As a dialogue partner in the sessions of experimental listening, the author (EC) invited Lise Chris-
tensen Bjerno (LCB), a relative of the author, who is a professional musician, conductor and com-
poser, and who has gained experience as a tutor of intensive listening.
Procedure
- Preparation
EC conducted a series of preparatory listenings, approximately 15, in order to collect first-hand ob-
servations and reactions, possible questions and listening tasks, requests for new ways of listening,
possible cues for hermeneutical listening, and problems to be solved or clarified. - Listening strategy
EC sketched a preliminary succession of questions and cues. Experience from intensive listening
suggests that hermeneutical interpretations as well as music-focused observations will appear in a
participant’s experience of the music. It is an ongoing task to decide on a favorable sequence of
music-focusing and hermeneutical approaches. The initial open listenings will often provide guide-
lines for these decisions. - Experimental listening
LCB and EC conducted a series of listenings, approximately 30, performing phenomenological
variations directed by questions, tasks, and cues. The variations alternated between open listening,
music-focusing listening, and hermeneutical listening.
In general, EC decided the sequence of questions, tasks and cues. Common consent often
occurred, and the progression of observations and comments influenced the nature and order of
further listenings. In the dialogue, LCB provided most of the answers and descriptions. EC wrote a
continuous report, in some cases including EC’s own comments and reflections. The full reports are
attached as appendices 2.02 (Bartok), 2.03 (Webern), and 2.04 (Hawkins).
Observations, descriptions and reflections
As a basis for the following observations and descriptions, the author agrees with Clifton’s basic as-
sumption that time, space, motion and feeling are necessary constituents of the musical experience.
Moreover, he adopts Ihde’s distinction between wide, broad and narrow focus, as well as his propo-
sitions that silence appears at the horizon of sound, and that the horizon situates the field, which in
turn situates the observed event or object.
Further, he acknowledges the conditions for an ongoing investigation proposed by Thøgersen
in her discussion of the phenomenological attitude. She states that ”we must constantly try to con-
nect different experiences of a phenomenon in a coherent analysis, which continuously clarifies and
adjusts the phenomenological description” (2012, in press).
The fields of investigation are characterized as spatial, spatial-temporal, temporal, and herme-
neutical. These fields are not strictly delimited, because temporality and spatiality are mutually relat-
ed in the experience of music.