Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

Appendix

 2.04

 Experimental

 listening
 Webern

5

16th listening: same instruction herm

LCB: S1 reminds me of a black and white TV show, ”Super Karla”, featuring a particular character:
a tall flimsy waiter
EC: OK, I can clearly hear the tall flimsy waiter
LCB: S3: A high violin tremolo makes an impression, but the impact is not violent.
The strong Spanish woman manifests her one-tone swan song
Elegant movements as well

17th listening: Question: What are the particular qualities of the single tones? foc

S1: Light strokes on the violin strings. Tic-toc sounds. One deep, vibrating tone
S3: For the first time: Compact tones in high and low registers, ripping in the bottom, pizzicati in
the middle. The Spanish singer launches the most full-bodied tone in the whole piece
S4: the flimsy waiter again, and one dry grunt at the bottom.

18th and 19th listening: What are the qualities of the deep tones? foc

The first deep tone: impressive crescendo, vibrato and decrescendo. The next deep tone: not
particular impressive, merely ”fvvv”. Plus one deep tone I had not noticed before.
Later a very deep marcato, scratching attack. At last a friendly pizzicato

20th listening: What are the qualities of the high tones? foc

The first violin performs a roller coaster ride from high to deep, starting as a flageolet, soaring into
the air in the high tremolo tone, descending to the marvellous single tone of the strong Spanish
woman

21th listening: Question: When high and deep tones sound simultaneously:
How is the space between them? foc

LCB: The space between simultaneous tremolos is torn apart
EC: Additional question: In which way did you listen now?
LCB: I whirl myself into the sound, I try to grasp both sounds, it is difficult to grab hold of them, I
lose the overview **
S3: is blown up in atoms and stretched out, it is scattered. I hear war cries, and try to keep watch
of top, bottom and middle

EC: In S1, for the first time I heard ”seufzers” twice, simultaneously with a deep tone

Appendix 2.03 Experimental listening Webern Appendix

 2.04

 Experimental

 listening
 Webern

6

** indicates a significant change in the way of listening, similar to the change between states of

multistability in visual phenomena, described in Ihde (1977) Experimental Phenomenology.

22nd listening: What is foreground, what is background? foc

I now hear S1 in a different way, as a new kind of sound. It is no longer flimsy, the first violin is

foreground, in a leading position. **

The image of the music gains depth, The first violin is in front, the others further behind.

The overall picture is clarified, order prevails over chaos

EC’s afterthought: The virtual musical space can change from two-dimensional: flat, to three-

dimensional: with depth

23rd listening: Instruction: Listen for coherence and interruptions foc

The interruption in S3 is a crater!

S1 and S2 are coherent, S3 is characterized by clefts, S4 is coherent, with a little comma

24th listening: In S3, listen for coherence and interruptions foc

LCB: It is possible to argue for coherence as well as for interruption.

The fragments in S3 are connected as a large whole. The same can be said about S4.

This provides a new way of listening **

Listening for flow and interruption is different from listening for depth, foreground and background.

EC’s afterthought: Spatial versus temporal focusing

EC: Refers to Husserl’s model: RETENTION – NOW – PROTENTION (Ihde 1976/2007:92-93)

and draws a possible 3-dimensional system of coordinates of the virtual musical space:

x-axis: time: temporal coherence and interruption

y- axis: pitch height: high - low

z-axis: depth: foreground – background

LCB: Musical mass and volume is something impalpable

LCB: Sound has a direction, it creates space. You rapidly produce coordinates