Nightwish

This was the group Jamie introduced me too this week. I would never have thought to be able to claim to love the sound of a metal band. But this one grabbed me somehow. The closest thing to the Nightwish sound that I've ever loved in music would have to be Queen and Stravinsky.

I'm not sure if either of the songs featured in the vids top and bottom were on that mixed CD of her's and she was unable to tell me the name of the songs I heard or the album as she had made the CD without including them. So I've selected these two to show the range of the sound and, in the first one, to show them in action on stage. The sound of the drums were the first thing that drew me in. Of course. I can't get enough of watching that drummer in action.

As I prepared this post, I created a Nightwish playlist on Youtube which already contains over 30 songs. I've only listened to a few though as the connection I have here at Jamie's is not the best for listening to streaming music and vids. I will be listening to them over the next weeks and looking for more and trying to identify the one that hooked me. It was almost symphonic in places, even operatic, and was very long, well over five minutes and Jamie thought ten but I haven't seen one on Youtube yet that approaches ten minutes though a few go over six.

Before the first Nightwish song I heard was over I was already identifying them as a group and a sound that my character Maia from Spring Fever would be into. I think it was because there was an element of the Celtic in that one. By the time the second one was over I was having vivid images of Maia choreographing a dance for it. That was the operatic one and it seemed a perfect fit for someone who was obsessed with Stravinsky for I was hearing the roots of Stravinsky growing out of that song.

I don't know enough of the jargon to talk about music the way musicians talk to each other about it so I don't know how to explain what about the Nightwish sound conjured up memories of the Stravinsky sound. All I know is it was a very strong association made in my mind via feelings and images. It's not quite right to put the 'and' between the word 'feelings' and the word 'images' as they arose together completely entwined.

Music is very hard to think about in words which makes it hard to write about or talk about--or read about for that matter. So I should shut up now.



OK I couldn't resist including this third one:



Their Gethsemane is great too and the images in it coupled with this one reveal a spiritual theme I was surprised to find in a group labeled 'metal' but I shouldn't have been considering the effect the music had on me when I first heard it as music expresses the spiritual much better than words. Is it possible that music is the language of spirit?

OK now. I'm getting loopy. I guess it's past my bedtime.