Inattentive listening (again)

[ChopinBroccoli]

I had one schoolteacher who believed that making mental connections was a vital part of intelligence and of absorbing something new. Not only that you met it on its own terms, but that you began to wire it into your mind, so to speak, by seeing the ways that it connects into other experiences you've had, other images you have, other things you know.

I'm inclined to agree

[Cato]

I had one schoolteacher who believed that making mental connections was a vital part of intelligence and of absorbing something new. Not only that you met it on its own terms, but that you began to wire it into your mind, so to speak, by seeing the ways that it connects into other experiences you've had, other images you have, other things you know.

That teacher had to have been Excellent!  Amen, Amen!   That is the way to teach!

Anyway. Another thought. A few years ago my family went to see Strauss's "Death and Transfiguration" and the conductor gave a little talk about how certain rhythms represent the heartbeat, where in the music the hero dies, what everything is supposed to represent. And then after the performance my mom was all annoyed! And she started ranting - "I didn't want them cluttering my mind with all their images! I had all my own images with the music! It didn't sound like dying to me. It sounded like all these other things, and then I would remember it was supposed to be about dying, and that ruined it. Leave the descriptions out of it."

The Toledo Symphony had a very nice conductor named Andrew Massey, who meant very well, but who at times became too schulmeisterisch.  I should not complain, because he had programmed Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, which was my main reason for attending the concert! 

Unfortunately, he gave a mini-lecture before each part about what to listen for etc. etc. etc. in an apologetic, please-stay-for-the-concert tone.

The orchestra played the work nicely!

Massey died last year: cancer!

https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2018/06/01/Andrew-Massey-the-Toledo-Symphony-s-seventh-music-director-dies.html

[Alek Hidell]

I was in a discussion last week about Cage's 4,33. I didn't know that in the first performance there was a piano with someone sitting at it like a pianist.  I wondered what the point of that was.

One person there, a composer, said he thought the pianist was essential, because the point of 4,33 is that you listen to the ambient random sound as music.

And now I wonder what it is  to listen to sound as music.

Yes, IIRC, Cage wrote the piece "for piano" (so to speak). I guess I could Google this, but I don't know if the audience at the premiere knew the nature of the piece. Would have been interesting if they didn't. But regardless, they would certainly have been listening very attentively, either becoming quite conscious of (and increasingly uncomfortable in) the "silence" and wondering when the pianist was going to start playing, or actively listening to the "music" being made in the silence.

It's interesting that whether the audience knows what 4'33" is or not, Cage achieves his goal (at least as I perceive what his goal is): they become very attentive listeners, at least for that stretch of time.

[Ken B]

As far as I recall the pianist who premiered the 4'33'' was David Tudor. That said I always thought 4'33'' might be performed on any instrument at hand.

All the time we are surrounded by different kinds of sound. Some will call it noise, but it is possible to experience some of it as music, even if it is not "composed". I think the nature offers the most musical sounds - sound of an ocean, sound of thunder, birdsong et.c. But it is difficult to imagine that the sound of a confused audience in any way can be perceived as music. Had the 4'33'' been premiered in the open nature, the point would have been more obvious to the audience.

I don't think Cage was presenting sound as music. He was presenting sound as something to listen to. Interesting and too much scanted. Mostly he was making a puckish point about that. Remember the Audience did not know then what we know now. WTF was an essential part of the response, an impossible one for us now.

[Mandryka]

I think the nature offers the most musical sounds - sound of an ocean, sound of thunder, birdsong et.c. But it is difficult to imagine that the sound of a confused audience in any way can be perceived as music. Had the 4'33'' been premiered in the open nature, the point would have been more obvious to the audience.

And the creation of 4,33 was indeed outside, in the countryside. It's an interesting idea: that 4,33 is essentially pastoral. American Pastoral. This idea came up in the discussion also.

[Elgarian Redux]

It's interesting that whether the audience knows what 4'33" is or not, Cage achieves his goal (at least as I perceive what his goal is): they become very attentive listeners, at least for that stretch of time.

I think I'd have no trouble (philosophical or practical) reading a book with 4'33" playing in the background - though it would have to be a short book.

[San Antone]

I don't think Cage was presenting sound as music. He was presenting sound as something to listen to. Interesting and too much scanted. Mostly he was making a puckish point about that. Remember the Audience did not know then what we know now. WTF was an essential part of the response, an impossible one for us now.

IIRC Cage's initial inspiration for 4'33'' was in response to being aware of Muzak surrounding him everywhere he went: in the elevator, in a restaurant, in a store, etc.  He thought how wonderful it would be if they could program silence every now and then, and the idea for the work was hatched.  That was two years before the work was premiered (by Tudor, as previously posted) and only after Robert Raushenberg's White Paintings exhibit.  Cage felt the time was right and did not want his idea to be preempted by someone else. So, Cage's intent was both to present silence as a respite from the canned music around us and also for us to appreciate the ambient sounds around us.

Although he has never disavowed the work, later in life he lamented how 4'33'' has overshadowed much of his more important work.

[Florestan]

I think a distinction should be made between inattentive and indifferent. Allow me to illustrate it with two examples from own experience.

A few years ago, at work, I and 3 other colleagues were listening on radio to a piece by a contemporary Romanian composer. Inattentive listening by the book: we were all working at our computers and chatting. After a while, spontaneously but vividly an image formed in my mind, that of a small meadow, birds chirping in the trees and right in the middle a bear, working hard as a car mechanic. So vivid, in fact, that as you can see I remember it even today. I told my colleagues about it, and they kind of agreed that the music fitted the image perfectly, or viceversa. I have long fogotten the name of the piece but I'll probably never forget the mental image it imprinted in my mind. That's inattentive yet not indifferent listening.

Just two weeks ago I've attended a concert where they played a famous 20C work, whose name I won't disclose, which I was not very familiar with and to which I was listening for the first time live. Attentive listening by the book. After a while it became so obvious to me that I had no emotional connection whatever with it that I had to occupy my mind with something else, lest I should either die of boredom or be leaving, which given that I was seated middle row was not an option. So I let my mind wander., all the while distinctly hearing the music. I can't remember a iota of my thoughts, though. That's attentive yet indifferent listening.

I don't know if it makes any sense to any one of you.

[San Antone]

I think a distinction should be made between inattentive and indifferent. Allow me to illustrate it with two examples from own experience.

A few years ago, at work, I and 3 other colleagues were listening on radio to a piece by a contemporary Romanian composer. Inattentive listening by the book: we were all working at our computers and chatting. After a while, spontaneously but vividly an image formed in my mind, that of a small meadow, birds chirping in the trees and right in the middle a bear, working hard as a car mechanic. So vivid, in fact, that as you can see I remember it even today. I told my colleagues about it, and they kind of agreed that the music fitted the image perfectly, or viceversa. I have long fogotten the name of the piece but I'll probably never forget the mental image it imprinted in my mind. That's inattentive yet not indifferent listening.

Just two weeks ago I've attended a concert where they played a famous 20C work, whose name I won't disclose, which I was not very familiar with and to which I was listening for the first time live. Attentive listening by the book. After a while it became so obvious to me that I had no emotional connection whatever with it that I had to occupy my mind with something else, lest I should either die of boredom or be leaving, which given that I was seated middle row was not an option. So I let my mind wander., all the while distinctly hearing the music. I can't remember a iota of my thoughts, though. That's attentive yet indifferent listening.

I don't know if it makes any sense to any one of you.

Makes complete sense to me.  And it struck me that the diversion into talking about John Cage and 4'33'' was not off-topic.  Cage was addressing the modern world, a world with recorded music, which has cheapened the experience of listening/hearing music. There is so much music easily available to stream on constantly creating an environment where we don't really listen to it but are simply aware of it in the background.  This has been made possible because of the invention of recording devices.

Which brings me back to my original post, the place where my attention is focused on the music exclusively is at a live concert, naturally and easily, and enjoyably.  I really have to work to concentrate with the same focus to a recording.

[Florestan]

Makes complete sense to me.  And it struck me that the diversion into talking about John Cage and 4'33'' was not off-topic.  Cage was addressing the modern world, a world with recorded music, which has cheapened the experience of listening/hearing music. There is so much music easily available to stream on constantly creating an environment where we don't really listen to it but are simply aware of it in the background.  This has been made possible because of the invention of recording devices.

Had Cage really wanted to confound the expectations of recordings listeners, he'd have chosen to release 4'33'' on LP. BUt in this case, the effect would have been very different: people would have thought they got a defective disc and asked for a refund. 

I don't think recordings have really cheapened the experience of music. A serious, committed and informed listener can derive as much pleasure and insight from a recording as from a live concert. What they have done --- in combination with other factors --- was to diminish dramatically the need and desire for amateur music-making at home. And that's been indeed a most deleterious effect.

[Mandryka]

Here's Pauline Oliveros on deep listening

https://www.youtube.com/v/_QHfOuRrJB8

[Karl Henning]

I don't think Cage was presenting sound as music. He was presenting sound as something to listen to. Interesting and too much scanted. Mostly he was making a puckish point about that.

Bravo!

[Mandryka]

Had Cage really wanted to confound the expectations of recordings listeners, he'd have chosen to release 4'33'' on LP.

One thought, I'm not sure it's right but nevertheless maybe worth considering, is that Cage's intentions were to create a distinctively American form of music, specifically pastoral music. I was maybe wrong to say it was given outside in a post I made above, but still you can see that the audience would have heard pastoral sounds, not urban ones, if you look at the hall where the piece was created, the Maverick Concert Hall in New York State.



Obviously there were other factors involved in 4.33 -- in particular the idea of the composer relinquishing more control on what is heard in a performance of his music -- but the Americal Pastoral idea seems to me not without merit.

[Mandryka]

I don't think Cage was presenting sound as music. He was presenting sound as something to listen to.

I just want to get to the bottom of what you're saying here. The point I was trying to put on the table was that he was presenting sound as something to listen to in a certain way -- the way you might listen to a musician in a concert (and not like the way you might listen to muzak in an elevator.) I'm not sure the idea makes sense, because I'm not sure there is a distinctive way of listening which we engage in when we experience music. But I think the idea is worth exploring.

Why do you think he had a pianist there when it was created? The published score has it for any combination of instruments.

[Elgarian Redux]

I think a distinction should be made between inattentive and indifferent. Allow me to illustrate it with two examples from own experience.

A few years ago, at work, I and 3 other colleagues were listening on radio to a piece by a contemporary Romanian composer. Inattentive listening by the book: we were all working at our computers and chatting. After a while, spontaneously but vividly an image formed in my mind, that of a small meadow, birds chirping in the trees and right in the middle a bear, working hard as a car mechanic. So vivid, in fact, that as you can see I remember it even today. I told my colleagues about it, and they kind of agreed that the music fitted the image perfectly, or viceversa. I have long fogotten the name of the piece but I'll probably never forget the mental image it imprinted in my mind. That's inattentive yet not indifferent listening.

Just two weeks ago I've attended a concert where they played a famous 20C work, whose name I won't disclose, which I was not very familiar with and to which I was listening for the first time live. Attentive listening by the book. After a while it became so obvious to me that I had no emotional connection whatever with it that I had to occupy my mind with something else, lest I should either die of boredom or be leaving, which given that I was seated middle row was not an option. So I let my mind wander., all the while distinctly hearing the music. I can't remember a iota of my thoughts, though. That's attentive yet indifferent listening.

I don't know if it makes any sense to any one of you.

A brilliant post, full of clarity and careful thought. Thank you. This mirrors experiences of my own, though I had not analysed them with such clarity.

[Ken B]

I just want to get to the bottom of what you're saying here. The point I was trying to put on the table was that he was presenting sound as something to listen to in a certain way -- the way you might listen to a musician in a concert (and not like the way you might listen to muzak in an elevator.) I'm not sure the idea makes sense, because I'm not sure there is a distinctive way of listening which we engage in when we experience music. But I think the idea is worth exploring.

Why do you think he had a pianist there when it was created? The published score has it for any combination of instruments.

I think he chose a pianist because he had a willing pianist available.
The willing part matters. The first time 4'33" was played it was a trick played on the audience, and not like a conjuring trick where the audience expects a trick. Not every performer would risk that.

[Ken B]

I often listen inattentively. In actual hours spent with discs spinning more time inattentive than attentive.
I read a lot, and listen a lot whilst reading. Sometimes my attention is pulled from the book of course. But there is clear some subliminal attention because I sometimes find I don't l8ke the music or the performance and change it.

Oddly I find music crappy for listening at 5he gym, so I listen to books, a bit inattentively instead.

[j winter]

I think a distinction should be made between inattentive and indifferent. Allow me to illustrate it with two examples from own experience.

A few years ago, at work, I and 3 other colleagues were listening on radio to a piece by a contemporary Romanian composer. Inattentive listening by the book: we were all working at our computers and chatting. After a while, spontaneously but vividly an image formed in my mind, that of a small meadow, birds chirping in the trees and right in the middle a bear, working hard as a car mechanic. So vivid, in fact, that as you can see I remember it even today. I told my colleagues about it, and they kind of agreed that the music fitted the image perfectly, or viceversa. I have long fogotten the name of the piece but I'll probably never forget the mental image it imprinted in my mind. That's inattentive yet not indifferent listening.

Just two weeks ago I've attended a concert where they played a famous 20C work, whose name I won't disclose, which I was not very familiar with and to which I was listening for the first time live. Attentive listening by the book. After a while it became so obvious to me that I had no emotional connection whatever with it that I had to occupy my mind with something else, lest I should either die of boredom or be leaving, which given that I was seated middle row was not an option. So I let my mind wander., all the while distinctly hearing the music. I can't remember a iota of my thoughts, though. That's attentive yet indifferent listening.

I don't know if it makes any sense to any one of you.

It makes a lot of sense.

For me, it depends on the music.  For example, I love Bruckner, but I honestly don't know if my brain is really up for 60 minutes plus of closely following the logic and structure of a single piece of music -- I like this music precisely because of the mental images, moods, and emotional states that it conjures.  Bruckner for me conjures a sort of meditation.  Not the only way to listen to it, of course, and not even the way I always listen to it, but it works for me.

To take the uber-classic example that'll probably get me yelled at -- Walt Disney's Fantasia.  It's heavy-handed by modern standards, to be sure, but it's an early attempt by an artist in a different media to approximate the mental journeys that a great piece of music can engender -- and while we may not all see volcanoes and dinosaurs when listening to Stravinsky, as an introduction to the piece, particularly for a young person who may not be familiar with much 20th century music, it's undeniably powerful.  I think Stokowski's Bach Toccata & Fuge, with it's abstract patterns of light, is an even better example of what I mean.

I often think that the difference between "absolute" music and "program" music, as often discussed back in the day, is largely artificial -- Berlioz might suggest an image of a scaffold for his music, whereas Brahms might not offer any such suggestion -- but they are only suggestions, and do not limit, as least for me, the way the music may (or may not) provoke an image in the mind.  It's perfectly possible to love Prokofiev's music from Romeo and Juliet without being familiar with either the ballet or the Shakespeare play.  Having that familiarity can add another level of appreciation, but even so, I don't feel any particular obligation to think about Montagues and Capulets while I listen to it.  Prokofiev, with all respect, is dead -- and [cliche alert!  ] music, as all art, belongs to the living....

...and at the risk of sounding presumptuous, let me stop here and take a moment to urge us not to digress on yet another tangent of "but the whole point is to get closer to the artist's original intentions, which requires historical research, etc..."  The topic here, as I understand it, is one's own personal aesthetic reaction to a piece of music.  Understanding the original intent can be both fascinating and important, and if I so choose I can (and often do) utilize that understanding to enhance my enjoyment -- but it's still my personal experience, and my choice -- Prokofiev lost control of that the instant he set down his pen.  And besides, there's a whole HIP thread for that line of argument... 

To get back to the original sense of the thread topic, I often listen to music in the background, but I would consider this different to what I said about Bruckner above... and yet not entirely different.  In my work, I sometimes need to work with a lot of data -- editing spreadsheets, creating tables and graphs, etc.  When I need to concentrate on something like this for a while, I will often put on some Bach, or something with a clear structure (such as fugue or counterpoint) -- it helps to clarify the mind, and even if I'm not actively following it note for note, it seems to put my mind in a calm, reasoned state.  In the same way, if I'm reading a book in the evening, particularly if it's something a bit dry like an older history book, I'm likely to put on some Chopin -- I adore Chopin, but I almost always listen to it while doing other things.  It's not that I can't concentrate on the music, it's almost like I don't have to, it's so powerful that just the hint of it can elevate one's mental state, like a bit of perfume lingering in the air. 

Anyway, that's enough for one post.  Interesting thread...

[Ken B]

I think a distinction should be made between inattentive and indifferent. Allow me to illustrate it with two examples from own experience.

A few years ago, at work, I and 3 other colleagues were listening on radio to a piece by a contemporary Romanian composer. Inattentive listening by the book: we were all working at our computers and chatting. After a while, spontaneously but vividly an image formed in my mind, that of a small meadow, birds chirping in the trees and right in the middle a bear, working hard as a car mechanic. So vivid, in fact, that as you can see I remember it even today. I told my colleagues about it, and they kind of agreed that the music fitted the image perfectly, or viceversa. I have long fogotten the name of the piece but I'll probably never forget the mental image it imprinted in my mind. That's inattentive yet not indifferent listening.

Just two weeks ago I've attended a concert where they played a famous 20C work, whose name I won't disclose, which I was not very familiar with and to which I was listening for the first time live. Attentive listening by the book. After a while it became so obvious to me that I had no emotional connection whatever with it that I had to occupy my mind with something else, lest I should either die of boredom or be leaving, which given that I was seated middle row was not an option. So I let my mind wander., all the while distinctly hearing the music. I can't remember a iota of my thoughts, though. That's attentive yet indifferent listening.

I don't know if it makes any sense to any one of you.

this makes perfect sense. The first is divided attention, the second is flagging or wandering attention. Except at a concert I almost never experience the latter very long; I turn it off instead.

It was La Mer wasn't it? 

[Florestan]

this makes perfect sense. The first is divided attention, the second is flagging or wandering attention. Except at a concert I almost never experience the latter very long; I turn it off instead.

It was La Mer wasn't it?

No. A little detective work and you --- or anyone else --- will find it. All you need is to look in another thread.