How music affects my relationship with the environment

I like to think that I have a wide range in music, being tolerable with all genres of music has given me an understanding to look at the music and music alone. My friends will overlook a band because of the genre or the history/people in the band. In this post I will be looking at the relationship between music and nature, and then the effect music has on me in the outdoors.

Who decides what is music? Music is unique to an individual, people will have difference interpretations of music. Walking through a forest presents an array of sounds, snapping twigs, birds chirping, wind brushing though the trees and all sorts of animals scurrying through the woods. This could be described as nature’s way of creating music.

On a personal level, I feel that music helps me bond/open up to nature. When in the outdoors I can appreciate it, but when listening to music I feel as though it enhances the effect of the forest. The video below presents one of my favorite songs from a band called Agalloch (Portland, USA), which i often listen to when venturing though forests. This song to me presents many emotions, and lets me see the forest in a different light. I believe it is because of the aura of the band themselves and the lyrical themes.

And The Great Cold Death Of The Earth, Track 8 on the album The mantle by Agalloch (2002)

Life is a clay urn on the mantle

And I am shattered on the floor

Life is a clay urn on the mantle

And I am scattered on the floor

We are the wounds and the great cold death of the earth . . .

“Earth is floating on the waters like an island,

Hanging from four rawhide ropes

Fastened at the top of the scared four directions.

The ropes are tied to the ceiling of the sky,

When the ropes break, this world will come

Tumbling down and all living things will fall with it and die . . .”

Life is a clay urn on the mantle

And I am the fragments on the floor

Life is a clay urn on the floor

And I am the ashes on the floor

We are the wounds and the great cold death of the earth

Darkness and silence, the light shall flicker out . . . 

When listening to this song, i always imagine it as a story. Over the course of this song i picture a winter storm, with it slowly escalating over song. Going from clean celestial vocals into the low soft growls, to present the changes in the weather and the landscape around. For me this song presents itself as a gate way into into another dimension, taking me from where i am into old ancient forest and into the perils nature. listening to this song time and time again, i have yet to write an ending.
The band states on their website that the songs include the four key themes man, nature, loss and death, which makes me conclude that their isn't a positive outcome. 

For me i feel that to embrace nature regarding music the themes have to be associated with nature, but more importantly the instruments played. Music that paints nature well and to a personal level comes from the connection between artist and instrument and not the mixing desk in front of them. This is seen through genres of music, with artists selecting what their instruments are made out off and even crafting them, such as Brian May from queen, who created and used the same guitar for over 40 years.
If you have any songs you enjoy in the outdoors, pop them in the comments. Once again thanks for reading.

DCL


If you wish to know more about the band check out their Facebook or website, links below.

https://www.agalloch.org/
https://www.facebook.com/AgallochOfficial