Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

2.4.3.3. Third investigation. Coleman Hawkins: Body and Soul (3’00)

This jazz recording comprises two 32-bar choruses. The descriptions include only the first chorus
(duration 1’32), except for open listenings and listening for overall form and instrumentation (No. 1,
2, 3, 4, 5 and 13), which encompass both choruses.

1. Preparation
   EC’s 14 listenings engendered the following questions and tasks:

Music-focused
Spatial focus

Describe the music as movement

Listen for relationships: Foreground and background. Soloist and accompaniment.

Listen for the background alone. Listen for a particular voice or instrument alone.

Spatial-temporal focus

Listen for the sound as such: Kinds of sound. Sound qualities. Tone bending. Registers

Listen for particular sound sources and instruments

Clear and diffuse qualities. Volume and energy

Describe the music as form: Divide into sections. Characterize sections

Listen for contrasts. Listen for climaxes. Listen for phrasing

Temporal focus

Listen for flow: Coherence. Interruptions, pauses, silences. Tension and relaxation.

Listen for regularity and drive: Pulse and meter. Groove, rhythm group. Has it got swing?

Tempo, tempo variations.

Hermeneutical

Emotional qualities: Listen for mood in the music. Listen for expression and emotion in

the music.

What feelings does the music evoke in you?

Sensory integration and embodiment: Describe the music as bodily gestures.

Describe the music as voice. Listen to the phrases as breathing.

Describe the music as speech: ”If the melody is speech, what does it say?”

Listen for light and shadow.

Context-related descriptions: Listen without a title. Listen according to the title.