Inattentive listening (again)

[Elgarian Redux]

I remember about a year ago having a conversation with Florestan, Karl, and others, about 'Inattentive listening'. It was Florestan who started it all, I believe (indeed this new thread owes more to him than me), and it has had a significant effect on me in the 12 months since then. So I'd like to resurrect that idea, not as part of a thread on a different topic (as before), but as a topic in itself, worthy of exploring.

I've had a period where listening to classical music has become a thing I rarely do - mostly because my musical moments have been spent in playing guitar myself, rather than listening to the music of others. Basically I just found that I did not want to spend time sitting down and listening earnestly to classical music.

I was sitting reading a historical novel by Robert Neill, and started thinking about the silence. Now silence is good stuff, but I just wondered if I might do better. So I grabbed a box of Handel sonatas, popped a CD in the player, and carried on reading. Well of course you can't observe a phenomenon without interfering with it, and so I found myself doing a strange mixture of reading, listening, and thinking about what I was hearing and reading. You could say that madness lies thence, but actually it was all very pleasant. Subsequently I've found that a sprinkling of Haydn quartets and Handel sonatas goes down very nicely with historical fiction. And I tell myself that Haydn would not have expected most of his listeners to down tools and fully attend, and that many of then chattered above what they were hearing.

I don't think I could do this with Wagner, or anything else that bangs a drum and demands attention. But the outcome is that quite a few CDs are having the dust blown off them and getting a very enjoyable hearing as accompaniment to reading. The silence is broken.

There you go Andrei. See what an influence you have. My thanks.

[Florestan]

Excellent, John! I'm glad to have been of service to you. 

[Elgarian Redux]

Excellent, John! I'm glad to have been of service to you. 

John? John? Who is John, Harold?
Cheers,
Alan

[Florestan]

John? John? Who is John, Harold?
Cheers,
Alan

Believe me or not, I was undecided between John and something starting with A. Arthur crossed my mind but it didn't ring the right bell, so I took my chance with John. 

As for Wagner, you could apply another one of my ideas: discard any music which doesn't lend itself to inattentive listening. 

[Karl Henning]

Alan! Great to see you!

[San Antone]

I remember about a year ago having a conversation with Florestan, Karl, and others, about 'Inattentive listening'. It was Florestan who started it all, I believe (indeed this new thread owes more to him than me), and it has had a significant effect on me in the 12 months since then. So I'd like to resurrect that idea, not as part of a thread on a different topic (as before), but as a topic in itself, worthy of exploring.

I've had a period where listening to classical music has become a thing I rarely do - mostly because my musical moments have been spent in playing guitar myself, rather than listening to the music of others. Basically I just found that I did not want to spend time sitting down and listening earnestly to classical music.

I was sitting reading a historical novel by Robert Neill, and started thinking about the silence. Now silence is good stuff, but I just wondered if I might do better. So I grabbed a box of Handel sonatas, popped a CD in the player, and carried on reading. Well of course you can't observe a phenomenon without interfering with it, and so I found myself doing a strange mixture of reading, listening, and thinking about what I was hearing and reading. You could say that madness lies thence, but actually it was all very pleasant. Subsequently I've found that a sprinkling of Haydn quartets and Handel sonatas goes down very nicely with historical fiction. And I tell myself that Haydn would not have expected most of his listeners to down tools and fully attend, and that many of then chattered above what they were hearing.

I don't think I could do this with Wagner, or anything else that bangs a drum and demands attention. But the outcome is that quite a few CDs are having the dust blown off them and getting a very enjoyable hearing as accompaniment to reading. The silence is broken.

There you go Andrei. See what an influence you have. My thanks.

I must admit that 99% of the time I am listening to classical music in the background.  Which is probably why I am no good at making comparisons of recordings.  Thanks for starting this thread, it will be interesting to hear from others about this phenomenon.

[Mandryka]

I never listen inattentively -- even to unlistenable things like late Feldman if I lose concentration I turn it off (which probably means I've never got to the end of some things, but I'm not sure it matters.)

I despise inattentive listening. It's like you take these great human artefacts, things of enormous creativity, and turn them into decorative devices for installing a room ambience, like a scented candle. When I come to power it will be illegal.

But by all means carry on listening inattentively to the sort of music I don't like.

[ChopinBroccoli]

I can't really do this... I get distracted and start just listening to the music

[prémont]

I detest background music. It's unnecessary noise, a kind of sonic pollution, and when I meet it, I do what I can to ignore it.

Music is for attentive listening.

[Iota]

I never listen inattentively -- even to unlistenable things like late Feldman if I lose concentration I turn it off (which probably means I've never got to the end of some things, but I'm not sure it matters.)

This pretty much sums up my own situation too. I sometimes end up doing it by accidentally, or occasionally experiment with a disk fragmentation-type exercise for my brain, but it nearly always ends up the same meaningless experience, either highly uninteresting or positively annoying.

Though I have a feeling that for certain kinds of brains (not mine), oblique listening may reveal things that conscious listening doesn't pick up. Not sure, will read the thread with interest

[Marc]

I can't really do this... I get distracted and start just listening to the music

That's a problem I recognize, though not all the time.
It kinda depens on the music that's on... and, when I'm reading a book and it's very good, sometimes even (very) good music can turn into background music.
So: when I'm reading a very good book, I sometimes have to turn that good music off.
But mostly the good music 'wins' and I put the book aside.

The only thing that has changed a bit during the last years, is that I lost the urge to compare recordings/performances with each other.
I just (try to) experience and enjoy what I listen to, without making comparisons.
This, of course, makes me less 'participating' on this board. But I still enjoy reading other person's experiences and comparisons in music that I (might) like. In many cases, it makes me listen more attentively the next time, too.

[Florestan]

Though I have a feeling that for certain kinds of brains (not mine), oblique listening may reveal things that conscious listening doesn't pick up.

This is a very perceptive remark. You'd be surprised to learn how many works which I started listening to as background music have become favorites of mine just because during a fleeting moment something caught up my attention sufficient enough to make me want to listen to the whole thing once again, this time attentively.

[Florestan]

I never listen inattentively -- even to unlistenable things like late Feldman if I lose concentration I turn it off (which probably means I've never got to the end of some things, but I'm not sure it matters.)

I despise inattentive listening. It's like you take these great human artefacts, things of enormous creativity, and turn them into decorative devices for installing a room ambience, like a scented candle. When I come to power it will be illegal.

But by all means carry on listening inattentively to the sort of music I don't like.

These are the marks of a truly totalitarian mind. 

[Florestan]

Music is for attentive listening.

How about Handel's Water Music or Fire Works, which are actually background music in all but name? How about Mozart's serenades and cassations which were written for specific occasions involving general merriment, booze included? How about Strauss'waltzes, polkas and quadrilles which were written specifically to be danced to? By your token, they are not music. 

[SymphonicAddict]

When I do inattentive listening somehow I feel I'm not investing my time correctly. I like to feel the music catches me, drawns my attention, moves me, excites me or makes me think, even if the works are light or intended like background music. Granted, it doesn't happen always and it also depends on the kind of works that are playing, or it may be that simply the music is too bland or insipid to get important ideas or pleasure from it.

[Florestan]

I like to feel the music catches me, drawns my attention, moves me, excites me or makes me think

I like that too --- but in my experience, it's much more likely to happen spontaneously, softly, as if out of blue air, rather than as a result of a conscious effort from my part to be caught, have my attention drawn, be moved, excited or made think.

I think Debussy expressed a profound insight when he said that "Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part."

And it is also my experience that works which don't catch my attention during inattentive listening, albeit for a fleeting moment, are not likely to sustain my interest long enough during an attentive listening.

[San Antone]

For me, a live performance is the primary experience of music, and I cannot help but listen attentively.  I do not consider recordings of the same importance as a live experience and they can not capture my attention as would a live performance. But I love music, and will have some kind of music playing in the background most of the day while I am going about my normal existence: reading, preparing meals, watching a baseball game, working on my songs, talking with my wife or friends, etc.  I am now retired, but when I was working music was playing constantly in the background.

I just cannot devote all of my attention to a recording without much work, and honestly, I don't wish to expend the effort nor spend the time solely listening to a recording.  I'd much rather be doing something else while it plays in the background.  I am able to hear it enough to appreciate it, albeit somewhat superficially, but nonetheless, I am very much aware of what is playing and have enough of the experience to enjoy it, or advance the track it is something I don't wish to hear.

[Florestan]

For me, a live performance is the primary experience of music, and I cannot help but listen attentively.

Absolutely agreed. I could --- and I think I already did it somewhere here on GMG --- argue that the advent of recordings has fundamentally changed our perception of music and it was not always for better.

I do not consider recordings of the same importance as a live experience and they can not capture my attention as would a live performance. But I love music, and will have some kind of music playing in the background most of the day while I am going about my normal existence...

I just cannot devote all of my attention to a recording without much work, and honestly, I don't wish to expend the effort nor spend the time solely listening to a recording.  I'd much rather be doing something else while it plays in the background.  I am able to hear it enough to appreciate it, albeit somewhat superficially, but nonetheless, I am very much aware of what is playing and have enough of the experience to enjoy it

+ 1, especially the underlined parts.

[Mandryka]

In classical music the musician experiments in a concert. After some concerts, some experiments, some successes and some failures, he lays down his considered view in a recording. For that reason recordings are the primary musical experience, in some sense of primary at least, and why on the whole I value recordings more than I value concerts.

I enjoy concerts, though very often I don't want to go back after the interval.

Opera is quite a different matter, I wouldn't dream of listening to an opera sound recording these days. But that will change I guess when holographic video recordings become available.

Does anyone here listen inattentively in a concert, maybe read their twitter feed or text someone or whisper comments to the person next to them while it's going on?

[Karl Henning]

In the understanding that we're all expressing opinions and or relating our experience, and that I find those which are at wide variance to my own of interest.

If one is the composer or performer, I can see caring deeply if the listener is not attentive. One may or may not, in the event, care, but I see one's vested interest.

But if I am neither the composer of the piece, nor a participant in the performance, why should I object, if the listener be inattentive?