Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

Appendix

 2.03

 Experimental

 listening
 Bartok

7

11th listening: Open listening open

Leads to a talk about personal experiences, associations and memories

12th-13th-14th listenings adopt a ”narrow temporal focus” (Ihde 1976:90), that is, focusing first on
the quality of the single tone, then on the beginning of the tone (the attack), finally focusing on the
ending of the tone (trailing off).

12th listening: Question: What are the differences between the sonorous qualities foc
of the single tones?

Clarinet: Grows out of nothingness. No vibrato. Disappears again. Only some of the tones reveal
that it is a clarinet.
Flutes: We hear hissing and breathing. Wings flutter around the tone. Lots of vibrato at varying
speed.
Oboe: Clear, dense, vividly present

Full orchestra: Interference, not completely in tune. One hears the vibrations of the flute, but not its
tone quality.

EC New questions: What is the relationship between an instrument’s tone and noise?
How can we characterize the compound sounds?

13th listening: How do the single tones begin? foc

Clarinet and oboe: Attack without vibrato. Flute: Attack with air
Final chord: Incredibly precise, no vibrato

EC New question: How is the inner life and dynamics between the beginning and end of a tone?

14th listening: How do the single tones end and disappear? foc

LCB: One sees the music from the other side, from the back door **

Oboe grows out of the flute. A2 and A3: Strings overlap the final tones of the winds

EC: A1: An overwhelming new experience to hear the emptiness every time the strings in the
background disappear **

** indicates a significant change in the way of listening, similar to the change between states of
multistability in visual phenomena, described in Ihde (1977) Experimental Phenomenology.

Appendix 2.02 Experimental listening Bartok Appendix

 2.03

 Experimental

 listening
 Bartok

8

Experimental listening 24 Aug 2011. LCB and EC (Bartok continued)

Observations and comments by LCB, if not otherwise indicated

15th listening: Open listening open

LCB: The very first tone pushes me back in the chair, and lowers my personal tempo immediately.

And I know the music very well, I expect the merry sections.

The piccolo in B2 is very good, his playing is ”laid back”, he does not rush the tempo, does not

stumble.

I feel my attention as a pressure around the eyes, as if I am observing from the back side of my

eyeballs

EC’s afterthought: sensory integration; listening activates not only auditory attention, but also the

skin and muscles around the eyes.

”We feel ourselves seeing with the eyes” (Damasio 2010: 91,196)

16th listening: Open listening, lying down open

LCB: It is dangerous to lie down, I don’t concentrate on the music, I come to think of other things,

the weather, a choir rehearsal yesterday, a Disney movie...

I come to think of the sound, I am curious to see the notation in the printed score.

The direction of the sound is different, flowing over my body.

And I feel the basses physically as vibrations in the floor

17th listening: Instruction: Listen for transparence and density foc/herm

I feel there is a membrane between me and the music, thicker than the surface of a soap bubble.

A1: I am looking through the surface, then comes the first tone

B1: The music is whirling, like a surface of pixels partly filled in

A2: The sound of the oboe is like fire, quiet flames which penetrate and enliven the membrane

B2: The membrane dissolves and disappears completely

A3: The melody is like columns in an open scene. The accompaniment plays in the orchestra pit

EC’s afterthought: LCB understood the instruction as hermeneutical, setting a scene behind a

transparent surface. The alternative possibility is to adopt a wide focus, listening for the texture of

the music in order to observe varying degrees of transparence or density.