Seeing dead people may be a rare thing, but hearing them is disarmingly common. We hear them in cars, in clubs and arenas and especially when alone. Their presence is preserved in full, and it’s preserved through music.

There is something particularly eerie about listening to the ghost voices of dead musicians. Their bodies are long gone, yet their emotions and personalities are still there, eternally etched in sound. Somehow, we still have access to their spirits.

Last month, for instance, marked the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s landmark release, “Nevermind.” Kurt Cobain, armed with his guttural caterwaul, still sounds like he’s stuck inside his own songs. To listen to “Nevermind” is to hear the sounds of someone’s inner demons literally escaping the body — an appropriately sinister pleasure for the upcoming sinister holiday.

Each remaining month this year marks an anniversary or loss of an iconic musician who has left indelible marks on our musical landscape and cultural consciousness. In the spirit of this autumn season, which itself is preoccupied with death, here are those who have similarly triumphed through art despite the bleakness of their untimely passing.

Vic Chesnutt

Christmas day is the two-year anniversary of the death of beloved Athens singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt. Chesnutt, who was 45 when he died, moved to Athens in the mid-1980s and released his debut album, “Little,” in 1990 with help of Michael Stipe. His strikingly honest, poetic songs were colored with dark humor, ruminations on mortality and the inescapable, internal struggle of living. He delivered his idiosyncratic, haunting brand of folk rock with creaky, uniquely phrased vocals that celebrated the sound of words, as if to fully articulate the pain behind their meanings.

Elliott Smith

Oct. 21 marks the eighth anniversary of the death of influential singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, who was 34 when he died. Smith’s music, with its characteristically spiraling chords, complex pop melodies and stark lyricism, evokes the isolation of the gray Pacific Northwest where he was based. As his hushed voice drifts above “Rose Parade,” one can almost envision these songs as emerging from breaths rendered visible by the surrounding cold air.

George Harrison

On Nov. 29, 2001, George Harrison left the material world, as he might say, at age 58. A decade after his passing, the legendary Beatle’s poignant songs of deep spiritual yearning, especially “My Sweet Lord,” with its signature, blissful slide guitars that seem to nearly reach the higher worlds he meditates upon, maintain their joyful quality that celebrates more than it bemoans. His voice channeled a sense of inner peace despite its ever-present wistfulness. This tension was at the heart of his music, characteristic of someone who understood death as simply another stage in the eternal journey of the soul.