Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

Appendix 2.05 Experimental listening Hawkins (^2)
8th listening: What happens on the 2nd and 4th beat? foc
Percussion plays on all four beats, accentuating 2 and 4
9th listening: open listening open
New question: In the solo, do you hear small tempo variations?
10th listening: Is the pulse absolutely regular? foc
Hard to hear...
11th listening: Sax solo: How many kinds of tone quality? foc
... so beautiful that I cannot be bothered to describe...
12th listening: Divide into sections, listen for tone quality foc
A: 0’09-0’31 A: 0’32-0’51 B: 0’52-1’11 A: 1’12-1’32
13th listening. Where are the soloist’s top tones? foc
No definite answer.
New question: What is the nature of the tones in deep, medium and high range?
14th listening: Do you hear interrruptions, pauses, silence? foc
Very fluent and continuous – merely very short pauses for breathing
New questions for the solo: Mood, emotion, expression? Phrasing? herm
What tones are particularly expressive? What tones hit right on the beat?
Tension-relaxation? Body and Soul?
Appendix 2.04 Experimental listening Hawkins Appendix 2.05 Experimental listening Hawkins^3
Experimental listening 12 Oct 2011. LCB and EC
Coleman Hawkins, Saxophone: Body and Soul
Recorded 11 Oct 1939
EC asks questions or indicates listening tasks. LCB provides observations and comments, which
EC notates. In some cases, EC includes his own observations, ideas, and reflections.
1st and 2nd listening: Open listenings (two choruses) open
EC: Continuity. ”Body”: deep, vibrating, intimate. ”Soul”: high, heavenly.
Focused attention. Compare Ihde (2007): attention on the speaking voice
New questions: Tone bending? On what tones does he linger? Light and darkness?
LCB: A treasure from the past. Crackling noise, the sound of an old recording.
The good old days, cosiness: Lean back and relax.
Piano clear in the intro, then it recedes into the background, like playing in a cardboard box
Saxophone: Retro sound, steady drive, ”mannered” vibrato – can’t he skip it at least once?
Improvisation in defined sections according to fixed chord progressions. Subdued accompaniment.
3rd-5th listening: Listen for form (two choruses) foc
Intro AABA AABA, 8-bar periods. Is the last section different from the first A sections?
(EC: I don’t think so)
EC’s reflection: 3rd listening: I can also hear the ”retro” character of the improvisation. We face
the problem of divergent interpretations. EC hears the music as an expressive love song. LCB
hears the music as outdated, on the verge of provoking laughter.
EC decides: To avoid embarassing disagreements, we will postpone questions
which invite interpretation, and stick to ”technical” focusing questions for some time.
6th listening: What happens in the background? foc
Bass plays on 1 and 3, provides harmonic reference points. Skips: fourths, fiths, sixths, few
connecting tones. Piano in the middle between bass and percussion, plays on all 4 beats.
7th listening: Percussion? foc
Percussion plays on all 4 beats, accentuates 2 and 4, the sound is ”stopped”