# Does your own music make you cry?



## Svyato (Jan 18, 2018)

Hi 

It is something said that a factor of good music is that it makes travelling the composer himself in various way.
So, for example, does your own music make you cry easier than other music? 

Would you say that it is rare or rather common that your music make you cry?


----------



## I like music (Jan 18, 2018)

Yes, because of how shit it is.

So quite often.


----------



## Kas (Jan 18, 2018)

Sure, I cry all the time with my music mostly tears of despair, anguish and anger at my own incompetence!!


----------



## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 18, 2018)

Kas said:


> Sure, I cry all the time with my music mostly tears of despair, anguish and anger at my own incompetence!!


Don´t worry I have same experiences made with my mine as well!


----------



## Sami (Jan 18, 2018)

Kas said:


> Sure, I cry all the time with my music mostly tears of despair, anguish and anger at my own incompetence!!


Couldn't have stated it better myself


----------



## FinGael (Jan 18, 2018)

Yes, my wife too. "Could you PLEASE STOP playing that low brass".


----------



## stixman (Jan 18, 2018)

Music is a way to express oneself so yes when I express myself musically emotional tears can follow very easily


----------



## Jimmy Hellfire (Jan 18, 2018)

No, crying is for children.


----------



## MaxOctane (Jan 18, 2018)

Your skin makes me cry.


----------



## Lassi Tani (Jan 18, 2018)

Me too, I cry when it's bad, though when I was making it, it sounded good. A bit OT: I think the same saying can be utilized for composing too as in the Go game: "Lose your first 50 games as quickly as possible". The idea is that by losing you learn, and the same thing with composing, compose without the fear of failing.

I haven't cried when I've made something emotionally touching, but I've got goosebumps, but rarely :D


----------



## robharvey (Jan 18, 2018)

I've cried enough.


----------



## Svyato (Jan 18, 2018)

It's a bit surprising, I thought I wasn't the only one and that would have been a very common thing anyway.


----------



## Jerry Growl (Jan 18, 2018)

sniff
Yea but no but
It doesn't help the composing effort, it just makes the act of composing theatrical.


----------



## Grim_Universe (Jan 18, 2018)

It happened on several occasions two or three years ago when I somehow managed to express exactly what I wanted. It was so pleasant that I could burst into tears of luck  Tears of anguish is a much more frequent thing, so yeah. It happens!


----------



## robharvey (Jan 18, 2018)

I think maybe the % of people willing to admit they cry and the % of people not willing to admit it, might be a little off balance! 

Definitely have cried at my music, just too macho to really consider it  *flex*


----------



## StephenForsyth (Jan 18, 2018)

No. 

I can't even listen to my own music.


----------



## mauriziodececco (Jan 19, 2018)

Crying, no, not really.
But it happened to me to hear music i wrote years ago, and to be emotionally moved.
It must be old enough to not be still connected with its creation; and it must be good enough, and this is the difficult part :->.


----------



## Rodney Money (Jan 19, 2018)

FinGael said:


> Yes, my wife too. "Could you PLEASE STOP playing that low brass".


I'm proud of your wife for knowing what low brass is, um, er... "are."


----------



## tack (Jan 19, 2018)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> No, crying is for children.


What a weird thing to say. Have you ever lost a loved one? Hasn't music reminded you of your time with them? Never shed a tear over that loss?


----------



## ctsai89 (Jan 19, 2018)

Yes. Everytime I listen to my own music I feel like my music sucks!


----------



## dannymc (Jan 19, 2018)

god i guess i'm a big softy so. one of the main reasons why i write is because of the emotional response it gives me. i find it such a buzz. i can get an emotional response from a simple chord progression if done right. usually thats my barometer when i write, if it is not moving me some way emotionally i keep revising. it doesnt have to be crying, just any notable emotion. often when i get a brief to write its described in terms of emotions rather than musical speak so you kinda have to learn how to communicate these certain emotions in your music including sadness.

Danny


----------



## germancomponist (Jan 19, 2018)

Sometimes.


----------



## conan (Jan 19, 2018)

There is a rare instance where I feel like I get a glimpse into who I am and I feel compassion (maybe even a little love) for myself. This can bring tears of both empathy and joy.


----------



## Fab (Jan 19, 2018)

Interesting. I'd say no, but it wouldn't be that strange a thing. What if you had written the piece about a loved one? that could probably loosen up a few tears in most of us.

I remember hearing in an interview Antonio Santoro made a comment about crying for one of the cues for The Last Of Us...but I think he was referring to the music in context of the story.


----------



## Rodney Money (Jan 19, 2018)

Tough topic for me personally, and talking about being personal, I have this theory that it may depend on your age, well, at least in my own personal experience. In my youth, teens and 20's, I was more emotional about my compositions. I still remember this one premiere of a piece of mine that literally "destroyed me" emotionally the very first time I heard the entire choir come in at the tutti while at the same time gripping my beloved's hand. Now, I can barely stand listening to that composition of my youth.

In my 30's that same "beloved" destroyed my heart as we divorced. She told me I would always be her first love. I told her she was dead to me. That night I listened to Bach's Partita No. 2, Chaconne, and wept for nearly that 20 minutes mourning the lost of my wife. The very next piece that played was Aria or "Air on the G String" cleansing my soul of the darkness and the light of never having to weep over her again. Later that night I looked up the date of the Chaconne and just as I thought it coincided with the date of Bach's first wife's passing. It was as Bach himself telling me, "Mourn now, but move on. Your wife is dead, and you have work to do."

Years later I remarried, and at 35 I became a father. The last time I had tears in my eyes was at the birth of my baby girl. I named her Aria after the Bach piece that gave me tears of joy and washed my sadness all away.

Now at 40, I have honestly not shed a tear since her birth, but I know that my music has moved others emotionally. I perform a lot in public performing in churches, concerts, and guest lectures and recitals. I recently gave a lecture/ recital to over 300 high schoolers on the topic of "Music and the Soul" where I had the chance to demo parts of my trumpet concerto titled "The 7 Stages of Grief," and I could see members of the audience wiping their eyes. Plus, one of my coworkers told me that while he was in his room preparing for his next class all of a sudden a wave of melancholy came upon him and he knew Mr. Money must be playing.

Just this past Monday I also played at a funeral. For me, there is no greater honor than being asked to play at a funeral. As soon as I showed up the funeral director greeted me, but I soon realized that the service did not have a piano or organ player for accompaniment. She told me that the family wanted "How Great thou Art." I said, "My pleasure." (Originally I thought and prepared "Amazing Grace.") I simply asked for a hymnal to transpose and if I could used the Yahmaha digital piano. When it was my time to play for the family for special music I started at the digital piano, mixed an organ sound with slow evolving strings, added reverb, played 8va Bb's, took the piano bench placing a leg on the sustain pedal producing a mellow, soft pedal drone, then took out my flugel and played a very emotional, rubata version of the hymn. Adaptation is definitely part of the gig, and sometimes that change has a more lasting impact than the original idea. I was not in tears, but I heard heartfelt cries out loud as I was playing. My trumpet/ flugelhorn playing has always been more voice-like than trumpet like, think "Tina Guo on trumpet." Later the daughter of the mom that passed away embraced me as her own thanking me, but it was my complete honor.

Through my grandfather I first became aware of the emotionalism of the elderly especially during holidays. In midprayer of the blessing over the food he would start breaking into tears of love ones we have lost and perhaps his own mortality. Now that he has gone, I see it in my own father at his age of 73. I can only expect I will become more emotional also in my later years but for now the well is dry with feelings of overworked and exhaustion rather than feelings of emotion.

But as I write these words my thoughts go to Brahms as an old man in tears as an audience of joy gives him his last standing ovation before days later passing away. I pray, and hope, that you all on this forum will experience that emotional joy and the assurance also one day that your life's work had true purpose. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share.


----------



## C.R. Rivera (Jan 19, 2018)

Thank you Randy Money for sharing your story. I am a historian and there are many moments that break my soul in class. But one of the most emotional moments is relaying the story of BB King when he played the first time before a large white audience at the Fillmore. He heard noise coming from the crowd and peaked thru the curtain, only to realize that they were chanting for him to come out to play. At that moment, and it always brings me to tears, King started to cry as he did not realize that his MUSIC was known to people outside of the so-called chitlin circuit. I am 62, and there is nothing like feeling moved to real emotion, and people who assume you are weak, a child, or, a pathetic individual are denying themselves the full range of humanity.......


----------



## mc_deli (Jan 19, 2018)

Yes, a lot with real music (band, playing, singing)
No, not yet with VIs (but it is the quest and an obvious barometer of success for me)

...this does suggest I should step away from the machine and play-perform!


----------



## GtrString (Jan 20, 2018)

Occasionally when writing, yes. But it pretty much vanishes during mixing. Repeated listening while thinking in technical terms isnt stimulating like that.

I do have testament that audiences gets emotional, though, so my mixing doesnt ruin my first emotional response at least.

I wouldn't say more than other music, though. There is a lot of good works out there. But I agree that you should get a satisfying emotive response from your own music. It can be a good way to know if you are on to something worthwhile.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Jan 21, 2018)

Sometimes my own songs will heavily move me emotionally. Not because I think it is some fantastic accomplishment of music, but because I think they can act as an emotional mirror and it will show me things that I have buried inside me, or how strongly I feel about a particular thing or situation, and that will make me sad, or happy depending on the context. Sometimes your songs just show you who you really are.


----------



## Guffy (Jan 21, 2018)

I don't think i've ever cried by music, but goosebumps is a different story.
Extremely rare that it happens with my own music though


----------



## ghandizilla (Feb 9, 2018)

When you play a long time on your instrument (in my case: the piano), you feel what phenomenology philosophers call "touchant-touché", a kind of way to _explore _your sensibility by acting on it. You can actually discover things about yourself this way. But the "touching" part of you and the "touched" part of you never perfectly match. They can reverse roles, but it's like a recto-verso situation. So you'll find yourself quickly stuck in a dead-end. "They touch in the untouchable" write Merleau-Ponty. "Additional emotional layer or not, it's definitely masturbation", would I add.

True challenge is to stop touching oneself and try touching others. "In music, there is mysticism, _ek-stasis_, going out of yourself and achieving unity", would said pedantic philosophers. "Orgy is the finality", would I add.


----------



## SyMTiK (Feb 9, 2018)

I have actually never been moved to tears by music sadly, but thats more because I find it very difficult for myself to cry. Strongly emotionally moved and touched, but I just can’t cry for some reason. I have gotten goosebumps from some of my compositions, which is a pretty magical feeling to be emotionally touched by something ive created, but I will say its more difficult and doesnt happen as often with my own music, just because I think as musicians we are so critical of our own work that we find it difficult to pull ourselves back from our critical analysis to fully appreciate our own work.


----------



## Svyato (Feb 9, 2018)

Being touched by your own work is a feature of a worthwhile music, because if you aim to touch the others, you first have to get something to share.


----------



## robgb (Feb 9, 2018)

It has at times. Because, after all, I'm writing for myself first and foremost.


----------



## robgb (Feb 9, 2018)

SyMTiK said:


> but thats more because I find it very difficult for myself to cry


I used to be that way. Then I decided to just let myself go and allow myself to feel everything without holding back, even if it's sometimes painful. I live in a society that tends to mock those who cry, especially men. But the release of tears is a wonderful, healing release. So these days I find myself crying at the oddest moments over the oddest things. And I welcome it.


----------



## ghandizilla (Feb 9, 2018)

Svyato said:


> Being touched by your own work is a feature of a worthwhile music, because if you aim to touch the others, you first have to get something to share.



Possibly. I mean, it occurs most of the time. But not necessarily. It's the old "absolute or thematic" music debate. As Stravinsky wrote in_ Chroniques de ma vie _(An Autiobiography): you can do great things only by solving problems which are _musical_ by nature. His example : you're on the piano, you have limited options to get from point A to point B, it's a technical process. He adds: this is what the greatest composers do, they solve problems. Which is to say: even an abstract, tension/release work, can create an incredible response from the audience. If you want to say something in the first place, of course you can, but you can't bypass the "materiality of music", as Stravinsky would say. Conclusion: the absolute quality of music is essential, the thematic quality of music is accidental.

Another point: Bach didn't try to share "what he feels" to God, though he encrypted his music and struggled with great constraints to speak to God (to celebrate his glory in a worthy way), in the same manner cathedral builders encrypted forms only God's eyes would see from the skies. Listen to the Musical Offering's Ricercar a3: you can deeply touch your audience, even if it was not your main purpose, because your craft achieves perfection.

We can move the debate on the perspective problem. When you feel an emotion, listening to a work you spent hours and hours crafting, does an audience who discovers the work for the first time can be struck in the same manner as you?

Two ways out of this matter I guess:
- Mike Verta's "write on paper, spend as little time as possible on the piano" way
- reach excellence

In my opinion, both can link your emotion to your audience in an adequate way. I don't say it's easy. Both ways are out of my league! But if I wanted to share what I _feel _with my music, I would consider these paths, take a breath, and recognize there is no shortcut.


----------



## C.R. Rivera (Feb 9, 2018)

ghandizilla said:


> True challenge is to stop touching oneself and try touching others.



Shades of the song by the Divinyls.....


----------



## Nico (Feb 9, 2018)

Yes, when i get the Cubase cpu overload error


----------



## tack (Feb 9, 2018)

ghandizilla said:


> Mike Verta's "write on paper, spend as little time as possible on the piano" way


Hm, I'm not so sure Mike himself would characterize that as his way.


----------



## ghandizilla (Feb 9, 2018)

I exaggerated to emphasize on the "you have to fasten things fast, to settle things before losing too much objectivity".


----------



## Lionel Schmitt (Feb 9, 2018)

I think there is some psychological bias within most of us that to some extent forbids us to be too appreciative of what we create. To not be "in love with ourselves" which is somehow considered a bad thing, in my experience. I also think that we as composers are often so involved with the techincal aspects, the sound, the orchestration and whether the track is what the person hiring us wants that it is not that easy to just consider it emotionally.

Ahh... and I think I (at least halfways) cried twice when I lost a Cubase session. 
But unfortunately never because of my own writing.


----------



## Dave Connor (Feb 9, 2018)

I was at a Jerry Goldsmith orchestral session at Disney when he was scoring Baby. There was a cue where the mother had died (I think that’s right) and the music was very moving. The composer wept at his own music. The entire orchestra was next to tears as well. It all seemed very natural without a hint of self indulgence or delusion.

Composers write what they deem to be attractive or even beautiful so there really isn’t any mystery to them responding to an organizing of frequencies that affects them (and therefore perhaps you as well.)

I once complimented David Foster on an exquisite sequence of chords in a song he had written to which he responded, “Aren’t those gorgeous?” I found that very liberating and confirming in that I think we all celebrate our successful musical efforts. There’s no shame in it. It’s as natural as listening to something you’ve written and finding it completely awful.


----------



## muk (Feb 9, 2018)

It hasn't happened to me yet. However, there are some pieces I wrote of which I think that they characterize my personality very well - as in you can listen to these pieces and know how I am as a person. It was totally unintentional, but it always seem to happen at least to some degree with the music I write. And with these particular pieces very strongly so.


----------



## SBK (Feb 9, 2018)

Not crying, never did something so emotional.... but many times makes me sad, because of sad chord progressions and so on! a feeling of melancholy... then I stop and put some happier things into it haha


----------



## robgb (Feb 9, 2018)

DarkestShadow said:


> I think there is some psychological bias within most of us that to some extent forbids us to be too appreciative of what we create.


This true for all creators. If you love your own work too much, you're considered egotistical. There's also the concern that maybe we aren't as good as we think we are—because lord knows there are a lot of arrogant jerks out there who make really bad music—so it's better to downplay our work in our own minds for fear that we may be deluding ourselves.


----------



## Paul Grymaud (Feb 9, 2018)

No, I don't cry. But this is how a friend reacted when he heard my last song, about suicide


----------



## Guy Bacos (Feb 9, 2018)

I'm a man, I don't cry!

Ok seriously, for me, the emotional side happens unconsciously during the writing process, it's therapeutic. However, I distant myself from my own works once they are finished.


----------



## dcoscina (Feb 10, 2018)

The only piece I wrote that's elicited strong melancholic emotions is the one I wrote after we lost our baby. Just that one piece and it's one I don't listen to a lot because of its associations.


----------



## Darren Durann (Feb 10, 2018)

It's hard for me to finish a piece like that. Sometimes I actually like writing pieces that are quite as emotionally involving because I like...uhhh, get emotionally involved and stuff.


----------



## Guy Bacos (Feb 10, 2018)

dcoscina, I can't imagine how painful the association must be. What you said reminds of this piece, maybe you already know this story, but this mov was written as a response to the miscarriage of their first child. One of my all time favorite works, the ending is.... no words can describe it.


----------



## mojamusic (Dec 26, 2019)

I like music said:


> Yes, because of how shit it is.
> 
> So quite often.


Oh that's funny!!! Post of the decade!


----------



## mojamusic (Dec 26, 2019)

I get very emotional when I share it and people get it. Every now and then after some time has past, I may listen to work I created and will feel a sense of nostalgia, and sometimes.... sometimes... "a sense of awe," that will bring tears. So, for me YES and I welcome the opportunity to experience my own music that way. Having said that sometimes I get sick to my stomach over how far off I was on certain projects. Great question.


----------



## ism (Dec 26, 2019)

It’s been known to happen. But typically more of an effect of the sound being really, really viscerally good as I set out to try to capture something, than the quality of the actual composition. if it was my composition played on GPO, then I doubt it would move anyone to, well much of anything really, much less tears. 

But some of these recent libraries have just amazing quality of musicians and recordings.


----------



## Greg (Dec 26, 2019)

Yes many times, but it is usually only when I found an idea that I feel like comes from beyond me, or when I'm writing to process heavy emotions from something real.

Its not a thought like "look I made something good" its more like "Wow music is fucking beautiful and what a gift to be able to explore it"


----------



## mojamusic (Dec 26, 2019)

Greg said:


> Yes many times, but it is usually only when I found an idea that I feel like comes from beyond me, or when I'm writing to process heavy emotions from something real.
> 
> Its not a thought like "look I made something good" its more like "Wow music is fucking beautiful and what a gift to be able to explore it"



Agreed. Anything "good" that comes from my hands is the product of 40 something years of inspiration from many artists past and present. Any modicum of pleasant music from myself is the result or response of so many that have come before.


----------



## ag75 (Dec 26, 2019)

I could never cry at my own music. Way too critical.


----------



## RogiervG (Dec 28, 2019)

Emotion in music, when executed rightly, i do feel it very well.. like i have with other compositions by others (being it famous composers or not).
Sometimes it's near crying or letting a tear develop, or at least i feel an "O M G" (in the right sense: Rejoice, Sadness, anger, lonelyness, despair, heroistic etc etc) feeling going through me when i listen to some of my work, especially when picturing scenarios with it.


----------



## Ashermusic (Dec 28, 2019)

I have a song on my “Honestly” album called “Texas Dreaming” that has a very moving lyric written to my melody by Harriet Schock, about her father. When I perform it live I am moved by it and occasionally I see someone in the audience tear up and then I do as well.

When I listen to the unreleased Karen Carpenter recording of my song that I wrote with the late Paul Jabara, “Something’s Missing In My Life”, I cry, but that is for financial reasons


----------

