Richard Barrett CONSTRUCTION

[hackneyvi]

You never know Simon - you might have a Damascus moment...

Wise words, Ob! You can't beat a really good plum.

[ahinton]

You never know Simon - you might have a Damascus moment.....

Those familiar with the location of that town - surely including Simon himself - would surely be forgiven for thinking that such a moment might be a pretty dangerous thing to have as of right now! Assad thought, perhaps, but nevertheless...

[Schrödinger's Cat]

At 0013. Higher and Higher.With bubbles.

My cat was sitting on the sofa next to me when I was listening to CONSTRUCTION last night. She pricked up her ears and appeared to be listening intently at this point - perhaps RB's cat had some input to that section?

[Panjandrum]

Those familiar with the location of that town - surely including Simon himself - would surely be forgiven for thinking that such a moment might be a pretty dangerous thing to have as of right now! Assad thought, perhaps, but nevertheless...

You are forgetting your Acts of the Apostles ahinton: the conversion happened on the way to Damascus; not in the city itself.

[ahinton]

You are forgetting your Acts of the Apostles ahinton: the conversion happened on the way to Damascus; not in the city itself.

I'm not forgetting that; would you assume that everything in the reaminder of Syria is fine, then?...

[3rd Viennese School]

Found the bubbles sound effect on my keyboard on Monday.

12 note pop tunes with Bubbles to be performed on Hear and now soon!

3VS

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i still have not listened, mostly because i have a problem with how long this piece appears to require to hear it .... i mean the Art of Fugue i somewhere arounf 1hr 50m, Beethovens 9 is say 68min .... is this piece and its ambition of a comparable scale or is it just long?

[Bryn]

i still have not listened, mostly because i have a problem with how long this piece appears to require to hear it .... i mean the Art of Fugue i somewhere arounf 1hr 50m, Beethovens 9 is say 68min .... is this piece and its ambition of a comparable scale or is it just long?

Listen to it one lunchtime. "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."

[Quarky]

. i mean the Art of Fugue is somewhere around 1hr 50m, Beethovens 9 is say 68min .... is this piece and its ambition of a comparable scale or is it just long?

For me, it is different from the Classics, where you know generally what to expect, and so an hour or two listening is not such a big deal.

In this case, focussing in microscopically on each quantum of music, there is a great deal of novelty and unusual sound experiences. So to maintain a high level of concentration throughout is a big ask.

Bryn however may be more familiar with Barrett's work, in the same way others are familiar with the classics.

[Bryn]

It's all in the DNA, Oddball.

[MrGongGong]

For me, it is different from the Classics, where you know generally what to expect, and so an hour or two listening is not such a big deal.

In this case, focussing in microscopically on each quantum of music, there is a great deal of novelty and unusual sound experiences. So to maintain a high level of concentration throughout is a big ask.

Bryn however may be more familiar with Barrett's work, in the same way others are familiar with the classics.

Some interesting thing in this comment

Knowing "what to expect" is one way of listening to music
others are available ..........
if one listens for "familiarity" then new things (regardless of when they were composed) will always be a disappointment

why does spending two hours listening to something you don't know regarded (not necessarily in Odd's comment but more generally !) as a potential "waste of time" when sitting down to listen to The Goldberg Variations for the umpteenth time "time well spent" ??

"the Classics" are they fixed ? do we all agree about them ? Is "Kind of Blue" one and Metastasis not ? etc etc

[Serial_Apologist]

Some interesting thing in this comment

Knowing "what to expect" is one way of listening to music
others are available ..........
if one listens for "familiarity" then new things (regardless of when they were composed) will always be a disappointment

why does spending two hours listening to something you don't know regarded (not necessarily in Odd's comment but more generally !) as a potential "waste of time" when sitting down to listen to The Goldberg Variations for the umpteenth time "time well spent" ??

"the Classics" are they fixed ? do we all agree about them ? Is "Kind of Blue" one and Metastasis not ? etc etc

I completely concur! I don't actually understand why a new piece full of unexpectedness on account of its idiom is more difficult to maintain attention to - quite the reverse, I would have thought! CONSTRUCTION bore this out, for me.

[MrGongGong]

One theory of listening that i've been thinking about recently is that even though we have the access to a much wider range of musics than at any time in human history we only seem able to regard music as having a single function. If ALL music is for is to be "relaxing" and "familiar" then we obviously are limiting our range of what we listen to. Given that when I try to talk to people about this they often glaze over and don't understand HOW music could be "about" anything other than "entertainment" i'm trying to think of examples in life where music has other functions. When church attendance was much more common I do think people experienced the IDEA that music could have multiple functions whereas now the mere idea is planet zarg !
We often get the "criticism" of some music that "It's not Beethoven" or "It's hardly Mendelssohn" which seems (IMV) to reveal a belief that ALL music should have the same reference points. Now, Beethoven and (well the octet at least !) Mendelssohn are fine as they are , why should one try to make something like them in the first place ?
When I was a teenager I remember going to see Status Quo , the fact that all (apart from the rubbish one !) the songs had three chords wasn't really a problem, Harmonic Development marks out of 10 = 0 quality of jumping up and down in a field with 1,000's of smelly youths = 10 , when I went to see Rheingold Motivic Development out of 10 = 9.5, jumping up and down appeal = 1

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

my point was not the amount of one's life spent listening to a piece, nor the familiarity; rather and perhaps unfairly to equate length with ambition ... is the piece doing anything on the scale of the Art of Fugue or the Ninth, if not why such monumental length? what is it for? if it is a mere quotidian duree why listen? is it a compendium such as the Art or a Monument such as the Ninth?

[MrGongGong]

what is it for?

One of my favourite questions to music students !!