- Listening strategy
After the first open listenings (No.1-2) it was necessary to discard any preconceived plans for the
listening session. The open listenings revealed marked disagreements in LCB’s and EC’s pre-under-
standing of the music, probably due to generation and gender differences, and the fact that this re-
cording from 1939 is far below modern recording standards. EC regarded the saxophone solo as an
expressive love song, while LCB was annoyed by the soloist’s predominant vibrato, and heard the
music as outdated, on the verge of provoking laughter. To avoid embarrassing misunderstanding, EC
decided to stick to technical focusing questions for some time (No. 6-13) - Experimental listening
LCB and EC listened 31 times to Coleman Hawkins’ solo. For full descriptions of all listenings, see
appendix 2.04.
After identifying the AABA chorus form (No. 3-5), the technical questions (No. 6-13) focused on in-
strumentation and the groove of the rhythm group, piano, double bass and percussion. Particular
issues were the quality of percussion sounds and the flow of the groove, and the question whether
the single instruments played ”pushing”, ”on the beat”, or ”laid back”.
After an open listening (No.14), LCB described the sax solo as ”lovely, soft, incredibly pleasurable”.
This agreement with EC’s pre-understanding encouraged EC to include hermeneutical questions in
the succeeding listenings.
LCB’s answer to the question in No. 20: ”If the sax solo is speech, what does he say?” confirmed
her pre-understanding of an elderly narrator in the countryside in the 1930’s. Her interpretations of
tone qualities in No. 21-22 were ambiguous: ”Supple variety, deep register absolutely fantastic” (No.
21). ”Deep tones. Cigar smoke” (No. 22). LCB’s reaction to the provocative task in No. 23: ”Listen to
the sax sound as bodily touch” confirmed the music’s expressive qualities: ”Total well-being. Lovely,
affectionate, warm, gentle, supple. Excess.” The final listenings (No. 26-31) aimed at tracking down
the temporal qualities of swing, understood as the interplay of small deviations from a regular meter.
The session engendered the following additional questions and tasks:
Music-focused
Spatial-temporal focus: Beginnings and endings of single sounds.Temporal focus: The temporal relationships between soloist and rhythm group.
The single instrument’s relationship to the regular metre: ”pushing” / ”on the beat” / ” laid back”.Hermeneutical
Description of the music as a narrative.
Description of the music’s historical and cultural context.