or musical content or both) for certain events, time periods, or groups in the VS universe.

Sepultura's Ratamahatta, for example, is something that always leads me to thinking about the uprising on Ktah. There are some Leonard Cohen songs that make me smirk about confederation politics. Helter Skelter makes me think of drop toopers and Paint it Black makes me ponder the mind of a pilot tasked with planetary bombardment. Apocalyptica's version of Torreador I sometimes envision as a dogfight and Steeleye-Span's the Fox a fighter chase(not to mix up animal metaphors or anything ). Segovia's Fantasie a calm traversal through friendly space. And so on and so forth.

[www2]

@JackS
Meby can somone a internet radio stasion for vegastrike...
Back on topic the quistion is:

just curious what you kinds of music you folks listen to while you are either playing or creating

Various...
i lisen now more soundtrack (amime, Game, sifi)
And internet radio...

[loki1950]

i have a simple filter if i like it i play it again. this i apply to all music from atonal chant to zither. after all music is emotional communication.

Enjoy the Choice

[Tarran]

zither?

[loki1950]

a lap harp i whated something that started with a "z"

Enjoy the Choice

[klauss]

have you ever tried such artists as joe satriani, villa de lobos, or christopher perkens?

I've heared a few things by Villa Lobos.
Not much, though.
Interesting stuff... simplistic... in a time when most compose awkwardly, with unorthodox methods almost exclusively, he goes the traditional way.

[To Megatherion]

Wow...this topic has been dead for some time...nevertheless it is sticky.
So here comes the bands I enjoy listening in nearly every mood and situation:

Amorphis, Ancient Rites, Apocalyptica dia Apokalyptischen Reiter, Blind Guardian, Bruce Dickinson, Children of Bodom, Dark Tranquillity, Demons and Wizards, Edguy, Ensiferum, Finntroll, Gamma Ray, Haggard, Iron Maiden, MetallicA, Moonspell, Rainbow, Rage, Skyclad, Therion, Tori Amos, Uriah Heep...and some others I probably forgot in this list.
Nice that there's someone else around who knows and likes Therion.