since I feel so encouraged I can tell that the hardest in composing in my view is to use both sides of the brains. Intuitive in music is the best way (when the mind dosn't interfere). One has to be very relaxed for that.
If one only uses intuitive and never turns on the analytical mind it is not good too.
However many composers said that some pieces came to them in a dream.
May be there are composers here that can tell more.

In performance there is a little of that too. If one is too analytical it can be very dry performance. It can even be overcalculating performance and then it doesnot work, people don't respond to it.

On the other hand if one indulges him/herself too much it is not good either. I find it very difficult to catch (may be impossible).

Composing is a higher art than just performing. There are so many messages coded there that performer is trying to bring to life. But there should be messages and not empty something that is impossible to bring to life.

This is a very interesting statement to me. I think I know what Richard means and I agree that one should bring one's intelligence and curiosity to engage with a piece of music. I do get great pleasure from studying music analytically and one of the great pleasures of this board for me is reading other people's insights into music ( and other things) and clearly there are some amazing thinkers and practitioners who contribute here.

BUT I often try and do the exact opposite, i.e. think as little as possible when listening to a piece of music because I find that often this way the piece of music will have most impact on me.
In a way I AM looking to be manipulated by the music, not the other way round (although I don't think anybody's actually suggested that it should be the other way round, I mean just trying to rid myself as much as I can of judgement and preconception). In this way for example, I find I can hear a piece of music that I know 'as if for the first time', i.e. hear it as freshly as possible. This maybe just the way I am wired (very messily) but in the actual moments when I am most engaged with music, when I notice most, I am thinking least. I think.

And of course I think many people may listen to music in different ways at different times. I certainly do.

And actually I think t-p may have said this all rather better just above.

In reference to George's 3) about banality of theme, if you take Chopin's E min prelude for example, the 'banality' of the repeated  B C then B A in the RH melody is what makes the shifting harmonies underneath so expressive I think. It seems to be a tune that is trying to break away from itself, and its effort to do so puts a lot of emotional bums on seats if you look at the amount of people that it seems to appeal to.

I  agree with you both Daniel and Kitty. There is so much work involved. I don't know how to deal with brain interferances. One should play like in a dream, easy and effortlessly, not labouring. To reach that state takes a lot of work and also believing in ones abilities etc.
Many times performers (and composers) don't have the support they need. They are fighting their own doubts, frustrations etc.

Also many famous performers were afraid to analyse too much. Some people are of more analytical type than others, personalities are different and each person brings something new to the piece.
There should be something in music that grabs one's attention and imagination. People are interested in different things and different people get excited about different kind of music.

I suppose for me the alternative to a 'manipulative' mode of listening is not necessarily an analytical approach (though that can also be of interest), in the sense of analysing technical aspects of the music, but rather an active, conscious, thoughtful, reflective engagement with a profoundly subjective and unique set of emotions, experiences, ideas as can be found in the work. In no sense does this imply emotional detachment, rather apprehension of the individuality of another individual's emotional and psychological trajectory at least as far as it is manifested in the work. Most of the music from any era that I admire has something of this.


That's what I can't relate to, and actually I do tend to rate music that does that rather lower on the scale. Of course there is a place for that type of music - but popular culture does it more successfully. Switching off, losing one's individual perception, allowing oneself to be overtaken by music - isn't that what happens in any club on a Saturday night (with the lighting and other things as well)? Fine, I suppose I see that as entertainment rather than art, and find it harder to make a case for the importance of classical music that operates in such a manner. I like to think that art can refine, stimulate and concentrate the mind rather than switching it off. But I'm not sure if that applies to some moments in Wagner, Stravinsky, various minimalist music, and so on - almost as if it is aspiring to the status of mass culture (though not all mass culture is like that, if you know what I mean). At times I can find that music somewhat coercive, just like other types of 'mood music' which are forever present when one has to go out to the shops, or so on. No problem if people like that in 'art' music, but is there then any particular basis for asserting its special value (i.e. that which renders it worthy of public money), when popular culture has that effect for an awful lot more people?


Yes, but we never hear the melody independent of the accompaniment - as I see it, the 'theme' consists of both simultaneously (unlike with the Diabelli theme, say, which is banal through-and-through!). The tension between relatively static, undulating melody and continually fluctuating harmony (by no means just doing what the melody itself harmonically implies - this strategy can be found often in Schubert and Brahms as well) produces that sense of yearning, sadness, hopelessness, morbidity, etc. But Chopin was such a master of that - very rarely does his highly contrapuntal music present a simple 'melody with accompaniment' model (except in a few earlier works) - indeed in the Second Sonata, for example, he shifts melodic material into the accompaniment (the opening theme, which appears in octaves in the bass in the development section) so as to raise the stakes in terms of contrapuntal tension.

A vague thought - might it better to talk about the feeling which the composer 'signs their name to'? They create a form of emotive experience by which they are happy to be represented, as some sort of gesture of empathy?

With both composition and performance, I tend to hear in terms of a virtual 'body language'. Meaning - through body language we perceive whether someone is simply 'acting' or is driven by genuine conviction, passion, etc. (and please don't read from this a necessary disdain for artifice in all circumstances - it is, however, possible to be highly artificial and act in such a manner deliberately, whilst being motivated by very real factors). Even without being confronted by the physical person of composer or performer, I somehow sense what is done rather calculatedly and what seems to emerge from something deeper. Obviously there's no real way of being sure if these convictions are accurate, but I feel them very deeply - does anyone else feel a similar way?

Metamorphosen, by the way, does strike me as falling in the 'overcomposed' category!

I think I do know the type of experience you are describing, Daniel, and agree that it is to be distinguished from (and is almost the opposite to) 'switching off' or 'letting the music just flow over you'.

If I've understood you aright it is the (fairly rare but well documented) experience of being able to put, not the intellect, but the 'self' or the 'ego' to one side as a muddying mediator, and to experience the object directly and in it's entirety. (Or apparently so anyway  : there's a lot of dispute about what is actually going on.) It's a type of experience that doesn't just apply in the case of listening to music but can happen in many other contexts too. Whatever may be going on, those who have this type of experience invariably value them very highly indeed, regardless of how they may choose to interpret their significance.

I may be being presumptious and barking up the wrong tree altogether, and you may be talking about something quite different, in which case my apologies; but what you describe just jumped out as a classic account of the sort of thing I am banging on about.

The trouble is, it's almost impossible to 'try' to do it. It's the sort of rare experience that just 'visits' very, very occasionally (er, no weird metaphysical overlay intended in 'visits', purely descriptive ).

And, if we are talking of the same thing, yes, I have. And I value the occasions very highly indeed.   

1) The titles of Xenakis's productions are deliberate mystification are they not? Certainly they are unintelligible to the music-lover in the street. Why could not he write straightforward "symphonies" and "string quartets" as serious and worthwhile composers do? We get the impression that he is attempting to disguise with his odd titles a lack of ability, and our impression is confirmed when we hear the works.

2) The phrase "metaphysical speculation" is very dubious we find. We know of no true metaphysics which is speculative (and we do know a lot of metaphysics). Nor do we know of any mere speculation which can be credibly described as metaphysics. We hope then that the intention of this conjunction was not to discredit metaphysics.

Presumably then you don't know that he was of Greek origin.

Let your hopes then be dashed.