Inattentive listening (again)

[Florestan]

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...

Very interesting post. And I like your thoughts on Chopin.

[BasilValentine]

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.

You were correct. The performance was at Tanglewood, so the sounds were of a summer evening in the Berkshires — in my experience well worth a few minutes of attentive listening.

[ChopinBroccoli]

It was La Mer wasn't it?

La Mer is amazing

[Ken B]

La Mer is amazing

Stupefying.

[Mandryka]

I think he chose a pianist because he had a willing pianist available.

No you're missing my point. Why did he need an instrumentalist at all? Why didn't he just get up and introduce himself and say that we're going to try something, for about four minutes we're going to have silence?  That's to say, why isn't the piece just like a sort of meditation session?

What I'm suggesting is the presence of the pianist makes the piece into music. And what that suggests is that the audience were being asked to listen in the silence as they would listen to a piano sonata or something.

And what I wanted to explore is whether this type of listening is distinctive, whether there's a distinctive mode of listening called listening to music.   

[Ken B]

No you're missing my point. Why did he need an instrumentalist at all? Why didn't he just get up and introduce himself and say that we're going to try something, for about four minutes we're going to have silence?  That's to say, why isn't the piece just like a sort of meditation session?

What I'm suggesting is the presence of the pianist makes the piece into music. And what that suggests is that the audience were being asked to listen in the silence as they would listen to a piano sonata or something.

And what I wanted to explore is whether this type of listening is distinctive, whether there's a distinctive mode of listening called listening to music.   

I think it is you missing my point. Cage was playing a trick, a small mindfuck. The audience, duped, is paying attention and hence attending to the random noises around them Then at the end some of them get the point.
I had a physics prof who played a seemingly dangerous surprise stunt in class to make a point about conservation of energy. A wee mindfuck.

[Mandryka]

I think it is you missing my point. Cage was playing a trick, a small mindfuck. The audience, duped, is paying attention and hence attending to the random noises around them Then at the end some of them get the point.

How do you know this?

[Ken B]

They missed the point. There's no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn't know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.
— John Cage speaking about the premiere of 4′33″

[Mandryka]

Oh now I understand what you're saying, sorry for being so obtuse. Yes he knew there was no such thing as silence.

[Florestan]

Oh now I understand what you're saying, sorry for being so obtuse. Yes he knew there was no such thing as silence.

Yes, there is. A few years ago during my holiday I stayed in a boarding house in Romanian Western Carpathians. I swear to you that during three consecutive nights I heard nothing at all, it was complete and absolute silence. An uncanny experience, actually.

[Mandryka]

I think the idea is that even in an anechoic chamber you'll still hear the sound of your blood flow etc.

[Elgarian Redux]

So yesterday I pulled out this bargain Harmonia Mundi box:



I picked out a CD at random (music from 17th century Venice), and settled down with my historical novel. On this occasion the music didn't quite fit and after a while seemed intrusive. My attempt at inattentive listening was being subverted by a demand for attention! However, I was struck by the notion that here I was, listening to music (chosen at whim) that would once only have been available to (and was specifically written for) kings and queens. I suppose the kings and queens would have chattered more than listened?

So here I was, sitting on a chair far more comfortable than those kings and queens would have sat on, wearing clothes more comfortable than theirs, reading a book more entertaining than any they would have had access to, and deciding whether or not to bother continuing to listen (inattentively or otherwise) to music written especially for them. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the privilege of the 21st century.

[Florestan]

So here I was, sitting on chairs far more comfortable than those kings and queens would have sat on, wearing clothes more comfortable than theirs, reading books far more entertaining than they would have had access to, and deciding whether or not to bother continue to listen (inattentively or otherwise) to music written especially for them. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the privilege of the 21st century.

Agreed.

Or, as Joseph Schumpeter astutely put it:

It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric, boots, motorcars and so on that are the typical achievements of capitalist production, and not as a rule improvements that would mean much to the rich man. Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls.

[Mandryka]

Apparently Feldman said that he wanted the experience of his music to be as if you're not listening, but looking at something in nature. I can't make much sense of this.

[j winter]

That's a good quote. 

If I could hazard a guess at the sense of it... if I'm moved by seeing something in nature -- for example if I top the crest of a hill and suddenly there's a beautiful view of the valley below, or if I'm walking in the woods and a cloud passes overhead to reveal patterns of sunlight passing through the trees -- if it takes my breath away, I'm reacting to it naturally, it's an emotional, visceral reaction.  I'm not analyzing it; I'm not trying to understand how it works, or break it down into its constituent parts.  The total effect of it hits me at once, and moves my heart.

Likewise in music, it's one thing to listen to it structurally, or with a score -- to appreciate the mechanics of it, to say "ah, that was a clever variation there in the recapitulation," or even "I think that's a Bosendorfer and not a Steinway."  It's another thing entirely to have a performance hit you viscerally, to have a beautiful piece by Chopin or Debussy make you cry, for reasons you can't even explain to yourself. 

One might say it's the difference between responding to music by admiring it's craftsmanship, and being moved by it as a work of art.  Obviously when we hear a piece of music we're doing both, to varying extents, but I suspect that Felder is hoping that his listeners will be moved by the art, rather than consciously focus on the craftsmanship of it. 

Just a guess... I may be way off base, as I am unfamiliar with Feldman and his thinking....

[San Antone]

That's a good quote. 

If I could hazard a guess at the sense of it... if I'm moved by seeing something in nature -- for example if I top the crest of a hill and suddenly there's a beautiful view of the valley below, or if I'm walking in the woods and a cloud passes overhead to reveal patterns of sunlight passing through the trees -- if it takes my breath away, I'm reacting to it naturally, it's an emotional, visceral reaction.  I'm not analyzing it; I'm not trying to understand how it works, or break it down into its constituent parts.  The total effect of it hits me at once, and moves my heart.

Likewise in music, it's one thing to listen to it structurally, or with a score -- to appreciate the mechanics of it, to say "ah, that was a clever variation there in the recapitulation," or even "I think that's a Bosendorfer and not a Steinway."  It's another thing entirely to have a performance hit you viscerally, to have a beautiful piece by Chopin or Debussy make you cry, for reasons you can't even explain to yourself. 

One might say it's the difference between responding to music by admiring it's craftsmanship, and being moved by it as a work of art.  Obviously when we hear a piece of music we're doing both, to varying extents, but I suspect that Felder is hoping that his listeners will be moved by the art, rather than consciously focus on the craftsmanship of it. 

Just a guess... I may be way off base, as I am unfamiliar with Feldman and his thinking....

No, I think you are on to what Feldman was saying.  He didn't want people to try to "make sense" of his music, just listen to it as sounds moving across time, much like how we appreciate a sunset.  We don't ask, "what does it mean?" We just enjoy the view.

[Mandryka]

One thing that crossed my mind today while thinking about Feldman is that attentive listening requires a fair amount of trust in the composer. It's not passive, but nevertheless there's a sense in which you have to give yourself over to the composition completely. It's not passive, but it is submissive.

Inattentive listening is non committal, it doesn't need the trust.

Feldman demands trust big time: like four or five hours of your uninterrupted attention. Like in an EST seminar.

Maybe it is really like an EST seminar. I mean, maybe one desired effect of extreme  long form music is that, if you dare to submit, you come away transformed.

[Mandryka]

That's a good quote. 

If I could hazard a guess at the sense of it... if I'm moved by seeing something in nature -- for example if I top the crest of a hill and suddenly there's a beautiful view of the valley below, or if I'm walking in the woods and a cloud passes overhead to reveal patterns of sunlight passing through the trees -- if it takes my breath away, I'm reacting to it naturally, it's an emotional, visceral reaction.  I'm not analyzing it; I'm not trying to understand how it works, or break it down into its constituent parts.  The total effect of it hits me at once, and moves my heart.

Likewise in music, it's one thing to listen to it structurally, or with a score -- to appreciate the mechanics of it, to say "ah, that was a clever variation there in the recapitulation," or even "I think that's a Bosendorfer and not a Steinway."  It's another thing entirely to have a performance hit you viscerally, to have a beautiful piece by Chopin or Debussy make you cry, for reasons you can't even explain to yourself. 

One might say it's the difference between responding to music by admiring it's craftsmanship, and being moved by it as a work of art.  Obviously when we hear a piece of music we're doing both, to varying extents, but I suspect that Felder is hoping that his listeners will be moved by the art, rather than consciously focus on the craftsmanship of it. 

Just a guess... I may be way off base, as I am unfamiliar with Feldman and his thinking....

Yes maybe. Arguably there is NO structure in late Feldman - that's what someone was trying to tell me today. All there is a chain of micro-events. I'm not at all convinced that's right, but I may be wrong, I don't know.

It's quite a thing, to listen attentively to four hours of sounds passing by like clouds, glittering like stars.  Could you watch the night sky attentively for four hours, even a beautiful one with shooting stars?

When you do a Zen meditation for a few hours, there's a guy with a stick there to give you a tap on the shoulder if you look as though your mindfulness is starting to falter.

[San Antone]

Yes maybe. Arguably there is NO structure in late Feldman - that's what someone was trying to tell me today. All there is a chain of micro-events. I'm not at all convinced that's right, but I may be wrong, I don't know.

It's quite a thing, to listen to four hours of sounds passing by like clouds, glittering like stars.

From what I've read, and seen of quotes of Feldman, this is correct.  He referred to himself as an intuitive composer, finding his progress in a work without an overall formal plan, just intuitively.  He would separate his chords and notes with enough space so that they could be heard individually and not perceived as connected to each other as a harmonic progression.

The length of the works increased more and more later in his career.  Again, he was quoted to the effect it was an attempt to evoke a sensory experience, where the listener is transported to a different state of being as a consequence of the significant length of time we would be listening and concentrating on the sounds/music.

[Elgarian Redux]

Feldman ... didn't want people to try to "make sense" of his music, just listen to it as sounds moving across time, much like how we appreciate a sunset.  We don't ask, "what does it mean?" We just enjoy the view.

A similar thing: when Elgar was conducting the slow movement of his 1st symphony, he asked the orchestra to play it 'like something they'd heard down by the river'. He seemed to think they'd know what he was talking about.