Sacred River: Six hours of continuous sacred music Sunday 26 November

[MrGongGong]

To demonstrate you don't need spoken words. But when the pupil isn't getting the right effect, is the teacher verbalising at all, albeit silently, when working out how to 'explain'? Does the pupil respond purely instinctively without ever verbalising? Are words only for communication with others?

IN my experience of this, my teacher wasn't verbalising BUT showing by playing which is often much better than telling.
Given that playing a musical instrument isn't a verbal process but a physical/auditory one the reliance on words can get "in the way"

[doversoul1]

That's a very interesting distinction - but, I would consider that there are cognitive activities, that don't depend on language, arising from the comparison of knowledge gained from experience, from experimenting with bringing together sounds or colours or flavours to create new combinations which further develop one's knowledge. Watch children in primary school learning games just from watching others - and how do babies explore themselves and their surroundings before they know language (how do they learn language itself)?

I think the important distinction between exploration and experience is that exploration has a purpose or an aim whereas that is not necessarily the case of experience. We do talk about babies exploring but they don’t do what they do with a purpose. It’s most animals’ natural development process. When they are older, they may seem to experiment with things but these activities are too random / unsystematic to be called exploration. If they could understand language, would they not learn everything much quicker?

Primary school teachers usually make sure that the children talk about their activities afterwards in order for them to process the experience. When children experiment or explore, they usually talk about it beforehand so that they will know why they are exploring, and they often get homework to write about their experience in order to internalise (some of it at least). As for experimenting with colours and tastes, would one not think in words something like ‘what if I mix this and that?’ and ‘no, this is not what I want’ etc.? Learning a game or a musical instrument is acquiring not exploring.

Mr GG
So how would you ‘explore’ spirituality in music without using words?

When two (or more) people know what they are doing, words are not always necessary but if you have a question or an idea, is it not more straightforward to communicate if you have a language in common?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm not sure that I'm (yet) convinced that 'not requiring words' is the same as 'requiring an absence of words'. Even if you require external silence from others!

"Sometimes" - one needs to do such things on one's own, and the verbal input of others can get in the way of such individual exploration.

To demonstrate you don't need spoken words. But when the pupil isn't getting the right effect, is the teacher verbalising at all, albeit silently, when working out how to 'explain'? Does the pupil respond purely instinctively without ever verbalising? Are words only for communication with others?

This is the crux of the argument. Some people "transcribe" their experience into words - and need to "hear" those words (to the point of "talking to themselves") in order for the knowledge to become "lodged". But some people can hear sounds without thinking of the "words" needed to communicate these to others; in fact I would not be surprised to discover that the majority of listeners hearing a chord sequence can't use the words/names given to describe those chords.

[Serial_Apologist]

My mother would have replied to that, "If you say so." But unless you can be more explicit about what you intend by "going deeper" I shall remain sceptical

By "going deeper" I mean paying closer, deeper attention to the object of awareness, and, by gently refocussing the mind on the passing present, the processes of awareness. One becomes aware that much of the discursive thought processes that distract from the present-centred experience - in the case of the present topic as I understand it, music intended for "spiritual observances" - come about as a consequence of our overburdened and stressful lives, which require us to carry huge amounts of internal information and expertise on individualistically privatised concerns for which we may well not be qualified in order just to function at the practical level. The louder or more gaudy the stimulus the more easily hookable the recipient: hence the mind-nunbing possibilities of sensory engulfment in certain musical genres deploying militaristic beats for getting everyone obediently in line. These are the aspects of life that have now reached the sorts of critical levels that require people to be in constant connection with their mobile devices while carrying multitudinous passwords to access this or that vital bit of personal data around in our heads; aspects from which people seek escape through whatever means of escape society allows, or sometimes condemns! At least "spiritual practices" of the Hatha and Raja Yoga kinds, together with Mindfulness, whether carried out with religious or secular intent, are pretty much harmless. And indeed, I would argue, a spur to the individual discovering responsive faculties within that can help initiate creative or artistic activities otherwise dormant, which have been substituted by consumerism, which replaces one fashion with another when the banality and self-evident lack of self-actualisation potential cries out for something merely different which can easily (and profitably) be catered for by appealing to the mass instinct not to feel left out!

[MrGongGong]

When children experiment or explore, they usually talk about it beforehand so that they will know why they are exploring,
Mr GG

They only do this (in my experience) when they are compliant enough to do what adults tell them. I spend a lot of time with people on the Autistic spectrum who are (and at risk of an oversimplification/generalisation) often the greatest explorers of the world. Talking about it before (or even after) is only one mode. Many people, not just children, will simply explore without apparent direction or idea, Cafe Oto is a perfect place to experience this

So how would you ‘explore’ spirituality in music without using words?

By listening and experiencing
I think the assumption in your question is that 'spirituality in music ' CAN be put into words, which is obviously possible as the sadly departed Jonathan Harvey demonstrated, but I'm not convinced that words are always necessary.

When two (or more) people know what they are doing, words are not always necessary but if you have a question or an idea, is it not more straightforward to communicate if you have a language in common?

Why would a composer always want a "straightforward" communication? (useful if you are writing a 'how to' book about chainsaws but for music?)

NOT that I'm suggesting that language is useless or radio shouldn't have words or anything of the sort, more that, there are many ways of doing things.


For the last couple of years, I have been trying, with a long-term collaborator, to explain to someone (who happens to be in Tokyo and has Japanese as a first language) the nature of a performance piece that we have made. She is someone we have both worked with in Japan and is very interested in us doing a version of the piece in Tokyo. We have sent endless texts, photos, a film, recordings, responses from audiences (including a fantastically articulate account of being at one of the gigs from Feryhoughgeliebte ), had one of her colleagues come and take part in a gig who then went back to Japan and talked about it (in Japanese) and so on. But STILL, the nature of it isn't communicating to our friend in Japan. It's not that she is stupid, it's not that she is unable to understand the language (which has been in both English and Japanese) or the sounds of the piece etc BUT there is something of the essence that can only be grasped by the experience itself. In my last email, I asked whether she could describe the taste of umeboshi plums to me so that I would know what they tasted like? I'm still waiting for a reply.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As for experimenting with colours and tastes, would one not think in words something like ‘what if I mix this and that?’ and ‘no, this is not what I want’ etc.?

I've been genuinely pondering about this since I read it last night, dovers - and I think that my considered answer is "I don't know" As you might have noticed, I like working with words - and when I'm thinking of which words best communicate what I'm trying to say, I very clearly think in words. But when I think of sounds, I don't think (I don't know, because I've never "interrupted" the process to try and catch how I've been thinking) I do think in words. Words, I think, come after the sounds that I imagine - and often at the most basic level of vocabulary (a "yes" or "no", or something less delicate ) that is barely "language" as such, and which I don't think can accurately be described as "cognitive"!

Describing a concert is a description of the experiences I have ... experienced ... and describing Music in words is often difficult (hence the repetition of what becomes inane vocabulary) and almost inevitably inadequate to the task. The most insightful discussion of Music (taking my years as a Music teacher) more frequently than not involves making a sound on a piano, or pointing out a chord sequence: the students immediately "get" a point that way - the subsequent difficulty is more frequently how to "transcribe" the knowledge one gets from such exploration of the sounds into language.

Learning a game or a musical instrument is acquiring not exploring.

Oh, I think that the mental processes involved in these two activities are very different. Games have set rules - learning an Instrument requires learning a flexible "vocabulary" of playing techniques which the performer then explores in the context of practising a work (a string player deciding whether the sound she gets from playing a passage on the A string or on the D string; where best to position the bow between bridge and fingerboard; how "quickly" does "Allegro" mean). I think it would be a poor teacher (and a poor student) who didn't explore how new techniques learnt in a lesson enhance performance of pieces previously learnt - and all professional Musicians are in a constant process of "learning their instrument".

[french frank]

IN my experience of this, my teacher wasn't verbalising BUT showing by playing which is often much better than telling.
Given that playing a musical instrument isn't a verbal process but a physical/auditory one the reliance on words can get "in the way"

By 'verbalising', I meant what was happening inside the head, not 'speech', but unspoken words. I'm not sure that you could know what was happening inside someone else's head.

Last night I was trying to focus on this and found that, although I didn't 'speak' in sentences, key words popped into my mind before or while I was doing something. Less sure about when listening to music because if I'm concentrating hard I see images - diagrams - which are the responses to the sound. But I don't consider that to be 'exploring' the music however hard I'm concentrating. But, musically, we aren't all equipped or inclined to 'explore' the same things.

[french frank]

By "going deeper" I mean paying closer, deeper attention to the object of awareness, and, by gently refocussing the mind on the passing present, the processes of awareness. One becomes aware that much of the discursive thought processes that distract from the present-centred experience - in the case of the present topic as I understand it, music intended for "spiritual observances" - come about as a consequence of our overburdened and stressful lives …

I'm still not convinced that that is 'exploring the music': it sounds like meditation, exploring one's inner self, if you like.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Last night I was trying to focus on this

Ah! You, too?

But, musically, we aren't all equipped or inclined to 'explore' the same things.

- and not just "musically". And I think - or, better, wonder if we don't all necessarily "explore" the things we are inclined to do in the same way as everybody else.

[doversoul1]

Ferneyhoughgeliebte and Mr GG

When you want to explore, experience, or learn MUSIC, of course you cannot do it without playing or hearing the music/the sound. But that is no proof, evidence, or base to say that you/we don’t need language to explore music.

And Ferneyhoughgeliebte, surely learning to play a musical instrument involves learning a set of rules: how to produce the sound required, how to make the sound louder etc.. Exploring what the instrument can do comes long after ‘acquiring’.

Mr GG
How many times have we been here on this Forum? We know perfectly well that our rivers are never going to cross. I think I’ll let the rivers follow their own way. More the merrier, for now

[french frank]

Ah! You, too?

Infuriating, isn't it. No peaceful meditation in Rat Abbey last night.

and not just "musically". And I think - or, better, wonder if we don't all necessarily "explore" the things we are inclined to do in the same way as everybody else.

If not trekking with map and compass through desert and tundra, I do associate 'exploring' with information, facts.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If not trekking with map and compass through desert and tundra, I do associate 'exploring' with information, facts.

Yes, so do I. But I don't think this information/these facts are always verbal/language-based.

[Bryn]

Too much dancing about architecture in this thread.

[french frank]

Yes, so do I. But I don't think this information/these facts are always verbal/language-based.

Depends, I suppose, how the different brains process the information, as well as the nature of the information. But I'm not sure what 'even you' are exploring in an endless stream which meanders along, changing direction every five minutes (as this programme has been presented here as being: I am accepting that as 'fact' ).

[MrGongGong]

Too much dancing about architecture in this thread.

Chris and Miranda are the experts IMV

http://www.mirandatufnell.co.uk/books/bodyspaceimage.html