hiroki

I wish I could say I knew more about classical music. I enjoy some of the stuff I listen to, but I just don't have enough exposure to it. Would anyone recommend a good album to grab (especially with really high recording quality) because I would love to get in to it more.

Great piece! I'm partial to Brahms' 2nd Piano Concerto, and Tchaikovsky's 1st.
 
Lately I have been digging into String Quartets (Beethoven's Late Quartets, Haydn's Emperor Quartets) and Schubert's acclaimed lieder (Winterreise).
 
I also purchased Dvorak's Symphonies; but have only listened to the 7th, 8th, and 9th.
 
Have any favorite Composers?
 
Mine probably are:
 
Beethoven
Bach
Mozart
Brahms
Wagner
Schubert
Mendelssohn
Sibelius
Paganini
Tchaikovsky
Mahler
 
 
and probably one other that I'm forgetting

Exactly.
 
I listened to it all day and it got worse.

I was tempted to put some of these songs in the -THE- song thread, but I felt i'd be throwing it off coures a little. Then again, some of these could go in the music and memories thread,  but I felt it was too general, thus...this atrocious pile of text was born...
 
This is more a stroll down memory lane for me, these songs don't necessarily have to represent the band as a whole, for me it's more a case of the songs which have managed to creep into your library. Creep in from where exactly? I don't even know myself sometimes, but now you actually think about it, they always bring a smile to your face. They're not necessarilly what the band is known for, but you occasionally think 'why does no one ever talk about this song!' Then you maybe think over it, maybe listen to the full album and start to doubt yourself, 'oh yeah, this one is more memorable' or 'I see why people like this one more' BUT IT'S STILL SO GODDAMN ANNOYING BECAUSE YOU WANT TO SCREAM THAT SONG AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS TO EVERYONE EVEN THE ONES THAT WON'T LISTEN
(optional story to go along with them, don't mind my rambling ><)
 
 
For me, my first introduction into the world of VK (or just music in general, but that's a different story) was Nightmare through...Death Note xD typical weeaboo answer I know, but can't change the facts. Before I digress, one of the songs I rarely see mentioned is Rakuu, it's one of those songs which I don't ever think i'll be able to delete from my life without deleting a part of my soul along with it. I never used to listen to musicfor the first 15/16 years of my life (basically my entire life okay), I used to do a lot of gymnastics and that basically was my life, but chronic fatigue happened and I had to quit. Then I found anime and hence 'music' and decided fuck the world and I let music touch me emotionally for the first time
 
But yeah, that song just takes me back to just discovering what the world of music had to offer, it was basically the starting point for me finding an interest where I could make new friends and be a part of a community, rather than humiliated by my coach in a very much individual sport. And it also showed me just what I had been missing out on due to insecurities. I'm only 18 now, which probably seems like a baby to most of you guys ><
 
Next up? Has to be about the Gazette, they normally manage to pop up somewhere. I got into the Gazette how many people did I think, mostly through their popularity in the VK scene, browsing through youtube videos and scrolling the comments and seeing this name popping up everywhere. Eventually I checked them out and I was kind of sucked into the whole fangirl wave (which i'm not sure when I left tbh). But that aside, i've not had much time to form many memories with music but Chizuru is one song that I can't see disappearing any time soon, being one of the few Gazette songs I still listen to... I still don't really know the translation or what Ruki is singing about, but I do know that that song  is what got me through a time where I wasn't really able to do much at all physically. I couldn't do much mentally either, but what I could do mentally just brought me further down the spiral of depression...<<dramatic elipses as I look thoughtfully into the sunset
 
First time i've managed to build up enough courage to make a substantial post on here >__<
I know i've rambled a bit but hope it's okay! in other words please be kind to me or i'll cry T___T

Partial PV footage released!
 


 
They look so non-visual now o.0

Uhh, as long as there's music being shared you can be sure that transcodes will appear.
 
Clearly if you ask around you will find more people who hate transcodes than people who love them. I am admittedly rather OCD about transcodes myself, but still, I'm hesitant about the sub-forum idea.
 
Assuming we set up a forum to house transcodes, I can quite literally imagine having:
A) people who report x as transcode and ask for them to be moved to your 'sub-forum'
B ) people [probably mods] who manually do the moving
C) a group of people who start protesting that x isn't actually a transcode and asked for it to be moved back
D) another group of people who mediate between A and C
E) etc.
You get the idea...
 
The problem (as Champ213 rightly pointed out) is that there's no universal way to prove beyond all doubt that something is simply a bad rip or a transcode. From experience, micromanaging transcodes does nothing meaningful but invite drama (I'm reminded of petty squabbles that go on for 100+ posts on a particular tracker over whether a Super Junior single is a transcode...).
 
Ultimately, I feel that if you really care so much about whether something is a transcode, it's up to you to decide if x is a transcode and what to do if it is. Just don't fall into the trap of spending more time looking at spectra than actually listening to the music.

Uhh, as long as there's music being shared you can be sure that transcodes will appear.
 
Clearly if you ask around you will find more people who hate transcodes than people who love them. I am admittedly rather OCD about transcodes myself, but still, I'm hesitant about the sub-forum idea.
 
Assuming we set up a forum to house transcodes, I can quite literally imagine having:
A) people who report x as transcode and ask for them to be moved to your 'sub-forum'
B ) people [probably mods] who manually do the moving
C) a group of people who start protesting that x isn't actually a transcode and asked for it to be moved back
D) another group of people who mediate between A and C
E) etc.
You get the idea...
 
The problem (as Champ213 rightly pointed out) is that there's no universal way to prove beyond all doubt that something is simply a bad rip or a transcode. From experience, micromanaging transcodes does nothing meaningful but invite drama (I'm reminded of petty squabbles that go on for 100+ posts on a particular tracker over whether a Super Junior single is a transcode...).
 
Ultimately, I feel that if you really care so much about whether something is a transcode, it's up to you to decide if x is a transcode and what to do if it is. Just don't fall into the trap of spending more time looking at spectra than actually listening to the music.

Uhh, as long as there's music being shared you can be sure that transcodes will appear.
 
Clearly if you ask around you will find more people who hate transcodes than people who love them. I am admittedly rather OCD about transcodes myself, but still, I'm hesitant about the sub-forum idea.
 
Assuming we set up a forum to house transcodes, I can quite literally imagine having:
A) people who report x as transcode and ask for them to be moved to your 'sub-forum'
B ) people [probably mods] who manually do the moving
C) a group of people who start protesting that x isn't actually a transcode and asked for it to be moved back
D) another group of people who mediate between A and C
E) etc.
You get the idea...
 
The problem (as Champ213 rightly pointed out) is that there's no universal way to prove beyond all doubt that something is simply a bad rip or a transcode. From experience, micromanaging transcodes does nothing meaningful but invite drama (I'm reminded of petty squabbles that go on for 100+ posts on a particular tracker over whether a Super Junior single is a transcode...).
 
Ultimately, I feel that if you really care so much about whether something is a transcode, it's up to you to decide if x is a transcode and what to do if it is. Just don't fall into the trap of spending more time looking at spectra than actually listening to the music.

Uhh, as long as there's music being shared you can be sure that transcodes will appear.
 
Clearly if you ask around you will find more people who hate transcodes than people who love them. I am admittedly rather OCD about transcodes myself, but still, I'm hesitant about the sub-forum idea.
 
Assuming we set up a forum to house transcodes, I can quite literally imagine having:
A) people who report x as transcode and ask for them to be moved to your 'sub-forum'
B ) people [probably mods] who manually do the moving
C) a group of people who start protesting that x isn't actually a transcode and asked for it to be moved back
D) another group of people who mediate between A and C
E) etc.
You get the idea...
 
The problem (as Champ213 rightly pointed out) is that there's no universal way to prove beyond all doubt that something is simply a bad rip or a transcode. From experience, micromanaging transcodes does nothing meaningful but invite drama (I'm reminded of petty squabbles that go on for 100+ posts on a particular tracker over whether a Super Junior single is a transcode...).
 
Ultimately, I feel that if you really care so much about whether something is a transcode, it's up to you to decide if x is a transcode and what to do if it is. Just don't fall into the trap of spending more time looking at spectra than actually listening to the music.

This actually reminds me of something a literature professor used to say in one of my classes - that some literary works aren't "great" just cuz they are profound or impossibly opaque, or whatever.. but because they are porous - allowing every single reader to make the text their own in his/her very unique way.
 
I guess this is equally applicable to good music in general. Sometimes when we listen to a song, something (usually trivial) just seizes us in a very personal and very magical way. But at the same time you're pretty sure no one else can identify what exactly this "feeling" is..

Maximum the Hormone has always cracked me up

Lol. My parents listen to Chinese "oldies" that were popular from 20-30 years back
 
One of THE songs of 90s Mpop:


 
Another one from the same era:

This is so awesome... I've listened to it more than 15 times already.... and I need the full single NOW!! xDD

Lol. My parents listen to Chinese "oldies" that were popular from 20-30 years back
 
One of THE songs of 90s Mpop:


 
Another one from the same era:

Thank you for sharing your amazing experience. It was a great pleasure to read ^^
 
 
There are some songs that bring back a lot of memories for me, but probably none more so than vistlip’s songs. I will have to preface the music of my all-time favorite band with a condensed version of my “memory”.

I remember being in my second year of college then, leading nothing more and nothing less than the life of an average undergraduate. Here, college is a ridiculously disenchanting affair – most people you meet, professors included, are only interested in making money, or being “successful” (whatever that might mean, I still haven’t figured out) even at the cost of being happy. Probably the one thing that I could distinctly recall from that period was the overwhelming sense of loneliness – it’s the sort of thing which no one overtly talks about, but probably almost everyone around me was silently tortured by.

Between visual kei and my books (probably the two things I only ever need to survive), I felt that my life has always still been somewhat incomplete and lacking a certain something. Most of my friends had gone overseas for college, but I was vehemently against getting a scholarship like them because I never liked to be “bonded” to a company I had no interest in. One fine day, I found out that one of my best friends was returning for 2 weeks and wanted to meet up and chat. Of course, I was elated, and couldn’t wait to see him.

Yet, when we finally met that night, it felt so… different. I mean, we used to be incredibly close pals, staying over at each other’s places regularly and literally had no secrets between us. But somehow, when you interpolate a period of 2 years between then and now, suddenly everything changed. I wouldn’t say that we felt like total strangers, but there was an awkward discomfort throughout the entire conversation, and neither of us was oblivious to it. Today, unfortunately, we hardly talk anymore and it's a real shame.

Now I have already been a visual kei fan for at least 10 years, and there are several bands I greatly adore. But I always found vistlip’s lyrics to be the most genuinely Romantic (NOT “romantic” in the contemporary, highly watered-down sense) and resonates the most with my own temperament and in line with how I view the world. In their music I find all the beautiful themes of overreaching, of the capacity to be in middle states (the world isn’t just black and white), of the stoic individual who resists the tyranny of “oughts” and “musts”.

Of all these motifs in vistlip's music, one stands out for me – the nostalgia for lost time. I realized that no matter how close someone might be to you now, there is always the danger of time washing it away. The past is what it is – something that will remain irretrievable regardless of what you do.

But in its place, we have memory (another big theme of a lot of vistlip’s music). No matter how imperfect or how unreliable, our memory is the only means by which we can re-live every event, trivial or important, in our lost experience. Even now, everytime I hear a song like Kageoni etc., I'm immediately reminded of the great times I had, and how fortunate I was to have met all the wonderful people who had entered and left my life.
 

Thank you for sharing your amazing experience. It was a great pleasure to read ^^
 
 
There are some songs that bring back a lot of memories for me, but probably none more so than vistlip’s songs. I will have to preface the music of my all-time favorite band with a condensed version of my “memory”.

I remember being in my second year of college then, leading nothing more and nothing less than the life of an average undergraduate. Here, college is a ridiculously disenchanting affair – most people you meet, professors included, are only interested in making money, or being “successful” (whatever that might mean, I still haven’t figured out) even at the cost of being happy. Probably the one thing that I could distinctly recall from that period was the overwhelming sense of loneliness – it’s the sort of thing which no one overtly talks about, but probably almost everyone around me was silently tortured by.

Between visual kei and my books (probably the two things I only ever need to survive), I felt that my life has always still been somewhat incomplete and lacking a certain something. Most of my friends had gone overseas for college, but I was vehemently against getting a scholarship like them because I never liked to be “bonded” to a company I had no interest in. One fine day, I found out that one of my best friends was returning for 2 weeks and wanted to meet up and chat. Of course, I was elated, and couldn’t wait to see him.

Yet, when we finally met that night, it felt so… different. I mean, we used to be incredibly close pals, staying over at each other’s places regularly and literally had no secrets between us. But somehow, when you interpolate a period of 2 years between then and now, suddenly everything changed. I wouldn’t say that we felt like total strangers, but there was an awkward discomfort throughout the entire conversation, and neither of us was oblivious to it. Today, unfortunately, we hardly talk anymore and it's a real shame.

Now I have already been a visual kei fan for at least 10 years, and there are several bands I greatly adore. But I always found vistlip’s lyrics to be the most genuinely Romantic (NOT “romantic” in the contemporary, highly watered-down sense) and resonates the most with my own temperament and in line with how I view the world. In their music I find all the beautiful themes of overreaching, of the capacity to be in middle states (the world isn’t just black and white), of the stoic individual who resists the tyranny of “oughts” and “musts”.

Of all these motifs in vistlip's music, one stands out for me – the nostalgia for lost time. I realized that no matter how close someone might be to you now, there is always the danger of time washing it away. The past is what it is – something that will remain irretrievable regardless of what you do.

But in its place, we have memory (another big theme of a lot of vistlip’s music). No matter how imperfect or how unreliable, our memory is the only means by which we can re-live every event, trivial or important, in our lost experience. Even now, everytime I hear a song like Kageoni etc., I'm immediately reminded of the great times I had, and how fortunate I was to have met all the wonderful people who had entered and left my life.
 

It’s autumn. The leaves are turning and there is a crispness running through the air. Falls seems bring out the nostalgic side of me. Maybe it is the chill on my skin, forcing my mind try to draw on the warmth of fond memories. Or perhaps it is just the shortening days, driving me to spend more time inside, and making me appreciate the little gap of time after I leave work and when the sun drops below the horizon. Whatever the reason may be, autumn seems to stir in me the feelings of the past.

This is particularly so when it comes to music. This season seems to latch on to music I love, and to me, they almost become inseparable. And that’s what I want to talk about. What music do you listen to that is tied to certain memories? What are the reasons why? Does it make the music almost more important or memorable than it ever could have been without that memory?

I’ll start…with the obvious; music that is tied with memories in fall.
 


Abingdon Boys School – Their entire self-titled album

Enter fall of 2007. My girlfriend at the time and I started dating earlier in the year, which happened to be our final year in high school. After summer had come and gone, we both parted ways on to our separate colleges. I had chosen to go to a fairly close school, only 45 minutes away from home…close enough that I could go home if I needed to, but far enough to be removed from my parents and high school life. She opted to follow the path of her older sister; going to a private college around 3 hours away.

After a summer of spending most of my available time with her, I had fallen in loved. This wasn’t like my previous relationship, where I thought I knew what love was. This time I could explain it. Each little thing. How it made me feel. Our endless silly talks that meandered everywhere and nowhere. This love felt so much more real, unlike the stuff that I was taught was love from TV, but something that I truly felt inside of me. So at the end of the summer, I’m sure you can understand the sinking feeling inside of me. She left, I left; both of us dropped off at our respective institutions. My car was left at home and her’s likewise.

Fast forward to October. It had been three months since I had last seen her, though that was not to say there was a lack of communication. All I have to say is thank god for Verizon’s free nights and weekends, otherwise my phone bill would have been through the roof. But that didn’t make up for the lack of physical interaction. I found my solace in music.

As I am sure some of you remember, Abingdon Boys School released their first album that October. I loved it…and my girlfriend did too, which was amazing. We rarely shared tasted in music, so to be able to share something like this was really special. But that isn’t what made the memory with this album.

Skip ahead to late October (maybe early November, its been awhile). I had the chance to go up to my family hunting cabin for the weekend, which was only about an hour away from my girlfriend’s college and deep in the woods. After some convincing, I managed to persuade my parents in to letting me pick her up and allowing her to spend the weekend together with us at the cabin. After waiting for about 4 months and 3 hours of driving in anticipation, I met her in what was maybe the best hug of my life. We drove back to my family’s cabin, and Abingdon Boy School quickly fell in to place as the sound track of our weekend.

The pleasant warmth of the sun in the cool air, the burnt orange and vibrant yellow on the trees, and the powerful vocals and guitar of radiating out of my car’s speakers all seemed to meld so perfectly together. The synergy of it all, combined with the shear bliss of finally seeing the person I had missed so dearly, just burned the entire weekend in to my memory.
 
 
 

To this day, whenever I listen to a track off of ABS’s self-titled, I think of that special fall weekend…the glorious weather, the delightful romance of a young couple, and the pure joy of music. I think about what we had and I how wonderful it had been. I think about how things have changed. I think about her. I think about innocence. And I think about fall.



Ok, now it’s your turn! You really don’t have to be as elaborate as me (or as sappy lol), but I look forward to reading your replies!

Here you go:
 

「ARIA」


Hatenaku hiroi   Umi no you na sekai de
Amata ni chitta   Koukai wa nan wo nogareta
 
Sorezore no omoi daki   sorezore ayumi
Yagate yakusoku no toki ga   Kizamareteyuku
 
Meguriai no ARIA   Kizuna wo tsunde   Kabi na hana ga saku
Azayakana oto ni nosete   Dokomademo takaku e
 
Aoi taiyou ga   Ubugoe wo agereba
Tobira ga hiraki   Hikari to tomo ni anata ga
 
Tenshi no you na warami to   Yasuraka na koe
Kokoro ubai sarawareta   Sanbi no kotodama
 
Tadottekita michi no nani ga kaketemo   Anata wo utaenai
Sou subete wo aiseru kara   Towa ni chikau ARIA
 
Meguriai no ARIA   Kizuna wo tsunde   Kabi na hana ga saku
Azayakana oto ni nosete   Dokomademo takaku e
Towa ni hibikiwatare
 
Shimesu gosenfu ni
Kiseki okoshi yume wo kanade


 

「SHOUT YOUR DESIRE」
 
Samekitta machi no naka de   Garakuta　tsumekomarete
Shigumareta yami no haguruma no naka   Daremo ga minna ochiteyuku utagai mo shinai de

MORAL toiu kusari wo   Tachikire   REAL ga chigau
Mune wo tsunagu omoi   Kotoba ni shitemiro   Saa

SHOUT IT OUT YOUR DESIRE
YOU BETTER GO YOUR OWN WAY
Sono koe ga karetemo
SHOUT IT OUT YOUR DESIRE
YOU BETTER GO YOUR OWN WAY
Ikiteiru akashi wo   Sagashidashite
Kizutsuite tozasareta   Sono tobira wo kowase
Kobushi wo nigirishimero   COOL ni kimete   Tobashiteyuku ze

Hashiridashita gekijou wa   Dare ni mo tomerarenai
Tsukisasaru shisen   Tobikau kotoba wa   Subete mu ni kaese

Kowaresouni Furueru yoru wa
Tsuyoku daite ageyou   Ima
Kanjita sono mama hakidase
Osoreru koto wa nani mo nai
Omae no subete wo tokihanatte
Sekai wo kaero

SHOUT IT OUT YOUR DESIRE
YOU BETTER GO YOUR OWN WAY
Sono koe ga karetemo
SHOUT IT OUT YOUR DESIRE
YOU BETTER GO YOUR OWN WAY
Ikiteiru akashi wa   Sono te no naka ni
Kizudarake no kono sakebi   Dokomade mo hibikasete
Kobushi wo nigirishimero   COOL ni kimete   Tobashiteyukuze

I was a huge fan of SID in their indies days. I still like their music because I think they have a crazy amount of flair, but somehow after they majored their music became more unattractive to me. I don't think the reason is them "becoming more mainstream" (or at least not entirely because of that) - I don't know - but they hardly write songs like Aikagi, Alibi and those from their "Ren'ai" album anymore

Accidentally wandered into this thread and thought I'll do a transliteration of the lyrics (into romaji ^^)
 
 
「~0~」
Te wo nobasu    Todokanai sora
Seijaku no yoru ni asa wo matsu
Saketa yami    Matenrou no shita
Ryoute wo hiroge tsubasa wo maneta
break the wall! break the wall!
exceed yourself!!
Te wo nobasu    Nijindeku sora
Yubisaki ni koboreta hikari to kage
Itsukamita,    ikutsuka no yume
Sono me wo akete sora wo niranda
it's impossible to go back.
our endless dream is started.
the time came.
Don't fear anything! fly!!
Habataita ame wo nuketa
Itsuwari no sekai wo koe
Tsunaida te nara hanasanu you
Gyutto tsuyoku nigirishimete
Nozonda keshiki no hate
Toberu to shinjiteru kara
do not fear it    motto takaku e
Kakureta tsuki no kumo wo harai    Kitto (kitto) mirai e
draw the dream    Asu wo irodotte miseru
Harewataru sora ni
Kako wo toikaketemiru kedo
Furikaeranaide
Tada mae wo muite
Kanaderu dake sa
Habataita ame wo nuketa    
Itsuwari no sekai wo koe
Tsunaida te nara hanasanu you
Gyutto tsuyoku nigirishimete
Nozonda keshiki no hate
Toberu to shinjiteru kara
do not fear it    motto takaku e
Monokuro no asa wo    Irodori egaku yo
Niji no kanata e
 
 
P.S.: I did this on the phone while travelling, so if you find any strange parts let me know and I'll check again

Accidentally wandered into this thread and thought I'll do a transliteration of the lyrics (into romaji ^^)
 
 
「~0~」
Te wo nobasu    Todokanai sora
Seijaku no yoru ni asa wo matsu
Saketa yami    Matenrou no shita
Ryoute wo hiroge tsubasa wo maneta
break the wall! break the wall!
exceed yourself!!
Te wo nobasu    Nijindeku sora
Yubisaki ni koboreta hikari to kage
Itsukamita,    ikutsuka no yume
Sono me wo akete sora wo niranda
it's impossible to go back.
our endless dream is started.
the time came.
Don't fear anything! fly!!
Habataita ame wo nuketa
Itsuwari no sekai wo koe
Tsunaida te nara hanasanu you
Gyutto tsuyoku nigirishimete
Nozonda keshiki no hate
Toberu to shinjiteru kara
do not fear it    motto takaku e
Kakureta tsuki no kumo wo harai    Kitto (kitto) mirai e
draw the dream    Asu wo irodotte miseru
Harewataru sora ni
Kako wo toikaketemiru kedo
Furikaeranaide
Tada mae wo muite
Kanaderu dake sa
Habataita ame wo nuketa    
Itsuwari no sekai wo koe
Tsunaida te nara hanasanu you
Gyutto tsuyoku nigirishimete
Nozonda keshiki no hate
Toberu to shinjiteru kara
do not fear it    motto takaku e
Monokuro no asa wo    Irodori egaku yo
Niji no kanata e
 
 
P.S.: I did this on the phone while travelling, so if you find any strange parts let me know and I'll check again