Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

Appendix

 2.03

 Experimental

 listening
 Bartok

5

4th listening: Hermeneutic listening herm
Information: The title is ”An Evening in the Village”

Associations: Images from a Murakami Novel ”Kafka on the Beach”.
A village below a slope. Small cottages, it is possible to look inside. Green vegetation around. No
people.

Next section: Children come out to play. A child falls and hurts itself.

Next section: A strong person comes out to comfort the child. Women in long gowns.

Next section: Suddenly the lights are turned on, a circus roars into the village. Stops in pause.

Last section: Crucially new. A different century. Like a black-and-white movie. Peeking out through
the bars of a prison cell. Raw concrete, rainy.

LCB New question: How is the chord material?

5th listening: Hermeneutic listening herm
Information: The title is ”An Evening with the Szekelys”. The Szekelys are
Hungarians who live in exile in Roumania

Total theatre, like an operetta. The Szekely people are in exile, they are homesick.
One writes a letter, another looks into the flame of a candle.

Then a letter from the homeland arrives!

The oboe is the narrator’s voice, reads aloud.

Activity: We want to go home! The section ends with a break: the final phrase omits the last tone,
then a pause.

Last section: In the midst of euphoria: Thoughtfulness. Dare we go? We have to say farewell ...
They decide to go. The great patriarch wishes good luck in the journey. Sadness of leaving.

6th through 10th listenings adopt perceptual focusing strategies (Ihde 1977:89). Task of 6th
listening: Listen for ”auditory spatiality” (Ihde 1976:61) by focusing on the background of the music.
7th through 10th listenings aim at clarifying the musical form (ABABA), so that it is evident what
parts of the music we are describing.

Appendix 2.02 Experimental listening Bartok Appendix

 2.03

 Experimental

 listening
 Bartok

6

6th listening: Question: What do you hear in the accompaniment? foc

It is cool suddenly to concentrate on something else!

First section: Delicate strings, two chords. Subsequently contrary motion and a skip down

Second section: Major. Different rhythm, rocking, ”dung dung”

Third section: New variant of the first section. Counter-melody against the solo voice. Four chords

in each A section.

Fourth section: Happy section, fluttering

Last section: Full orchestra. Preparing the last chord sequence

EC: We agree that the form of the piece is A B A B A

7th listening: Question: What is the difference between the three A sections? foc

Instruction: Ignore the B sections

A1: The most lovable. The deepest secret. The oboe continues the whole way into the next

section, remains as a thread.

A2: Another instrument, the strong narrator’s voice. The accompaniment enters at a different time,

displaced.

A3: New orchestration. Begins with a full orchestra. Chords push in. Is there also a crescendo?

Melody doubled in octaves at the beginning, many winds together. They do not play completely in

tune, there is a slight interference, a more unattractive sound quality.

In the first A section the very first tone made a strong impression, here it is completely different.

8th-9th-10th listening: Question: What is the difference between the two B sections? foc

Instruction: Ignore the A sections

B1: New voice between melody and bass. Something happens to the syncopation.

A tightrope walker appears in the midst of everything.

Measured bass, first a second interval, then a pedal point and third interval.

B2: More shrill piccolo flutes. Measured basses all in a row, now in double tempo.

EC: I now hear the pronounced trills in winds on offbeats interconnected with the measured

basses. Until now, I heard them fluttering independently.