We talk a lot about music as something that soothes or supports—but what about when it does the opposite?
Have you ever had a piece of music unexpectedly stir up old emotion or past pain and hit harder than you anticipated?
I’m curious how others experience that line between music as comfort and music as a trigger—and how you navigate it as both a listener and a composer.
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I've experienced that when listening to music and working on scripts, Kat Spencer. Sometimes I use the emotion and pain in scripts.
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Music as trigger… deifinitely the dissonant chords in The Never Ending Story when Gmork appears. The ASMR-style horror music of The Shining also incites dread. In another genre, I love the OSTs to The Rock and Crimson Tide as the music really supports the action, gives an adrenaline rush. That's my favorite kind of music.
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Every Time You Go Away by Paul Young always reminds me of someone from my younger days
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Shape Of My Heart goes straight .... to my heart. It's a Trigger.
In the cinematic world, I have a recent example of music I was expecting to be a Trigger but was unfortunately more a Support, IMHO, and it's Avatar 3. The soundtrack by Simon Franglen is truly outstanding, but I was precisely expecting some thrilling themes in the movie. I lacked those moments when music suddenly steps out of the screen for a moment and moves you deeply.
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There are pieces that have brought tears, such as Mark Growden's song, "Killing Time," a sad, sweet-sounding number with a tragic bite. Also, the closing bars of the 1st movement of Shostakovich's 8th Symphony is a tear jerker with the trumpets restating the movement's opening theme as a bleak, defiant fanfare in the wake of an epic but horrifying battle depicted by the orchestra--its buildup, climax and devastating aftermath.
For me, comfort music would include Bach cantatas, late Brahms piano pieces and albums by the Modern Jazz Quartet, to name a few--anything smooth & structured but still captivating. However, I also like such artists as Stravinsky and Schoenberg (the forefather of "don't go in the basement" music), as well as numerous other genres, from indie hip-hop to ancient and tribal.
There is one type of music that triggers annoyance in me: the formulaic soundtracks that have neither any dissonance nor catchy thematic material. (I'll be posting a rant about that, later.)
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Generally, I haven't been triggered, but I sometimes pick a piece of music that evokes the mood of what I'm writing and I'll loop that over and over...