“I don't know how you hear music. I imagine that if you like music at all then it has, in your head, some kind of third dimension to it, a dimension suggesting space as well as surface, depth of field as well as texture.Speaking for myself, I used to hear "buildings"... three-dimensional forms of architectural substance and tension. I did not "see" these buildings in the classic synaesthetic way so much as sense them. These forms had "floors", "walls", "roofs", "windows", "cellars". They expressed volume. Music to me has always been a handsome three-dimensional container, a vessel, as real in its way as a Scout hut or a cathedral or a ship, with an inside and an outside and subdivided internal spaces.I'm absolutely certain that this "architecture" had everything to do with why music has always exerted such a hold over me. I think music was the structure in which I learned to contain and then examine emotion.”

Nick Coleman
Success Wisdom Dreams Wisdom

Explore This Quote Further

Quote by Nick Coleman: “I don't know how you hear music. I imagine that … - Image 1

Similar quotes

“The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives.”


“What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?”


“My interest in making music has been to create something that does not exist that I would like to listen to. I wanted to hear music that had not yet happened, by putting together things that suggested a new thing which did not yet exist.”


“Wherever I go the music playing is always something I like. I never hear music I hate.""If you never hear it, how do you know what music you don't like?" I asked, not sure if I'd made any sense. It was spinny trying to figure it out. Didn't you know what you liked in contrast to what you didn't? But if he only heard music he liked, he'd never have any contrast. Did that mean he liked everything?”


“How can that not leave you bruised somewhere? How can thatnot turn you into the sort of person liable to break into little bits when your first love goes all wrong?What came first, the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was Imiserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?”


“In architecture volume can be seen to be either a portion of space contained and defined by wall, floor and ceiling or roof planes or a quantity of space displaced by the mass of the building.”