Telling stories without words or images

How do we tell stories, when all we have is noise?

I’ve been making some music, if you can call it that, lately. It’s noise, with little rhyme or reason beyond establishing a beat, then choosing to ignore it because rules are stupid and music is whatever I want it to be.

With noise I can communicate conflict.
I can communicate a sensation, or mood.
I can communicate a sense of progression, or regression.
I can communicate fear, disconcert, confusion, displacedness.
I can communicate joy, and sorrow.

So how do I tell a story with only noise?

I suppose by communicating what I can, and leaving you alone with your thoughts to figure out the rest.

See the thing is I can’t tell you a story without words, or images. I can’t communicate complex thoughts to you. But I can transmit you to the same space of mind I’m in when I imagine the story. I can make you feel things. Warm and fuzzy? Cold and alone? Confused and abandoned?

Are those ocean gulls? Or perhaps your train is leaving without you. Only a listener can discern the story. Communication takes two parties. If all I’m sending is a vague, visceral feeling then what I get back from you is art.

So as I always say with my music. Please take it, share it, I made it with my hands for you. Please tell me how it made you feel. Even if that is simply “bored”.

This is called “Something bad happened here a long time ago”.

Flashbacks are rough. They can come out of nowhere and can be debilitating. Flavoring the way we view events around them by priming our minds for negative thoughts. I have flashbacks often. I’ve tried to address them with talk therapy and EMDR, and while I’ve grown to accept the events that I flash back to as a part of my past, and even forgive the people involved in them, they still occur with alarming frequency, physical effects and all.

I’m trying to work through it all by creating work that can share the feelings, without sharing the traumas with the world.

With love,
Nora