Experimental listening is based on performing phenomenological variations. It consists of conduct-
ing a long series of repeated listenings, guided by deliberately varied music-focusing strategies and
hermeneutical strategies, and clarified by intersubjective inquiry. This progression takes time, and
requires commitment and patience.
Experimental listening mixes three types of listening: open, music-focused, and hermeneutical. In an
open listening, one listens to the music without any particular focus or cue. A music-focused listening
centers on a particular aspect of the music, directed by a specified question, task, or problem. A her-
meneutical listening is guided by a cue for interpretation, for example the title of the music, or an as-
sociation to a context or an activity. To a large extent, the nature of the particular piece of music de-
termines the sequence of open, music-focused, and hermeneutical listenings. Each listening evokes
new questions for further investigation of the music,^39 and the aim of the successive listenings is ”to
let the music show itself from itself”.
Intensive music listening: A first step towards experimental listening
The background of experimental listening is the procedure of intensive listening, which the author
developed on the basis of Thomas Clifton’s Music as Heard, and practiced for a number of years
with groups of music listeners. He has described the procedure in a working paper (Christensen
2007, appendix 2.01).^40 Intensive listening is not a strict phenomenological method, but the proce-
dure has basic features in common with a phenomenological approach.
The objectives of the procedure are (1) to get a group of listeners to accept unknown and unfamiliar
music, (2) to sharpen and educate their attention, and (3) to make them describe the musical experi-
ence in their own words.
The groups of listeners are typically high school classes, or groups of university students. The mu-
sic excerpts are short (1-2 ½ minutes), so that the participants can retain the music immediately in
memory. The group listens to the excerpt approximately seven times. The steps of the progression
are as follows:
39 This observation coincides with Gadamer’s view that a question ”comes” to us, that it ”arises” or ”presents itself”, see
note 23, this chapter.
40 The approach of intensive listening is discussed by Bonde (2009b:191, 213-214)