How to hear/write a music story

Ok, this might sound a little strange, and I'm having trouble finding the right way to put this, but how do you hear the story in music? I look at videos and I hear people saying that you have to hear the story to understand, and it seems that they have story that everyone agrees with. I can formulate visions in my head, but how do you write and hear a music story? Do you have to know the background story or do you guys just understand the music like you understand words?

Hopefully, after my question is answered a discussion will arise because other wise this is a pretty pointless topic.

No, that is total bs. You hear what you want to hear. Music works on a subconscious emotional basis and doesn't necessarily have the same effect as the composer intended. Its general, abstract, and vague. There is no story. Even if the composer used a story to help him come up with the music doesn't mean you will experience even a similar story or a story at all. (although music isn't specific it tends to still have similar effects on similar people)

The music should effect you in ways you don't understand. I love Beethoven's symphonies... theres so much power that it makes me want to shake my fists when here something like the intro to the 5th.

Don't expect there to be a story. If you don't feel the music then find different music. Its that simple. You don't have to get emotional over it either. If if you like it then you like it, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't mean you are a savage if you don't like Mozart... just means you don't like him. (doesn't mean mozart is bad either.... but for some reason his music is not connecting with you(but later on it might))

Basically the whole idea of the story thing is essentially to popularize music. Some think its easier to understand music if you can visualize it but that is wrong. Music is only about one sense and that is the sense of sound and how it bleed's over into the other senses, at least possibly.... its not about trying to make it work better. If you want that you look at opera.

Note that there are a lot of things in music to listen for besides the immediate sonic impression. It opens up a whole can of worms but can help you get more out of music.

I have to agree with JonSlaughter to a point, however, there is a full band piece called Tubby the Tuba. It, through the use of a narrator granted, tells the story of a tuba named Tubby and his problem of wanting the melody but never getting it. The piece makes complete sense without the use of a narrator though. If you listen to it without a narrator, you can hear the "conversation" that the narrator exaplains, minus his or her voice.

But I do really have to agree with JonSlaughter. A story told through music is completely perceptional and individual. No two people may hear the exact same story for any piece of music. I listen to Beethovens Pathetique piano sonata and see something different each time I listen to it.

I do enjoy trying to write with a story in mind though. Makes it more of a challenge and it makes it special to you.

Ok, I thought that maybe I was studying the music too much when I listened (I mostly will just think of how the instruments interact in the piece) and I thought that maybe I was missing something. I'm very, very new to classical music, and I used to listen to rock. Just to make it so this isn't a worthless thread and maybe a discussion can be made out of this, do you think it's possible to make music in which everyone will feel or visual the same things?

Richard Strauss' "Don Quixote" is quite an extraordinary example of a "music story". But you have to know the story to understand what each section represents, though. I totally love the part with the sheep

When music requires a context to be enjoyable it no longer is functioning purely as music. I'm not saying this is bad or wrong or anything but music that is meant to be heard and enjoyed without external story or imagery or whatever else never needs a story to be enjoyable.

If a composer intents the music to go with something else for it to make sense then he better make it explicit to give it context and make it work. But even then of course the music might stand on its own.

When people that are not the composer make up there own stories then they are just doing that... making it up. It has nothing to do with the music or the composer and IMO should be looked on negatively when those people try make their story innate to the music. In fact, that is just how they see the music BUT music is not to be seen but heard(unless its supporting imagery or ideas in which case it is secondary).

Originally Posted by JonSlaughter

When people that are not the composer make up there own stories then they are just doing that... making it up. It has nothing to do with the music or the composer and IMO should be looked on negatively when those people try make their story innate to the music. In fact, that is just how they see the music BUT music is not to be seen but heard(unless its supporting imagery or ideas in which case it is secondary).

Well, we all get certain associations when listening to music. Everything we experience (emotionally/intellectually/whatever) when listening to music can to some degree be called an association. Personally I see nothing fundamentally wrong with visual associations, or associations in the form of "stories". At least as long as those associations don't become so independent that they begin to suppress the actual music.

The problem is that what ever people feel isn't exactly the same or even close enough to be considered similar and its not right for one person to try and "force" that interpretation onto another person.

When I listen to music I do not hear birds chirping or cannons firing or see a woman walking down the road while its raining. In fact, anyone that does is pretty much nuts! Music cannot express those things at all. Now sure you might make those associations and I suppose theres nothing wrong wtih that but the moment you start to believe that the music is "saying" that and/or try to convince others that is what the music is saying then your wrong.

Even when a composer does it I would say its not completely correct but since music does have that effect of association to some degree its not completely wrong(and since its music it doesn't hurt) but it can only be done by the composer and by no one else. (since if the composer did use imagery to help compose then that is most likely the closest to being correct or at least lets us see it through the composers "eyes"... which again, its suppose to be music though)

If some jo blow music commentator says something like "This Beethoven's piece has extreme tension and reveals the inner struggle that Beethoven was having with himself ...", which is somewhat abstract, is just complete nonsense and shows just how much someone like that doesn't know about music. The more concrete stuff is even worse. Those types of commentary stuff is just to try to get the public to understand the music and make it extra-musical but it is totally wrong because music isn't about being extra-musical but only about the music(assuming the composer did not give any imagery himself).

All I can say is that its up to each person to do what they want with the music as that is what it is for. Anyone trying to force conceptional ideas about music onto another is just wrong. (of course people do it all the time and not just in music)

Wow, Jon, nice way to be open-minded and non-judgmental. It really isn't your place to say that a composer with a programme in mind for his composition is "correct" or not.

When a composer writes a piece of music that describes a "story" he's writing a programmatic score. You can enjoy the music with or without that programmatic element when it is well-written music.

If a composer has gone out of his way to create descriptive musical narrative, then that is his decision to make.

Isle of the Dead is meant to evoke the feelings that Rachmaninov felt when looking at that particular painting. If you don't feel the same thing, then that is no failing of the music, it's composer, nor of you as a listener, but rather the very nature of the beast.

My own 2nd symphony is meant to be programmatic, but has no "story" per se. If someone doesn't get the same sensations while listening to it that I got while writing it, well, c'est la vie. I can't say I didn't try.

One's interpretation of music is their interpretation of it. You really can't tell anyone what to hear, it's pointless. If you like something, fine, if I like something, fine.