Musical Structure

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That seems to be a highly sophisticated, refined way of appreciating music which - doesn't it? - puts ability to appreciate such music within the reach of comparatvely few? Is that self-evident (if not an intention) - or disputable?

Well - I did qualify my comments with lots of "for me"s (which gave it such an egocentric appearance); I cannot and do not speak for how others listen. As for the whiff of "elitism" suggested by such concerns - it should be said that I was attempting to describe processes which occur instantaneously and "automatically": like being asked how I drive, thinking about the - <ahem> - manifold actions and thinking that goes on that I'm not consciously aware of; if I had to write those down, the resulting description would also look similarly overwhelmingly sophisticated and refined. I make no apology for my particular education, but, as dovers suggests, there are parallels with the way I read a novel - subconscious "techniques" that have become such "second nature" to me that I don't think of them as they work "behind" my reading and enjoyment. (And isn't this behind comments such as Mozart's "amateur and connoisseur"? There will be facets of the Music that might escape both types of listener?)

Even so, reducing how I described how I attend to Music to identifying and cohering moments of stasis (= "this is the same/similar") and moments of flux (="this is different/changing") - isn't that mostly behind how people listen to instrumental Music (ie Music intended neither to be sung or danced to)?

And 'Grasping the general progression of events' seems to me to resemble 'following' - in both nuances of the word [Add: which you suggested in the bit I quoted! ].

My intention! (If we're listening to a performance, we have to follow the sequence of information presented to us by the performers.) But this brings up the point, I think, that different contexts and different Musics require different ways of structural listening. If I know that I'm going to hear a piece called "Theme and Variations", I will have different listening expectations from those that I adapt (again, entirely subconsciously) from a work with a title like "inCant8:shuns". And a composer might be partly relying on and playing with such "expectations", of course.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well - I did qualify my comments with lots of "for me"s (which gave it such an egocentric appearance); I cannot and do not speak for how others listen. As for the whiff of "elitism" suggested by such concerns - it should be said that I was attempting to describe processes which occur instantaneously and "automatically": like being asked how I drive, thinking about the - <ahem> - manifold actions and thinking that goes on that I'm not consciously aware of ...

If there were more people of your generous-spirited disposition, ferney, the idea of elitism would not have acquired its association with exclusivity!

I think when it comes to being able spontanously to apply what by descriptive means are complex theories and disciplines to areas of involvement you describe, assuming this (as I tend to) to be a long-term acquisition through learning, could one, I wonder, ascribe such a capacity to the evolution of the human brain? The more that science is able to study brain behaviour in its different states, the more that things once ascribed to supernatural grace and so on are found to be evidenceable functions. Maybe these have existed in the human brain from very early, pre-historic times, as the existence of cave art suggests regarding the human capacity for reading signs and symbols. The main reason I ask this is that what seems clear to me is that our current ways of living stimulate certain otherwise latent brain activities, while leaving others either under-developed or in limbo. In the former I would include overstimulating the so-called fight-and-flight response (with the associated threats of drug and other forms of dependency or early burn-out), while in the latter the capacity for sensing our connectedness with our surrounds and other living beings. Instantaneity has come to mean two entirely separate things, and that separation has been exploitable to political ends. Any capacity for responsiveness can be spun either as positive attunement to time needs set by the exigences of producing, marketing and selling on time, and so we have human but increasingly computerised means developed to oversee productivity down to the nth nanosecond and gaming machines promoted to stimulate early childhood responsiveness to rapid stimuli synonymous with battle situations instantaneously threatening life requiring aggressive response without regard to wider surrounds or consequences; while, on the other hand, responsiveness can be held up as exemplifying a person in appropriate tune with his or her inner being in its connections with the outer environment, as opposed to psychologically blocked, inhibited, malfunctioning or repressed. I happen to think the reactionary bandying around of the cliché "living just for the moment", with its implications of irresponsibility, is confusingly useful to the authoritarian political ideologies currently gaining ground.