Would contributors like to discuss HOW they listen to music? For example, harmony, melody, text and music, structure, etc. Any combination or none of these and something else.
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Your question has brought down an avalanche of comment, Bonn. It is a good question. May I wait a little before I put in my boorish 5-cents worth?Originally posted by Bonn1827 View Post -
This has been a difficult issue for me. As a student I've always been mindful of formal structure and the motivic development within. As a performer the development of ideas and harmonic structure take precedence. As a casual listener I focus more on textures and timbres, along with melodic flow. Is there a correct way to listen to music?Comment
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Bonn's question is quite enormous in its scope when you stop to consider its implications. Once again, our written language will be seen to be deficient.
My first point would be the difference between "listening" and "hearing". The French have three verbs related to aural phenomena : "écouter" (listen), "entendre" (hear") and "ouir" ("listen", but with a sense of "perceive").
As far as I can gather from the listenig habits of forum members (based on a sample panel of about 5), many seem to adopt a listening mode between "hearing" and "perceiving" whilst gardening, jogging, doing the ironing and other such activities.
Relating my comments to the classical Canon (the "musuem" of the classical repertory), I would hope for more focus on the "écouter" and "ouir" modes.
Another aspect that Bonn's seemingly innocent question raises has to do with "learned responses". May I turn the question : I play for you an extract of some Japanese Noh music, or some North Indian Tabla music : how do you "listen" to that? You have no "hook", no shared "meaning"; such music will be "incomprehensible" to you. So, what Bonn really means is "given a shared vernacular", what turns you on, and what do you tend to focus on?
I offer the above as a sort of preamble to what I would like to say later.Comment
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Sorrano also asks a very pertinent question : Is there a correct way to listen to music? I hope not, but clearly there is a "consensual" way. And that might be what?Comment
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I do not fully understand the questions at hand. Though, the way I listen to music is, in short, by doing my best to get into the individual composers mentality. Each composer's music is different, because of their mindframe, feelings, use of the orchestra, etc. So, therefore, I make the best attempt I can to get into their world of thought, feelings, beliefs, etc.- which, for me, is no simple task- unless my ears are in a good mood,
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Last edited by Preston; 06-29-2010, 11:53 PM.- I hope, or I could not live. - written by H.G. WellsComment
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A little patronising Philip! I may sometimes 'listen' to a work on the radio whilst doing the cooking, but I may in the case of a piano work for example previously have studied that work in great depth, performed it, taught it, listened to it at recitals, have many different recordings of it. My point is that there is no one way that music must be listened to - obviously to get the most out of it demands our full attention and concentration, but that doesn't mean it cannot be listened to at other times in a more relaxed manner - Mozart's serenades and divertimenti for example were not intended for the concert hall.Originally posted by Philip View Post'Man know thyself'Comment
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The way the question is couched leads me to assume that we are talking about radio or recordings here and not the concert hall where there is a large visual input.
I have a number of listening modes, if that doesn’t sound pretentious. I may just put on a piece I like and sit back and enjoy it. Another day, I may decide in advance about my listening mode. For example, I may put on a Haydn or Beethoven string quartet and decide to concentrate on the viola – one of an endless way of varying the interest of familiar pieces. Most of the time I will give the music my full attention but I will also shamelessly use music as a background while I read or do some work. (I rarely use Beethoven in this way. It doesn't work with him, anyway - he demands your attention.)
Concentrated listening can be quite difficult without a score and I sometimes really have to focus my mind, and a good pair of headphones helps immensely. I can sympathise with the man who wrote this but I have rarely found it as difficult as he describes:
“It is at the best of times not at all easy to listen to a recorded performance with attention. In fact, speaking for myself, I find it amazingly difficult. I cannot tell what it is, but somehow it does not seem sufficiently absorbing just to sit there and let the music stream at you out of an apparatus. A score in my hand will help me to concentrate, it is true; but without that I soon begin to grow restless, however compelling the music may be. I find myself looking at the clock, getting up to help myself to a cigarette, stretching out my hand for a book, only to withdraw it again with a sense of shame, stroking the cat, worrying over a word in that morning’s crossword puzzle – I don’t know what else. A hundred trivialities and irrelevances come into my head, until I feel as guilty as though I were eavesdropping and as often as not give up any attempt at paying attention, which for me is the same thing as turning off the music.”
The above was written by the famous musicologist Eric Blom way back in
1934. I wonder if the poor quality of audio reproduction contributed to his problem. Back in my vinyl days, the slow movement of Beethoven's A minor quartet was not helped by the sound of eggs frying in the background but I was able to tune it out after a few minutes.Comment
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When the Sibelius concerto was playing yesterday my aural experience was much different than at other times when I've payed particular attention to detail or when the music was playing as it might in the background. In this case the sheer intensity of the music had my undivided attention and I hardly heard any distinction between the movements. The themes and development were not considered, yet the experience of that was as deep as any I have with music.Comment
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What I find immensely satisfying is to sit between the two speakers of my stereo system, rather closely to them, in a dark room. The music pops out and details come into sharp focus. Also, I am more aware of any multi-layering that is there.
CocchiniComment
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These are all excellent responses!!
I didn't realize how many possibilities there were in the musical listening process: in the complexity of personal responses and the contexts for reception, if that doesn't sound too pompous!! I had always thought in purely musical terms but, of course, one's responses to even these can be influenced by the mood and moment. In any event, I find I cannot listen to great art music without it having my full attention most of the time. Perhaps I take myself and it too seriously nowadays!!
Somebody mentioned unfamiliar music - I think it was Philip - such as musics from India, Japan, Indonesia etc. Again, this raises yet another element in the listening experience: familiarity and "intertextuality" (to borrow a term used in critical literacy for English teaching). We have shared understandings about the musical idiom and the values behind those of our own culture, but can be confronted and alienated by the unfamiliar - which demands further inquiry. During the listening experience I am continually cross-referencing a work with its relationship to others. For example, because of my academic experience I listen for the work of OTHERS in the work I'm currently enjoying. I'm sure others have similar stories to tell.
When I re-read what I've written above I'm sure I'll come to the conclusion that it sounds much too pompous. Apologies in advance....!!Comment
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I see nothing pompous in this. Mostly I see an exploration of minds to better understand our aural experiences with music. These discussions are good things!Originally posted by Bonn1827 View PostComment
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It has been some time since anybody made a comment on this thread, so I'm going to start it up again. I often need to stand back and think before I make an observation (otherwise chaos and regret!) and re-reading some of these comments this morning has raised further issues in relation to the subject.
Regarding the idea of the "unfamiliar" - music of other cultures - I pose this question: why are there up to 20 million Chinese, at any given time, studying piano (just to name one instrument) when western art music has intrinsic cultural meanings which are literally a world away from the Chinese experience? Does this suggest that we don't, after all in fact, need to be culturally "conditioned" in order to appreciate and understand music? Or does it suggest that the Chinese perceive it to have qualities that their own music does not? Could it be the hegemony of the west has finally laid seige in China? Is it a complex issue? Don't we just have fabulous music?
What do Forum members have to say about this issue?Comment
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Yes we do have fabulous music and I think the secret is that the values are not the world away from the Chinese that you suggest - the music and its values are universal. I don't go along with the view that you need to be Russian to play Russian music etc....Originally posted by Bonn1827 View Post
It is probably the first time in their history that they have had such exposure to western classical music and instinctively (being highly intelligent people) they are responding to this.'Man know thyself'Comment
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The irony, for me at least, is that whilst millions of Chinese are adopting western art music our own culture is completely ambivalent about it. Audiences are reducing in vast numbers and CD sales are problematic, at best. Now, the reasons why this is so are probably a subject for a separate thread!Comment
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