When I've visited homes for house tours, there has often been music playing, and I'm continually struck by how distinctly that music influences my interpretation of the space. We all know that music can set a mood, but can it also set a style?
Armed with a Spotify playlist and the AT Pinterest boards, I matched some house tour photos to music clips that I thought suited them, resulting in the video below. Out of respect to the artists, I've kept the clips in the video short, and if you like the bits you hear, you'll find purchase links for the full songs below.
I am fully aware that this is a subjective enterprise. My thoughts on a space are probably not going to be your thoughts, especially when adding cross-sensory input into the mix. I'm not claiming that the rooms I've singled out below only fit a single type of music (much less a single song!) or that the owners listen to the music I've ascribed to their homes. Nor am I advocating some new, strange process of decorating by ear. This is less a scientific pursuit than an attempt to integrate creatively two things that I love.
But a wholly subjective endeavor is not necessarily meaningless. Instead of thinking of this as having some "real," objective value, I tried to think of this as a new type of mood board or collage. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and trying to tap into the possibilities of music for my design style seemed, at the very least, like something a bit different and fun.
My pairings:
1. Fair Ohs—"Everything Is Dancing" paired with Cheyenne Weaver's Guilded Simplicity
2. Phantogram—"Don't Move" paired with Beatrice & Ramsey's Cultured Echo Park Casa
3. Grizzly Bear—"Yet Again" paired with Katherine & Jem's Humboldt Park Bazaar Apartment
4. The Black Keys—"Gold on the Ceiling" paired with Alan's Colorful, Daring, and Dramatic East Austin Home
5. Cypress Hill—"Illusions-Harpsichord Mix" paired with Sieger Design: A Modern Design Studio in a Historic Hunting Lodge
6. Purity Ring—"Lofticries" paired with Chad's Guest House & Reinvented Garage
7. Generationals—"Goose & Gander" paired with Samer's 1930s Streamline Moderne Apartment
8. Charli XCX—"Nuclear Seasons" paired with Sandra's Luxurious Modern in Brentwood
9. Divine Fits—Flaggin' a Ride" paired with Traci's Incredible South Pasadena Craftsman
10. Bombay Bicycle Club—"Rinse Me Down" paired with John's New York City Interior with a California Garden
Having completed the exercise, I know that the final product was much less important than the process of making it. In forming these matches, I thought about the tone, tenor, and harmony of spaces in a new way. I tought more deeply about how they felt, the quality of light, and the overall mood they gave off than I sometimes do when looking at inspiration photos. You may not see the connection between Divine Fits and Traci's living room (#9), but for me, the sparse musical backdrop punctuated with a poppy, driving rhythm reminded me of Traci's all-white palette dotted with color, and in both cases, the parts add up to something more interesting than the minimalist whole one might expect.
All in all, this exercise probably won't alter my design process , but it was a fun and interesting way to think about how inspiration can come from anywhere and how, as people interested in creating homes suited to our lives and passions, it's possible to use non-visual sources to kindle the imagination. In the off-chance that this rouses any of you to make your own visual mixes, please link to them below. I'd love to see them!
(Images and music: as credited above)
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great pairings! totally feelin' it. i had an assignment like this in school, we had to create a space inspired by our favorite song. it was so much fun. thanks :)
Love love love the idea. I put on music to decide what I will eat for dinner. I put on music to decide what I wear that day. And when I go through your website or decor magazine or book, I often put on the same record (National Parks Project record) as it speaks to my decor style and it aids me to keep to my path.
That all said, I wish you would have gone through the tours instead of keeping to the one image. Although maybe only one room suited that song? I would like to see a further development on your idea, for it's brilliant and rings true.
Several spaces featured on AT have made me think of "Gold on the Ceiling" by the Black Keys. Good to know I'm not the only one who's a fan!
My house soundtrack would be Toccata and Fugue in B minor. Totally!
Music is my inspiration. I made a post on my blog in 2010 on the subject. I loved finding the subject again, in the Apartment, so well done. We all have a music track, for sure we have and our homes also have. Love!
What a great post on the use of sound (specifically music) for design inspiration. Sound can certainly "shape" your experience of a space. While your choices may have been subjective for this exercise, there's actually a lot of research available that would actually allow you to more objectively "pair" audio cross modally with colors, scents, shapes and textures. Our company specializes in working with brands to create a sonic identity. Part of that identity might involve the experience of a brick-and-mortar environment, where we consider everything from the architecture and how it affects sound in the room, to how audio can affect our sense of space and time and/or shape our moods and levels of arousal. Sometimes it involves matching sound to a space - and sometimes matching the space to the sound. Thanks for sharing your insights and where the inspiration led you!
Seriously? So there's absolutely NO music that was created before 2001? (How did Cypress Hill sneak in? 1988 is sooooo old...)
I hope your little exercise amused you.
As someone with synesthesia, I can tell you they don't match if you really have sound and color crossover.
I guess if 5 is Kelly green, it might be a nice pairing exercise.
See, in my head, a song makes a palette of colrs and hues, with spiraling, ascending and descending motions.
Your exercise is more cinematic.
Please refrain from using medical conditions as trends.
Fun idea :) thought it was great, regardless if others liked the matchups or the whole idea or not. It was communicated from the beginning that it was a subjective experiment, so it should be taken that way. I may try this :)
Without fail, any time a post has musical suggestions commenters will:
1. State how they haven't heard of the artists mentioned (as if they have the most extensive record collections and anything not contained within is invalid.)
2. Why music from ::insert genre/era/personal taste here:: isn't listed and how that is a travesty.
I am so glad that even in my "old age" I am still open to being introduced to new music that I haven't "heard of" without needing to compare them to anything from "back in my day"... I am somewhat proud/surprised to be able to identify 6/10 of the bands listed!
Thanks for all your comments!
@mad.alderson: I only chose single images simply because I didn't want to use longer musical clips. (I'm taking no chances on copyright infringement!) Interestingly though, I think a lot of the songs also work for the rest of the homes. You're right, though, that it would be cool to see if the idea can be transferred, not just to single spaces, but to homes as a whole.
@truepeacenik: Thanks for sharing your experience as a synesthete. To clarify my perspective a bit, my "day job" is as a historian of medicine, and more specifically, as a historian of the senses in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. I meant no disrespect in my use of the term "synesthesia," nor did I meant to imply that the condition itself is "trendy" or anything other than a medical condition. I used the term in the post title since my inspiration for the project came from the Symbolists' attempts to "tap into" synesthetic experiences (before it was really understood that synesthesia was particular to certain individuals and not a universalizable aesthetic experience), but I take your point that I could have and should have been more conscientious about my use of the term. Thanks again for your comments.
I'm glad that some of you enjoyed the idea or the music. It was fun to put together!
I am a synesthete and as such, the title of your post caught my eye. No offense taken here by your use of the word, rather I immediately understood what you were going for with this post. In any case, I really enjoyed the video, what a fun exercise. Now I want to roam my rooms with my ipod and see what ends up on the playlist :)
I thought this was really interesting. i have been researching for hours! im a uni student studying interior design and have chosen to do a project on housing different genres of music, obvs as there is such a broad range of genres etc i was looking for a more creative way of doing it and this seems perfect i think i will do something similar and see what the outcome is. although like you said other people may not pair certain types of music with such rooms and its purely opinion really i really love your idea! thanks
What's interesting for me about this pairing, is that it makes me think about how the spaces are used, not just what they look like. It gives fantastic context to each space.
That was fun! For me, number 7 was the best match. Now I will be trying to create a soundtrack in my head when I read AT.