The Universal Feel: Feel and Existence

The Universal Feel: Feel and Existence

Feel is in Everything 

In fact, think of a video that’s 1 minute long. The video is of a car racing. No sound yet. Think of that with ambient electro. Sounds pretty chill and sets a chill vibe. Now change that music to heavy rock - immediately sounds more intense, energetic, loud, exciting, etc. Feels of scenes, things, people, or whatever people describe is often how music connects people or creates a sound-emotion connection and connects with a desired effect. Do we really want a character to hear depressing music when he wins a race? Of course not! The music should be uplifting or victorious sounding, or inspiring. Whatever shade the scorer chooses. This is how it works otherwise as well, just with creating a feel. This is also done in harmony. The desired emotional mood is given by dissonant chords, of tension, whereas it could also be extreme smoothness and longing soulfulness like a 1-2-3-6 chord progression.

Let this be a wrap for feel- how to create feel on an instrument, and ways to get energy and artificial creations across. Compare music to an activity. Jazz to golf - light, yet still intense and can be racy, and very free and open. Punk rock to speed biking - very exciting, thrilling, and loud in the case of motorbiking. Feel exists everywhere universally, in actions, experiences, and many aspects of life. Even the way I type my keyboard right now, intensely typing getting my material across, is a feel. People also type lightly, or slowly. This may often be your emotional state. All part of feel. Quite connected!

You can’t create feel just by strike/release, etc. It often takes chord progressions. Dark sounds to create dark music. The vibe or emotion can also be created by chords, and anything involved in the music, the playing of it, how it’s played etc.

Even an airplane taking off gives off a feel. Intense, very loud, and pressured. You probably feel these things while taking off in a flight, also with potential thrill of any speed too. Even the overly pronounced AC in a plane can give you a relaxed feel, as that AC defines your temperature bodily and gives YOU a new feel for the experiences. That’s why you often feel non-warm temperately, and quite cold like a cold office building. This has biological, physiological, reactions on your emotion. Even the fan in my room has a feel of consistent, slightly struggled, air venting, as well as a peacefully meditative frequency. You can tune into it and get a white noise effect almost that’s relaxing. Everything that makes you feel something can also be associated with a memory in your life. Maybe you feel happy and free. This can be connected to your childhood summer break when you were 14. However, now you may be 23 and this may be your feeling right now as you take a vacation after finishing college, feeling a freedom as well in your next chapter in life and finishing education - tied also to the feeling of educational completion as a child. Feelings and life experiences are connected. Ever watch a movie and you feel inspired? What do you do the next day? Probably run a marathon, or do something productive in your life. It inspires you. Music has this effect as well. It’s the reason listening to ambient, chill music is paired with relaxing, it places you in a relaxed and chill mood. Music creates feelings in you often from the vibes and emotions it gives off and the mood too, and that can inspire you. That’s why listening to a lot of happy music can make you happier, or at least inspired to be happy and uplifted. No one plays depressing music to cheer themselves up. What songs do you hear at a graduation party? Probably something like “Celebrate” by Kool and the Gang. This sets the event’s vibe. People will be so affected by the music, and their emotions too, they will start to feel better when a happy song plays. They will feel relaxed when a slow, melancholic song plays as people view the graduation slideshow. Emotions are tied to music, lots of art that has this ability. In visual art, this may be more based off comprehension of an image. A nice mountain, could be relaxed, an office meeting painting could be focused, and this too transmits feeling via meaning to us. But the ears are more based less of a created meaning by visuals and more the implied and created emotions and moods music creates.

This almost gives us a clear picture of sense-human translation-emotion. How we take in various senses and how and why they affect us emotionally. It’s very deep as a topic, but once it’s easy to see, it makes sense. Senses -> human processing -> emotions, feelings, moods. Keep in mind the creators of music created this emotion. It’s almost like an emotional effector or even drug. Just like a drug may affect the way you feel, except drugs use artificial force and creation, music naturally creates natural emotions.

So when you purchase a song for 1.29 on iTunes you purchase an emotional effect, or even inducer. Of course it’s all natural and people often use music to create or fuel a mood. You will never hear slow, classical music at a loud party. It will be loud, energetically felt music.

Try to listen to some songs and notice your emotions, moods, and things that you notice. You will see how music affects YOU. Of course not everyone will feel the same when listening to a song.

I listened to Life in Technicolor by Coldplay for just 10 seconds and immediately felt that inspiring energy in the music. I don’t know if it transformed my mood, but it definitely was there and I felt that in the music. We can choose to also not be and be affected. The happiness in a song won’t always mean I or you become happy, but it will elicit a response, and that’s something you can observe. It also brings back memories and emotions from the past. I remember when I was 11 years old and used to listen heavily to this album and song too. The emotions of that time come back. In this way our favorite bands get tied to our emotions, lives, and experiences. 

Kanye West has stated his music gives off an energy, an empowering energy, that the world needs. Looking back before I heard this quote, I can definitely see this. Songs like Stronger, are loud and songs like Champion gives off unrivaled positivity in a hip-hop upbeat anthem. 

We’ve all probably felt music and movies change our emotions and impact us in some ways. 

A note and possible hypothesis on music’s effect on us:

I used to listen to Jazz after I ate lunch for a period of time, a few months, when I was 15 or 16. I did this and it was very creative sounding and impactful. Music also impacts our experience alone. Sometimes after listening to an our of jazz we are in such a emotionally different place than we were and we feel different. Same thing with any music. This is not to say that every Chillstep listener will be extremely relaxed all the time and become that way, but it certainly has effects and potentially changes in us as well due to emotional differences and the way it makes us feel. If you feel creative by a song, you may be more creative. This mood can even affect personality. The reason many people who listen to Reggae a lot may seem relaxed and laid back. It’s also entirely possible they may not be laid back. This is merely a potential effect, is what I’d hypothesize. But it’s interesting to think about.