h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Isn't it odd how some musical pieces trigger certain mental images?

I've always loved Enya's 'Carribean Blue' because it make me feel as if I'm standing in a clearing in the woods, looking straight up at the sky and the tree tops, turning around and around, arms straight out. A sense of floating, somehow.

http://www.smashitsusa.com/index.cfm?Page=Audio&SubPage=AlbumDetails&AlbumID=180

I like Titiyo's 'Come along with me' because I see myself riding on an elephant, no hurry in the world, swaying from side to side as the elephant majestically strides through the jungle.

However, when I listen to Albert Ketelbey's 'In a Persian Market' I see myself riding through the desert on a camel.

And I really need to find out what that piece of music was where I'd pretend that I was on board a pirate ship in a terrible storm. I must have been around 5 years old, and I'd spin around and around until I got all dizzy, then lie down on the floor with my arms around a table leg and eyes closed, pretending to be holding on to the mast for dear life. All that spinning around made it feel as if the floor was heaving beneath me, making it feel all the more real.

Do you have any musical images/fantasies?

Well - yes, but in a different way. I associate music with images stored with the music, not fantasy ones. (I'm boring, I know )

As, of all the tings to choose, when listening to Diana Ross' "Upside Down", I am zipping down l'Autoroute in Southern France on a hot day, all windows in the Renault 5 (Super Cinq - plus cinq que la cinq, I think the ad in the rear window ran) rolled down to let the wind cool us and also let the smells of the sun-burnt hills above Monaco enter the car.

But what happens if you hear a piece for the very first time? Is your mind completely empty () until you hear it the second time, which is when you'll remember what you were doing when you heard it the first time?

True. Do you remember the movie 'Love Story' with Ally McGraw and Ryan O'Neal from back in the late 60's I think? Maybe early 70's. Anyway, when I hear the theme from that movie I always imagine a winter night with a full moon and wet snow hanging on the trees.

Gloden earring, "Radar Love"

What do you mean, empty ... y ... y ... y ... ?

No, probably not - and certainly I can register a host of emotional responses to a new piece of music. I just cannot recall any of it taking form of imagery...