Coping with Music

[paranoid_cataclysm]

Since I write music I'm naturally curious about other people's taste in music and other such things and thus I'm curious about how you guys feel about music.  Do any of you listen to music to try to help improve your mood when you're perhaps depressed?  Is it mood appropriate and depressing when you're depressed or is it the exact opposite?  Myself, I find that listening to music that is appropriate to the mood helps the most instead of listening to the exact opposite.

[Twelvesgirl]

This is not music of the man-made album type but of the nature made type...I had a very hard, very depressive day yesterday...I'm not sure what was wrong, I was just very off. We planted trees (a mini weeping willow for me right in the corner of my yard) and I potted flowers and a plant that reminded me of Dr. Suess, just trying to bring my mood up. Nothing worked. Kids in bed, all is quiet, I went outside in my yard and sat. I opened up my mind and let it go, I let all of that chaos go to work, and instead of thinking about a million different things, I could hear every single noise in my neighborhood. It was completely amazing, the birds were all singing different songs and they seemed to all be singing to me, the CHAOS TUNE that I heard was so fitting to to my "normal" frame of mind. Eventually I fell asleep and was woke by my startled husband wondering what the h*ll I was doing sleeping in the backyard!!!!

[LetaB]

Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child
I am a Poor, Wayfaring Stranger
Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

     These Negro spirituals tell the same story as I. I sing them to myself all the time.

[zzzmykids]

You should listen to windham hills music for the  folk stuff and any and all peruvian music without vocals.
I had the luxury of growing up hearing  piano played twice a day.  My mom was a concert pianist, church organist and lover of all music.  I miss it greatly.  I think she was the best musician in the world.  Oh and transposing on the spot was her thing.
Lol, when I bring,  her up here, if my piano is not tuned she gets angry and won't play at all...guess the hearing can go but not the perfect pitch!

You can query andes/peruvian instrumental music and come up with quite a few spots.
Again, I am the nerd in the crowd in here, love classical, broadway musicals, piano, opera, old hyms and todays artists that are instrumental.

I do like word songs sometimes but it takes me away from the place I am mentally enjoying.
Good Topic!!!
zzzmykids

[rmoore]

I know what you mean.  When I'm depressed I listen to music that makes me more depressed!  Sheesh!  Usually it's Celtic,,old Irish ballads.  There's this one fiddle tune called, "Border Widow" that I used to turn off the lights and listen to when I was a teen,no words to it,,but I would just marinate in this hog wallow of depression and go deeper and deeper until I would be actually tearing up.  I still do that to some extent.  But now I know that I have to avoid certain songs or tunes when I feel depressed.
Because I'm a folk musician, my "up" tunes can be just about anything, except of course the old Irish ballads.

[anninwashington]

I must add Bach's Brandenburg Concertos makes my brain feel healthy.  Just know its firing on all nerve ends and calibrated right when I listen to the concertos....

Usta hear full symphony playing and realize I was listening to the music in my head.  Not playing as much violin, and have not experienced that in years.....

[velvetvenus]

i used to write lyrics and play a little guitar back in the day. don't have much inspiration lately. but i love love love music! soooo theraputic. my favorites:
disturbed-sickness and get psycho
motley crue-just another psycho
killswitch engage, korn, eminem when manic or irritable
melallica-sanitarium and anything anytime! metallica rocks!
also like some punk like my chemical romance
without music i would be lost and very alone!  i stick to my favorites like disturbed and metallica no matter what mood i'm in. the others vary, i even like nelly some.