The mental images of muisc (and some Elf-analysis)

Do you know the feel of reading a book and almost seeing what is happening in your head like a movie?
There is so much freedom in traveling between worlds, seeing fictional empires rise and fall, fictional characters grow and despair and although I draw great inspirations from literature and nature, there is something, that inspires me a lot more. It is the one thing that will always guide me out of a nasty art-block and can distract me for hours - and all I need to do is launch my almost praehistoric iPod.

Having started to play the piano at a very young age, I have always had a very deep connection with music, and although I can appreciate lyrics here and there, I prefer instrumental music above all else.

Why? It has the same reason as to why I prefer to write my own stories than wander through worlds other people have created. Don't get me wrong, I adore learning and exploring fictional universes, but I also enjoy the freedom of interpreting certain things myself.
I sometimes find lyrics to be limiting, they already tell me, what emotions were put into a certain song, what story is taking place and what is going on in general.
(However, I exclude choir because wow the more epic choir is going on in the background the better - my mum for instance really hates my kind of music, -- both the classical and the score music because she feels like it is "psychodelic"^^)

One of my alltime favourite songs with lyrics is from Within Temptation and everytime I hear it, I get very bad shivers from how I personally interpret this:

The turn against
The world we know
Now our destiny
Will be decided
We have to send our brothers in arms
With pain in our heart
We watched them go
Will they return?
Truth is we had no choice
We'll try to shield those we can
No better world
Let this end
Mothers cry
Our boys die
But we'll stand 'till the end

I always have to think of the Elves of Middle-Earth, going to fight for their freedom at the Battle of Mount Doom. For this matter I could also mention the Elves at Helms Deep, but because this only happened in the movies, I will leave it out.

(This video is brilliant by the way)

If you are a Tolkien-fan yourself and you look at this, it fits. "We'll try to shield those we can [...] But we'll stand 'till the end". The time of the ELves is over - they know and the future lies in humankind, so they tried shielding them from the enemy. The Elves did not enter the Battle of Mordor only because they felt threatened by Sauron (they could have easily retreated to Valinor and lived in the undying lands but they stayed - because they were in love with their land and also, because humankind had grown on them).

And someone had the same idea it seems, so no one can blame this on me and my love for Elves only!


One can say much about Helms Deep, but there is one thing that I did notice (and that also got confirmed by Peter Jackson eventually), which is the reason why all the Elves die. Have a good look on the elven soldiers as the people of Rohan start to retread, right when the battle seems lost: there are a few Elves running, but they are not running into safety - they are running towards strategically good positions to defend the retreating humans, ready to give their life in order to give the world of men a chance to survive. And they all die. This is why you don't see any Elves inside the Stronghold after that, ebcasue it was a suicide mission and they knew.
It really got to me, when I found out that this was not just an assumption that I had made up, but that it was actually a thing -- Peter Jackson wanted to show what I am seeing in these lyrics and oh the feels *grabs heart*

These lyrics alone create so much thought-material for me, I don't even know where to begin...

But back to the topic - and let us focus on the typical epic score music, the kind you her in videogames and movie trailers; most songs tell a story, the ones without lyrics even more exciting than the ones with singing.
Listening to my playlists I can see entire scenes, stories and palces in my mind - some chapters of fanfiction that I have written are permanently linked to certain tracks and I never grow tired of being inspired by what a few overlapping melodies can create in my head.

I have pieces of art entirely inspired by songs, the characters of my own stories (and roleplay games) have their own "themesongs" and hardly anything can bring me back into a certain emotional mindset like music.

It is almost like magic, when you think about it...
I will add a few of my favourites down below for those seeking for inspiration (or workoutmusic thehe) -- I did put some links to artworks that were inspired by the song above.

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and there is more...by far...

An inspiring sunday afternoon everyone~