A Quiet Ear: Frisson and the Power of Music
Although I am generally moved by all types of art, the lens through which I view the world has always been music. Nothing inspires, moves, or affects me more than listening to or playing music. One of the things that makes music so powerful for me is that it can affect me in a variety of ways.
At times, I’m delighted by clever wordplay or a certain turn of phrase. At others, I’m in awe of the virtuosity of the playing. Maybe there’s a quality to a singer’s voice or a certain guitar tone. Perhaps it’s the way the song was recorded. Or perhaps the way a band or orchestra presents themselves in a live setting.
The musical experiences that move me the most, however, are those that allow me to lose myself in the moment. I’m transported to a different reality, and I’m able to forget the past and the future and focus only on the present. And in those moments, I occasionally experience a feeling that at times affects only a portion of my body, while at others it’s a full-body experience.
Excitement and Fear
Frisson is a “French term meaning ‘aesthetic chills,’ and it feels like waves of pleasure running all over your skin.” ¹ At its simplest, I feel short yet intense sensations passing over my scalp, sometimes emanating from the base of my skull. At its most intense, these sensations pass back and forth along my head, back down my neck, continuing down my spine until they bounce back and forth, up and down my entire body, moving slowly, yet building, as wave after wave crashes over me. The sensations are sometimes, though not always, paired with an emotional reaction, at times bringing me to tears. This ranges from the welling of small tears in my ducts to full-on ugly sobbing. The final sensation that sometimes accompanies these others is a manic excitement that can’t be contained, where I breathe more rapidly and I feel a stir in my chest and my head.
When these three sensations work in tandem, the emotion I feel is world-changing. I describe it as such because it frequently leads me to new ideas, big life choices, moments of creativity, or deep reflection. It’s something that I’m incredibly grateful for.
The strangest thing about the sensation is that I can’t necessarily predict when it will happen. That’s an idea that both excites and frightens me. I love the notion of experiencing such intensity simply from listening to music. But because in these instances, I often find myself in an emotional and vulnerable state, it’s not always clear to me when that sensation will push me to a mental state that’s difficult to recover from. I’m grateful for this mystery, however, and going on without it would diminish my experience as a human being, to the point where I would likely struggle to move forward.
I have found, however, that there are a few musical pieces that can reliably bring on these sensations.
Experience and Memory
Red, King Crimson’s final album from their 1970s lineup (featuring John Wetton and Bill Bruford alongside Robert Fripp), is a dense sonic assault, highlighted by the title track and One More Red Nightmare, coupled with moments of grace and beauty, such as the song portions at the beginning and end of Starless. And while all of these parts of the album hold meaning to me for various reasons, the track that gave me moments of frisson the first 30 or so times I heard it is Fallen Angel.
Of all the songs on the album, Fallen Angel seems to possess both the brutality and the beauty of the other songs in one place. Starting with a swelling backwards bass note, it quickly moves into a fragile, pensive ballad, featuring John Wetton’s plaintive vocals, underpinned by the sublime oboe played by Robin Miller. Contrast this with the chorus, moved along by sweeping guitar picking in 6/8 time by Fripp, jazzy cornet by Mark Charig, and angular guitar stabs, again from Fripp.
It then moves to an instrumental section in 4, featuring guitar harmonies, swelling over rumbling bass and Bruford’s clattering drums. This leads back to the pre-chorus, before heading back into the final verse, again with yearning vocals and oboe. But this time, around the four minute mark, an ascending guitar line from Fripp appears out of the blue, seemingly climbing to impossible heights.
As a massive King Crimson fan, I actually bought Red rather late in my listening journey. I was really only familiar with the title track, and after listening to that lead-off song from the album on repeat a few times, I remember the first time I moved on to the next song, which just happens to be Fallen Angel. I was in my car, listening as I drove along a certain highway in Austin, heading to a certain department store to shop for clothing. As I exited the highway, heading down the exit ramp towards the frontage road, I was already enjoying the song in general, but as I reached the end of the exit, the ascending guitar line entered, sending waves of energy across my scalp, down my neck to the base of my spine.
I was in such shock at the sudden sensation, I paid little attention to the portion of the song that was to follow, instead concentrating on getting to my destination as soon as possible so that I could rewind the song and listen again. I wondered if I would experience the same sensation upon hearing it a second time. Sure enough, it happened again. I thought about trying for a third time, but felt that I might diminish the experience, instead electing to let it come about naturally the next time I listened to the entire album, and simply moved on to the remainder of the album.
The effect remained for several additional listens, some several months and eventually years apart, and although I no longer get the sensation I once felt, what I now hold as even more precious is the physical and emotional memory I have of this experience, especially the first time it happened.
Tone and Texture
Another experience that surprised me in a similar manner was listening to the song The Zookeeper’s Boy by Danish band, Mew. One Saturday, while perusing the racks at my favorite local record store, I was leafing through the pages of PROG magazine, when I read about a band called Pure Reason Revolution. After looking them up on Wikipedia, I discovered that they were considered part of a loosely-connected progressive rock resurgence of bands given the unfortunate title of Nu Prog. Among the bands listed was Mew, specifically their fourth album, And the Glass Handed Kites. I quickly found and bought the album, mostly based on the descriptions I saw of it, especially its structure as a single suite of music, with songs blending seamlessly from one to the next.
I began listening to the album in my car as I left the record store, making it through the first three or four songs, which I found enjoyable, but none of which moved me particularly.
Later that evening, I was driving to pick up some libations from a convenience store, with the album continuing to play in my car. I remember getting back into my car with my purchase, headed back to my home. Within seconds, The Zookeeper’s Boy came on, with slightly off-kilter drums, bass, and guitar lines throbbing rhythmically. I was immediately taken by the sounds, but what I didn’t expect was the additional guitar line that kicks in about two seconds in — an angular, descending, and even more off-kilter juxtaposition to the rest of the band. The tone of the guitar was unlike anything I had ever heard before, with a metallic quality from the strings that I might expect to hear more often given their composition, but never had. At the end of each phrase, there’s a decay to the sound, through the slightest use of reverb, as each note comes to its resting place, pulling me along with it.
My head was on fire, waves of pleasure running roughshod over my scalp. I knew I should keep listening, but I had to restart the song again and again, each time feeling the same effects. I then let the song continue, as the otherworldly guitar line was suddenly joined by dulcet keyboard tones, and, carrying the same angular edge, took on a melodic role. The waves continued, now moving down my neck and into my spine. Suddenly, the drums spill into a dramatic kerfuffle, setting the stage for angelic falsetto vocals.
The entire song is a masterpiece of tone and texture, but that opening section features so many opposing musical ideas, somehow placed in perfect balance, that it still enchants me to this day. Even as I write this and listen, I can’t help but be drawn into its magical embrace.
Joy and Sorrow
The band Fun. caught my attention with their massive hit song We Are Young, with its bold tempo changes, soaring anthemic vocals, and tonal shifts, which reminded me of Queen. Their second single, Some Nights, only cemented their creativity in my mind, and I eventually bought their second album, which features the same title. As I delved deeper into the song (and the album), I was struck by the combination of pop, soul, progressive rock, theatricality, and even South African Mbaqanga, paired with hip-hop production techniques and huge vocal harmonies.
The title track continued to work its way into my brain, driven largely by the mixture of sounds mentioned previously. The song kicks off with a wall of vocal harmonies, eventually propelled forward by expansive tribal drums, which move like a Sousa-inspired military march, with the eventual addition of timely guitar and piano and the constant shifting of dynamics as well.
This leads to a vocal breakdown over piano and drums at the 2:07 mark, building into auto-tuned vocal harmonies, before the march joins back in.
The vocals come back in, delivered with aggressive gusto, before again reaching a dynamic lull, with vocals floating delicately over building piano. As the drums return, the vocals suddenly move into a falsetto at the 3:10 mark, again paired with the autotune effect, which produces a completely unexpected combination.
The first time I really listened to the full song (again, in my car), I got to this section and started to cry. I didn’t see it coming, and it took me completely aback. As I processed the words behind the sounds, I knew that it was at least in part due to their emotional heft, but it was also caused by the unexplainable quality of music which reaches deep down inside me and touches something I can’t quite explain. In this moment, these weren’t necessarily tears of joy, but they likewise weren’t those of sorrow. They were produced by a feeling somewhere in-between, a sort of recognition of the inherent futility of life, paired with occasional, momentary joy that makes life worth living in spite of its absurdity.
As I sobbed, my body was gripped with frisson-infused spasms. I was grateful for the moment, understanding that it was something I likely needed for reasons outside of the listening experience.
Power and Emotion
A recent song that’s completely captivated me is the re-recorded #evolution version of Jackie Venson’s Afterglow. Venson’s vocals, guitar playing, and lyrics are all a wonder to behold, and while all of her music has a spacious, magical quality to it, there’s something about Afterglow that captures all of her greatest qualities in a way that’s intoxicating. The lyrical content of the song would be enough to speak to me, dealing with both the fading of the intensity of romantic love and the fallout of an ended relationship, but it’s the way that there’s both a sparsity and complexity to the musical ideas contained within that really grabs me.
The song really kicks in with the chorus, but it’s at the second chorus, when the song moves seamlessly into the middle section, that the music flies into the stratosphere.
At the 2:28 mark, Venson repeats the word “go” in a staccato manner, as the drums add in small yet effective flourishes, and her vocals begin to rise and fall with blues-inflected explorations, with her tasteful guitar eventually joining the fray, engaging in a call-and-response manner, crescendoing towards the next section at the 3:12 mark, where doubled guitar and vocal lines build over a choppy and sparse rhythm section, the lyrics reaching their full conviction, with a final repeated line of “never get lost.” This crescendo is followed by a powerful, yet again, tasteful guitar solo, before it reaches the inevitable end of the song.
The first time I heard the song was a live version featured in an ad on Facebook. I was already familiar with the name, as she is quite well known in her home base, which I share, but had somehow never heard any of her music.
I was fairly unaffected until I reached the same middle section I describe above. Something about the delivery of the repeated lyric had gotten a hold of me, and I kept coming back to the song. I eventually looked up the studio version and was so enthralled, that I went and bought the album within a day or two. On the way home, I kept playing the middle section over and over, backing it up as waves of energy and emotion flowed through and over me. As I became more familiar with the lyrical content of the song, the effect only grew more intense.
Over the next week, I alternated between listening to the entire song and listening to the middle section time after time. As I now knew the lyrics, I began singing them as loudly as I could, over and over, each time feeling the power and emotion flowing through my entire body.
This experience culminated for me with the arrival of my first improv showcase. Hoping to calm my nerves, I listened on the way to the performance space, singing loudly to separate my pilot brain apart from the rest so that I could be in the moment.
The showcase was a success, and afterwards, I felt proud of how far I had come and excited about the future. But the evening also brought up some complicated emotions for me, and as I left the performance space a few hours later, I turned up Afterglow as loud as I could reasonably (or perhaps a bit unreasonably) listen and played that middle section on repeat, singing so loud and hard that I lost my voice the next day. But in that moment, I needed to feel my feelings, and the frisson and emotional connection the song allowed me to experience were what I needed, a sort of primal scream guided by melody, rhythm, and timbre.
Reality and Transcendence
The single piece of music that most completely captures my feelings as both a musician and a person who views the world through the lens of music is one of Gustav Mahler’s orchestral Lieder (art songs), inspired by a poem by Friedrich Rückert. Mahler composed Lieder based on five of Rückert’s poems, and the most famous of these (and to me, the most meaningful) is titled Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, which translates loosely as “I am lost to the world.”
The poem is told from the perspective of a world-weary artist who exists in the normal world we all inhabit, but who secretly experiences his life in another, more ethereal world, which can only be reached through the experience of art.
The first time I heard the song was in a college course, covering an introduction to Western Classical music. I was only marginally familiar with Mahler, and what I had previously heard wasn’t especially of interest to me. As the music began to play, however (after a brief introduction from our instructor providing some context), I was immediately struck by the simultaneous power and vulnerability of the music. Although I understand German, it’s sometimes difficult to pick out phrases in the context of a song, and I was far more interested in the overall musical qualities on first listen.
The song captivated me, creating sensations across my head, not only traveling down my neck and spine, but also moving within me, touching on internal pain and sorrow, developed over time through my relationship with the world around me. Once back at home, I again listened to the song, this time reading through the lyrics, which can be translated as follows:
I am lost to the world
With which I used to waste much time;
It has for so long known nothing of me,
It may well believe that I am dead.
Nor am I at all concerned
If it should think that I am dead.
Nor can I deny it,
For truly I am dead to the world.
I am dead to the world’s tumult
And rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love, in my song! ²
I wept openly, feeling for the first time that I had finally discovered a work of art that matched completely with my way of viewing the world. I could discuss so many moments in this song, and how each one affects me differently, but instead, I’ll simply present the song in its entirety, using my favorite performance, that of the baritone singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, backed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
To this day, I have still never heard something on the level of this song. It touches me in a way that I can’t completely comprehend, and I cry when listening to it every single time, without fail. It’s the ultimate expression of how I feel when I listen to music, and it serves as a sublime representation of the way that music allows me to live in a different world alongside the one I’m forced to inhabit, a space where I can transcend the cruelty of the reality around me, while also finding a reason to stay engaged in that very same world in spite of its cruelty. Music is a reason to live, to exist, and it’s a song like this one that serves as a reminder every time I hear it of why life is important, even when it’s difficult or uncomfortable.
A Silent Voice and a Quiet Ear
There are many additional examples I could discuss, and perhaps one day there will be room to expand on what’s been started here, but for now, these are the pieces that come to mind. As with many things, the end is in the beginning, so I’ll conclude by returning to one of my favorite musicians.
In the liner notes to the DVD deja VROOOM, which captures a live performance of King Crimson’s 90s-era lineup, Robert Fripp says the following:
“The only reward the musician receives is music: the privilege of standing in the presence of music when it leans over and takes us into its confidence. As it is for the audience. In this moment everything else is irrelevant and without power. For those in music, this is the moment when life becomes real.” ³
This quote alone might be enough to summarize the way I feel both when creating and listening to music. But it’s what Fripp follows with that summarizes my relationship with music and the depth of emotion I experience, especially in those treasured moments when frisson enters into my body. There’s no better way I could describe the feeling, and as such, will allow his quote to serve as the last word on my own:
“May we trust the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse. When all is impossible and seemingly without hope, may we trust the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse and listen to its silent voice with a quiet ear.” ⁴
Notes
¹ Colver, M. (2016, May 25). If you get chills while listening to music, you might be a more open and emotional person. Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/technology/2016/05/getting-chills-when-listening-to-music-might-mean-youre-a-more-emotional-person.html.
² Translation © Richard Stokes, author of: The Book of Lieder (Faber); The Complete Songs of Hugo Wolf (Faber), provided via Oxford International Song Festival (www.oxfordsong.org).
³ King Crimson. deja VROOOM. Discipline Global Mobile DGM 9810, 1999, DVD. Liner notes.
⁴ King Crimson. deja VROOOM. Discipline Global Mobile DGM 9810, 1999, DVD. Liner notes.
