In TM's Atelier – Episode 7: Is Listening to Someone Else's Emotions Really That Interesting?
TM, Amongst the Rooms 2, 2025, digital visual composition
As I grew older, the intensity of my HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) tendencies gradually faded.
But every now and then, traces of it still show up.
For instance, when I became deeply absorbed in something,
I fully immerse myself in that world
and find it hard to return to everyday reality.
Even now, if I'm moved by a film, an exhibition, or a concert,
the emotional aftereffects can last a week… sometimes even a month.
When sound hits directly
I haven’t met many people like this,
but there are times when I feel like bursting into tears during a concert.
It’s hard to hold it in without making a sound...
It’s not about the excitement of meeting the artist,
nor about resonating with lyrics or a story.
For me, it’s always the music itself that moves me the most.
I’ve lost count of how many times Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet made me cry.
The same goes for Maurice Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte.
And there are many more pieces —
by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Ludwich Beethoven, or in contemporary music —
that do the same.
Apparently, this is something that sets me apart:
sound pierces directly through me.
I may no longer be HSP in the way I was as a child,
but perhaps that sensitivity has only grown stronger over time.
So yes, I’ve written pieces based on personal emotions.
But I’ve never tried to force those emotions into the mold of tonality.
(I’ll touch on that in more detail in the next episode.)
The emotional tool
For example, First Visit was inspired by the graduation ceremony
at the last university I attended — in the UK — with my parents.
They have since passed away, and a quiet melancholy is embedded in that piece.
That said, the melancholic tone only surrounds the intro and ending.
The middle part is more of a scenic description than emotional expression.
Another piece, Boyhood Skies, is a tribute to two great musicians
who passed away while I was composing it.
You could say that’s also a form of emotional expression.
But those two might be the only works of mine
truly centred around personal emotions.
That said, there are many other pieces that move me to tears when I listen to them: Flowers, Le Rêve Restauré, Looking Up At The Clouds, In The Mirror,
The Drama In The Elevator, 3:20 am… and more.
A music beyond emotion
Sometimes people say my music feels “cold”
because it doesn’t express obvious emotions.
But I think that’s completely missing the point.
In painting, we have landscapes, still lives, abstract forms, patterns —
so why should music be dominated by “personal emotional expression”?
Are we really only moved by someone else’s feelings?
Me, not.
If emotional expression has become the norm,
perhaps it’s because today’s music revolves around the artist as an individual...
or rather, the consumption of their image.
Music is made to meet the demand of
“I want to hear what this person has to say.”
And while that might be true in general,
to me, it’s a very limited assumption.
From my point of view,
the idea of music as a tool for personal emotional expression is fairly new —
just a few hundred years old.
(I’ll go deeper into that next time.)
What I’m doing instead is avoiding the expression of “insignificant personal emotions,”
and focusing more on evoking aesthetics through scenic descriptions —
or, at times, expressing a sense of humour.
To be continued
In TM’s Atelier –
Episode 1: Composition Atelier
Episode 2: Geometry on Five Lines
Episode 3: When the Concept Ignites
Episode 4: Everything Begins with the Colour Red
Episode 5: A Journey of Creation and Self-Discovery
Episode 6: What’s Missing in the Age of Marketing Music
Episode 7: Is Listening to Someone Else's Emotions Really That Interesting?
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