____twoism

Musicians like Burial, Boards of Canada, Akira Yamaoka, Mount Eerie and various others are the best when it comes on the "creating images on your head" with their music. Their textures, their melodies and their samples are a perfect thing and creates a more introspective atmosphere and panting their own landscape to their music,.

Well, when I'm making music I always want to bring some unconscious images in with my own music, to bring a imaginative place for all the listeners... and I fail hard. Sometimes I'm so inspired from foggy landscapes where I live and I want to make something that brings this cold and isolated feeling of the fog.

So, this is a question for the music makers: when you have a place/landscape where you feel inspired to make a song that reminds exactly in your head about this special place (not just a place, but even some movies/video-games scenes too), what you do? Are making certain synth textures a perfect step to bring these exactly images on the listener's mind? Discuss.

i never make tunes for the listener. my goal is to make a tune that i like, that stimulates imagery in my own mind. if i can accomplish that....then ill be happy.
so far....14 years of unhappiness.

When I made my ambient album, STATION, I wrote down a list of keywords and taped it above my studio. I also taped up photos of what I wanted to influence the album.

So for example my list of keywords contained "chilling, mystical, haunting, ethereal, dark, magical, lonely". And I had several photos of things like the ocean at night, huge icebergs, and distant galaxies taped above my studio as well.

Really helped create a cohesive product. You can listen on http://stationsound.bandcamp.com/.

I may be in a minority here, but I think the only surefire way of making that work is including extra-musical references to your source of inspiration. And by that I mean track titles, artwork, or even sound effects beneath the music. I think that when there isn't some kind of unambiguous suggestion from the artist, the imagery will simply conform to whatever the listener has on his mind at that moment. So, a song that sounds like a foggy mountain to you, may sound like a dark and damp city to someone else. But if your track it titled "Foggy Mountain", the listener will already have a predisposition to make that association. It's not a guarantee, but it increases the chances. I guess.

Of course, there are musical hints that, through culture, end up acquiring some "meaning". Folky guitars are good for evoking nature, while hollow and windy synth chords are good for cold and chilly landscapes and so on. Yes, there's a high chance of falling into triteness by using those obvious cues, but other than that? I have no idea. I don't know how it is with you, but there are pieces of music that can give me different imagery, depending on the circumstances. On the other hand, Boards of Canada sounds more consistent in that aspect exactly because of those extra-musical references.

This is not some kind of definitive answer, but more like my current thoughts about this matter. I hope this doesn't sound too pessimistic, but to me, it's actually been helpful. I guess.