Q: seems a bit like you underestimate instrumental music?
A: no, trust me, i am Hard-Wired as an instrumental musician. in my childhood i listened to only instrumental music, and didn't know how to really deal with anything else. the first many years of my musical development were vastly instrumental only. mostly artists who's music was marketed as instrumental music, in its own right. but there is an elephant in the room, which everyone always thinks about, which is "why do those instrumental artists never seem to be as successful as non-instrumental artists, even though *we* (musicians) 'know' they're 'better' " etc etc sad face. i just didn't feel like going along with such a sad conclusion so i was driven to understand, so i erased everything i knew and started listening to pop radio all day. anyway, that's beside the point, what i'm trying to say is, over time it became crystal clear that instrumental music operates in the back part of your brain, but the labels, the handles, the latches, the characters, the *cognition* as the scientists would call it, happens in the 'front' part of your brain. i guess it's called the frontal lobe, or the neo-cortex, or whatever .. (not a brain expert really) but it's kind of like where you file things. it's what you name things. even if the *feelings* and the deep stuff are all happening on a much deeper level, you will always have them 'filed' or 'named' in a particular way. and each person may file things differently. but that's what i realized about instrumental music. vastly powerful, usually doing most of the real heavy lifting in terms of actually making the over-all product feel good, does all work in terms of pulling the heartstrings, BUT the frontal 'handles' (characters, words, names, titles, etc etc, the frontal stuff) will always seem to get the credit. that's just the way it works. and the same is true for my childhood listening to instrumental music -- for example, let's say an album of instrumental music is sold under a particular musician's name, and they play a certain instrument (let's say it's piano). that's the 'frontal' content, the label / title etc... in other words, when you listen to it, you are 'cognizant' of the fact that you are listening to a piano player's music. you are aware that that is what's happening. so if that reality is something you are comfortable with, then you will be comfortable listening to that music. where-as, take for example, a movie, with scenes in it about troubles in a relationship due to long distance separation, etc etc etc, but it happens to be underscored by piano. you are still listening to instrumental piano music, but you whole idea of what's happening will be different. you will probably think of it as 'i'm watching this scene in a movie about these characters etc this is what's going on" rather than "i'm listening to piano music" ... now not everyone necessarily files things the same way, because for example someone interested in film scoring could easily be listening to it and hearing the underscoring, and that's likely a main reason they would be watching the movie, to specifically enjoy the underscoring. but even so, that reality is still different from listening to a piano player's album, because the film-scoring person is not just listening to the score, but they are listening to it from a film-scorers perspective. when we are studying and learning things, that often determines the angle we focus on. another example, let's say it comes from a video game. the music will have all it's power but it will be connected with the game, and the game will again act as the 'handle' or 'filing system' that sort of 'delivers' the music to the listener, and in turn the music is richly juicing up the contents of the game, to feel so much more meaning, and again usually the 'handles' (the content of the game) will get all the credit. unless, again, it is a music student or a musician listening, in which case That would be their 'handle.' so even when instrumental music seems to be purely insrumental with nothing else, there is always some context in which the listener heard it. for example, let's say you are walking down the street and all of a sudden you randomly hear instrumental music coming out of a fire-hydrant. well guess what, that's not just detached music, that's music you heard coming out of that fire hydrant, and when you tell the story you will always remember that music as the music that was coming out of that fire hydrant. so in that sense the only way to actually have completely unfiled unassociated instrumental music is if you were hearing the music and you literally don't know where it's coming from and you also don't know where you are, and also don't remember the circumstances that led to you not knowing where you are. so basically my point is that yes truly and surely instrumental music has all the powers. but it is made of liquid and you really can't drink any of it unless you have a cup