5 Ways on How to Integrate Music in Interior Designing – Guest Post

Sometimes, we listen to music and we feel something happen inside of us that we can’t really explain. It’s like your heart is throbbing so fast it can come out of your chest any minute. It makes you so happy, and so sad, and so confused. It gives you all these layers of emotions that you didn’t know you had in the first place.

That’s what music, the language of the soul, does to people. Don’t you want to feel that way about your home, too? That feeling when you walk into your home and you instantly feel like you are in the right place. You feel safe, calm, and relieved. This is why music and interior design should be best friends. Both have the power to make things better.

The elements of music are perfect inspirations for interior designing. Harmony and rhythm, for example, are perfect tenets of design that you can work with. We’re not just talking about using music as a theme in a literal sense, but using its very core, using its very soul.

Finding your rhythm

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In singing competitions, we often hear judges and panelists tell the contestants: “you have to find your rhythm ”or “you have to find your groove.”

That same principle applies to interior design. Rhythm is about movement. In music, it’s like your beat. But when you say rhythm in design, you think about lines, colors, and patterns.
This can be achieved by repetition, wherein you emphasize the elements of design such as lines, patterns, color, and texture by repeating them in an organized manner. You may also alternate two elements in a regular pattern, or have them progress. Use a series of objects that progress in size or a certain color that progress in brightness.

The idea is to choose a design element and make them move. You can do this boldly or subtly, just as long as your eyes move to follow a pattern of movement without even realizing it.

Striking a balance

Photo Courtesy of Jurgen Leckie via Flickr

Musicians struggle to always achieve balance. It could be in the level of instruments in a mix or audio levels. It could even be the feel—not too pop, but not too rock either. Or in the collaboration—Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney or Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett.

As a child, we need to have balance in order to walk. You need to have balance when you ride a bike. Balance is the one thing that is constant in our lives. When we don’t have it, things get ugly.

In the principles of design, balance is also very crucial. Have you ever walked into a house and feel like it’s too heavy? Have you ever felt like the walls are closing in on you because the colors are way too strong?

Balance is achieved by distributing the visual weight of an interior space. No single corner should carry all the heavy items. Brixton Place, an upcoming high-residential development in Pasig City, is an example of perfect balance, as it blends city conveniences with the laid-back resort life.

One way of incorporating music in designing your home is by radial balance, wherein items are distributed evenly around a central point such as chairs around a table. You may also distribute and arrange objects symmetrically so as to reflect stability and calmness.

Color is another aspect. This is why two-toned shades are getting more popular these days, because they give the impression of balance. A dark couch against a white wall, or pops of color in fixtures to even out a plain background are examples of balance.

Defining patterns

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Patterns, in chords or notes, are responsible for most of our LSS (last song syndrome).Take Katy Perry, Taylor Swift or Maroon 5 as examples. These hitmakers really know how to take their songs to the top of the charts by repetitive and catchy notes such as “oh” or “oh, oh, oh,” or “ah” or whatever pattern that automatically gets stuck in your head.

As opposed to texture, which deals with quality of a surface, patterns are more about illustrations. Different sizes of circles on your headboard, playful lines in your living room, and geometric shapes in your carpeting are examples of patterns.

You should take note, however, that patterns go hand in hand with balance. If not used conscientiously, it could be very overwhelming.

Perfect harmony

Photo Courtesy of Jurgen Leckie via Flickr

This is about feeling. This is about listening to something that makes you feel right. In a technical definition, harmony in music refers to multiple pitches being played at the same time. It happens when you have two or three chords at once. In a rock band, the guitarist is mostly responsible for the harmony.

Harmony in design is having multiple objects in one unifying package. No matter how different these objects are, they must breathe as one soul. Repetition of design elements such as color, shape or form is a way to achieve harmony.

Harmony and unity work closely together. Unity happens when everything works together, as if everything is in their right place. With harmony, an interior space will feel calmer, more relaxed, and very well put together.

Tone is on-key

Photo Courtesy of Jurgen Leckie via Flickr

When a singer goes flat, that basically means she’s off-key. This is probably the most easily recognizable flaw. As a listener, you instantly get the feeling that she’s losing it.

In interior design, the tone is also important. You walk into a room and you know if it is romantic, rustic, laidback, bold, royal or painfully plain. It works like a theme. It is that element that gives a space its voice and personality. With your choice of color, materials, and furniture, you can easily establish the tone of your space.

It is remarkable how music and interior design can blend so well. What’s music for the ears is also bliss for the eyes. Both have elements and principles that satisfy a concert stage and an interior stage. Interior designing isn’t just about putting all the best pieces together, but organizing and arranging them in such a way that they balance each other out. Objects and elements need to work in harmony so that they find their perfect rhythm.