# Does difficult music exist?



## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Of course music can be very hard to learn to play (a lot of great works are) but I believe Debussy said something like there is no such thing as difficult music, i.e. music you need to listen to several times to be able to comprehend and enjoy it: if you really listen to a musical piece it will always immediately reveil it's beauty (or it's lack of beauty).

I think Debussy is right. Actually, I think though there is a special pleasure to be enjoyed if you have listened many times to a piece so you know the piece and you can anticipate it's notes: it can be very satisfying to know that a note is coming, that you know it is coming and BAM there is the note! Especially of course when this note is important to the beauty of the piece (like the resolving note after a dissonant). Perhaps Mozart is enjoyed so much and easily because of this anticipation: Mozart's music cling to memory easily so next time you hear it you easily anticipate all the notes which is great fun (like surfing on waves as you anticipate the waves and feel in total control). 

But perhaps this (ability of) anticipation is secondary and not the true joy or beauty of music: perhaps it's true beauty reveils itself immediately when listening so it is not necessary to be able to anticipate it's movements or notes. What do you think?


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

I would like to see this quote from Debussy.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Difficult music, yes. Difficult listeners, too.

One needs to put in the time required for the brain to adjust to new, seemingly strange sounds.

Difficult listeners may listen to a challenging piece only once, get turned off, and badmouth the music without giving the music a fair trial.

With difficult music, first impressions aren't always best.

The difficult music I struggled with and now love, because I didn't quit on it, include the Schoenberg Piano & Violin Concertos and the Ives Concord Piano Sonata.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

lextune said:


> I would like to see this quote from Debussy.


I have found it in The Rough Guide to Classical Music and the full quote is:

"Love of art does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to hear that several times'. Utter rubbish! When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear".

Here you find the same text online: https://www.coursehero.com/file/p2d...formed-in-1900-and-1901-marked-an-increasing/


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

There is some music (as well as some movies) I don't fully get on first exposure. On more than one occasion I've listened to a new disc and thought, "Why did I buy this?" Then, upon subsequent listening, I do begin to get it. This has happened more often for me with listening to newly bought art songs. As a genre, art songs seem more like an acquired taste for me. A taste I now don't want to be without (like coffee, single malts, etc.). I'm hoping that I can get into opera in much the same manner.

On the other side, knowing a piece of music and being able to anticipate what is coming next is great fun. Waiting through an entire symphony to finally hear the main theme played gloriously by the orchestra is also very fulfilling. Knowing a piece of music (or movie for that matter) forwards and backwards does not lessen my enjoyment of it. And if I'm very, very carefully listening, I've also found nuances which I never noticed before. That's what makes art so wonderful.

Case in point: Here's a disc that had me raising my eyebrows the first time I heard it:







NOT ANYMORE!


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Agamemnon said:


> I have found it in The Rough Guide to Classical Music and the full quote is:
> 
> "Love of art does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to hear that several times'. Utter rubbish! When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear".
> 
> Here you find the same text online: https://www.coursehero.com/file/p2d...formed-in-1900-and-1901-marked-an-increasing/


I fear my ability to perceive all there is in a work of music is not the equal of Claude's.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Agamemnon said:


> "Love of art does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to hear that several times'. Utter rubbish! When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear".


I don't usually respond extremely negatively to these kind of statements, but this one will be an exception. When I read the quote, I immediately thought of similar statements I've heard in other fields.

Those who have played team sports probably have heard coaches say, "It's yours if you want it." Basically, if you want to win enough, you will win. Obviously this can't be true since coaches could say that to both teams. Desire rarely overcomes large disparities in talent.

There was a very smart physicist I knew who said something like, "I'm not very smart so I have to simplify ideas so I can understand them." What he really meant was something like, "I'm so incredibly smart that I can understand ideas that many others cannot, and further, I'm able to conceive of ways to simplify those ideas to get even more insights from then."

I'm not sure exactly what Debussy meant. Maybe he simply meant that the music itself does not change so we actually hear all the music that is there (if we really listen). That is likely true, but it's absolutely false to suggest that all of us can process new music at the first hearing. I don't know if Debussy had a large ego, but his statement sounds like the physicist - "I'm so remarkably talented musically that I can process new music on a first hearing and immediately respond similarly to how others, vastly less talented than I, might respond after many such hearings."

Empirically, I think his statement is simply not true. Or maybe as he would say, "It's utter rubbish."


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2017)

jegreenwood said:


> I fear my ability to perceive all there is in a work of music is not the equal of Claude's.


Me too. I suspect M.Debussy was not overfamiliar with the listening capabilities of the full range of listeners of today (and maybe of then too).


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

I hear you guys but I feel Debussy deserves some defense because I do think there is truth in his statement. And I think hpowders is right in his 'explanation' that there is no difficult music but only difficult listeners. I think listeners can fail in two ways:
a) They don't focus enough on the music. As Scruton says: you hear pop music but you have to listen to classical music. Classical (serious) music demands concentration and real listening (and because of the omnipresent pop and muzak this may be more difficult nowadays for a lot of people than in the past). In this way it can help to listen a few times to the piece because you fail to fully focus so every time you hear it you pick up a different part of the piece but that wouldn't be necessary if you were focused enough the first time...
b) They don't have an open mind to what they hear. Surely Debussy had an open mind qua music and a lot of (more conservative) people don't. In this way it can help to listen a few times to a piece because then you can get used to the new harmonies and open up your mind to it. But this would not be necessary if you open your mind the first time you listen to the piece...

BTW, on the other hand it could be that people who are theoretically skilled in music hear more than we do: e.g. maybe they hear that the piece goes from B to E# and then think to themselves ' hmm... that is an unusal but interesting chord progression" while we don't have a clue about these chord progressions. But then again, I think these theoretical knowledge can help to explain why a piece is beautiful and not so much to actually experience it's beauty.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Debussy's statement may well be true for people who are fully trained in music, I don't know. He might have just fallen into the common trap of people who are smart in some area - forgetting that not everyone has those skills.


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2017)

Nereffid said:


> Debussy's statement may well be true for people who are fully trained in music, I don't know. He might have just fallen into the common trap of people who are smart in some area - forgetting that not everyone has those skills.


Generalisation is a kind of lie.


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> that wouldn't be necessary if you were focused enough the first time...
> [...] But this would not be necessary if you open your mind the first time you listen to the piece...


What mmsbls said...(#7)


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Agamemnon said:


> I hear you guys but I feel Debussy deserves some defense because I do think there is truth in his statement. And I think hpowders is right in his 'explanation' that there is no difficult music but only difficult listeners.


The normal usage of difficult doesn't really apply to music or to listeners. I think we generally use the word difficult applied to music somewhat differently than we use it in other situations. Some music is enjoyed by high percentages of listeners on the first hearing. Other music is enjoyed by a low percentage of listeners even after several hearings. We tend to use the term difficult to refer to the latter music. The term, accessible, is often used for the former music or perhaps music not quite so "difficult."



Agamemnon said:


> I think listeners can fail in two ways: ...


Yes, you are correct. Sometimes we lack focus, and sometimes we are biased against (have a closed mind toward) certain music. And sometimes neither is the case. Many of us have talked about our experiences wanting to like certain works or composers but listening and still disliking them. Many here have talked about the process of learning or becoming familiar with new musical styles (sometimes called musical languages). That process takes time and repeated listening at least for many who may not be the musical genius that Debussy was.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Traverso said:


> Generalisation is a kind of lie.


I should have said "fallen into what can be a common trap". 
If pressed, I'll withdraw the word "common" too.
I hope no smart people were offended by my comments!
[Tugs forelock; backs out of room]


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

I take adult music appreciation and theory courses. The people in my class share a serious interest in classical music. We will sit and listen to a passage from a Mozart string quartet and the instructor will help us identify the measure by measure harmonic progression in the development, the retrograde inversion of a motif in the bass, etc. More power to anyone who can hear all of that the first time. Not only can no one in my class do it, but our instructor is the first person to say that in order to fully understand a musical work, one must listen to it multiple times. Following the score also helps.

And this is Mozart I'm talking about, not Schoenberg (or Debussy).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Agamemnon said:


> "Love of art does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to hear that several times'. Utter rubbish! When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear".


Think about this



> Love of people does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to get to know him/her better'. Utter rubbish! When we really fall in love, we experience immediately what we need to experience.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Agamemnon said:


> I have found it in The Rough Guide to Classical Music and the full quote is:
> 
> "Love of art does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to hear that several times'. Utter rubbish! When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear".


This sounds like the defensive reaction of a composer toward those who don't like and claim not to understand his music. There's some truth in it, though, for people with some musical experience and perceptiveness. In most cases of music which I don't fully grasp at first hearing, I do get some essential impression that predicts pretty well whether repeated hearings will be worthwhile (perhaps what Debussy means by "what we need to hear").


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I remember as a lad buying Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto (the first Byron Janis recording) and being pretty shocked by what I heard. Just cascades of notes. Of course I persevered and now it is one of my favourites. I could that Debussy's La Mer took me a few hearings to appreciate too! For course, Debussy was working in a world where most people could only expect to hear a certain piece a very few times in concert. We have the privilege of hearing multiple recordings many times.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

*'I believe Debussy said something like there is no such thing as difficult music, i.e. music you need to listen to several times to be able to comprehend and enjoy it: if you really listen to a musical piece it will always immediately reveal its beauty (or its lack of beauty).'
* - from the OP.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in the ear of the listener, but it depends on the previous experience of the beholder/ listener.

I only started taking classical music seriously five years ago, when I joined TC - but all my life, I've been hearing music in the baroque, classical or romantic styles being played, so my ear is to a certain extent trained to take new pieces of that sort in at first experience.

I knew and still know very little of twentieth century music, or any music in the modern style. But I have started listening to pieces that everyone here probably knows really well - e.g. I listened to The Rite of Spring the other day.

* I found it startling and impressive.

* I know that I wouldn't have listened to it at all five years ago, and would have seen nothing in it.

* I am not sure whether I like it - but I know that if I listen to it again, I will get more out of it, and may even come to like it, though that doesn't matter all that much to me.

My ear has changed and developed over the last five years and it will go on doing so - if I let it.

So on the basis of my own experience, I cannot agree with Debussy. As others have said above, maybe some musically trained or very sensitive people can get everything they want out of music at the first hearing.

But more ordinary or less experienced people will find some music difficult at first hearing and will get more out of it after several hearings.

Well, that's my opinion. And I must say, I was *thrilled* to discover that I can now appreciate the art of pieces of music that formerly I might have ignorantly dismissed as mere noise.

Thank you, Talk Classical. :tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Think about this:
> 
> "Love of people does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to get to know him/her better'. Utter rubbish! When we really fall in love, we experience immediately what we need to experience."


And this:

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." (Maya Angelou)


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

I think there is a misunderstanding of what (I think) Debussy meant by his words which I would like to clear. I don't think Debussy meant that renewed listening - even for himself - will not bring anything new to the experience. Indeed, according to some a characteristic of a masterwork is that every time you listen to it (or in the case of a book or painting: every time you read it or look at it) you will discover new things. But what Debussy meant is that true music is communication and if there is no communication on the first time you listen to it, it can't be music. Music is an 'universal language' so a musical piece should not be like hieroglyphs which the listener must decipher before being able to read it. He doesn't mean to say that the first time you hear a musical piece you should hear all notes or all meanings of the notes in it: he simply claims that if it is art you should be able to comprehend and enjoy it the first time you hear it (even though you may find new things in it the next time you hear it).


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Agamemnon said:


> I think there is a misunderstanding of what (I think) Debussy meant by his words which I would like to clear. I don't think Debussy meant that renewed listening - even for himself - will not bring anything new to the experience. Indeed, according to some a characteristic of a masterwork is that every time you listen to it (or in the case of a book or painting: every time you read it or look at it) you will discover new things. But what Debussy meant is that true music is communication and if there is no communication on the first time you listen to it, it can't be music. Music is an 'universal language' so a musical piece should not be like hieroglyphs which the listener must decipher before being able to read it. He doesn't mean to say that the first time you hear a musical piece you should hear all notes or all meanings of the notes in it: he simply claims that if it is art you should be able to comprehend and enjoy it the first time you hear it (even though you may find new things in it the next time you hear it).


Thanks for the clarification. But I still think that music might not sound beautiful or 'like music' on a first hearing and yet later the person will see that they were mistaken.

There is something of a romantic notion lurking in Debussy's utterance, and a comparison has already been made with falling in love. Some people do know at once that they've found 'the one', but a lot of people find that they've 'really fallen in love' with someone after getting to know them.

People are different. You just can't generalise.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

When I think of all the times that I first heard a work that I didn't care for only to come to enjoy it later after trying again later, I can't help but to think how much I would be missing if I approached music as Debussy seems to be suggesting I should. 
It isn't just a matter of hearing everything there is to hear on the first exposure. Tastes change over time too. Even if you took everything in perfectly on the first listen and didn't find anything that suited your tastes, your tastes may be different in the future and you may find you like the work later.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Agamemnon said:


> When we really listen to music


Really...This is the key to the Debussy quote. When we _REALLY_ listen. This kind of subjectivity, and differing levels of musical comprehension, leaves plenty of room for many listeners to need more than just one listen.

It's just that Debussy didn't.

...and _really_, who would think he would?


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## Der Titan (Oct 17, 2016)

Difficult music exists but for not for everyone every difficult music is difficult. I don't agree with Mr. Debussy. For example there is music with a very difficult structure. You may listen to it and the development in it is difficult to understand. Everything seem arbitrarily, you listen to music who seems to make no sense. But listen to it more often, or more considered you may grasp the sense of the music. For me this happened very often, in Bruckner, Mahler and Reger for example.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I think Debussy's statement is true as far as the listener is already initiated with that certain type of music, and musical conventions. Otherwise it could sound very alien, which is usually not the intended response, I believe  There is an element of spontaneity in music that escapes analysis and which engages the listener. I think that is what he was driving at, but he sort of exaggerated it to a generalization.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Debussy may have been taking a shot at Saint-Saens, who claimed not to be able to make head or tail of _Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune._


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Debussy may have been taking a shot at Saint-Saens, who claimed not to be able to make head or tail of _Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune._


That is one piece I felt both sounded alien and spoke to me right away, and more directly than many 19th Century pieces. A true musical wonder.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> I have found it in The Rough Guide to Classical Music and the full quote is:
> 
> "Love of art does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to hear that several times'. Utter rubbish! When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear".
> 
> Here you find the same text online: https://www.coursehero.com/file/p2d...formed-in-1900-and-1901-marked-an-increasing/


I think this statement was an extension of his view of music in this statement:

"I am more and more convinced that music, by its very nature, is something that cannot be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms. The rest is a lot of humbug, invented by frigid imbeciles riding on the backs of the Masters - who, for the most part, wrote almost nothing but period music. Bach alone had an idea of the truth." (from Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers by Phil Goulding)

Prelude.. of a Faun was also a work Ravel expressed that it was the piece that he felt "he heard music for the first time".


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

I am not comforted by the thought that the only thing standing in the way of me liking a piece of music is not having heard it enough. 

I am not saying its not true, but it worries me. Do you mean that if I listen to Bieber enough I will find it catchy? Do you mean Jessica Simpson will grow on me with repetition?


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## Guest (Sep 11, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> People are different. You just can't generalise.


LoL - saw what you did there! 



JeffD said:


> Do you mean that if I listen to Bieber enough I will find it catchy? Do you mean Jessica Simpson will grow on me with repetition?


No. Debussy said, "When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear".


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Debussy may have been taking a shot at Saint-Saens, who claimed not to be able to make head or tail of _Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune._


Yes. It is actually very important to put a quote in its context before we examine it.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Agamemnon said:


> Of course music can be very hard to learn to play (a lot of great works are) but I believe Debussy said something like there is no such thing as difficult music, i.e. music you need to listen to several times *to be able to comprehend and enjoy it*: if you really listen to a musical piece it will always immediately reveil it's beauty (or it's lack of beauty).
> 
> . . .


My understanding of the question you posed was influenced both by the thread title and by this phrase. Did I enjoy Mozart's Clarinet Quintet the first time I heard it - absolutely. Did I comprehend it - no. At that point I might have had a rudimentary understanding of sonata form (or I might not have). I certainly didn't have an understanding of diatonic harmony. I enjoyed some lovely melodies elegantly combined.

I could enjoy Mozart because he worked in a tonal language with which my ear was familiar. Once music moved to a tonal language (or absence thereof) with my ear was not familiar even enjoyment was a challenge. If classical music was part of your life in the late 19th and early 20th century you experienced the increasing dissonances used by the composers of that era. Your ear was being prepared for the next step. (Even then, plenty of people rejected that step.) If, like me in college, you're just beginning to mess around with classical music, trying out different composers starting with the ones you've heard of - Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, etc. your first experience with Schoenberg is likely to be alienating (not for everyone, I know). As Ingelou points out, your ear needs training. Much of my self-training was playing the music in the background to let my ear become habituated. Now, while it still makes a up a modest portion of my classical music listening, I can enjoy 20th century music. I still don't comprehend it for the most part, however.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I'm not sure exactly what Debussy meant by his statement, but as I am inclined to read it, it makes perfect sense. I generally know on first hearing whether I am going to care deeply about a piece of music. It might take years to fully understand it to my satisfaction, but the love of the work — which is what I think Debussy was talking about — is immediate and instinctive.


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## Mal (Jan 1, 2016)

Agamemnon said:


> I have found it in The Rough Guide to Classical Music and the full quote is:
> 
> "Love of art does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to hear that several times'. Utter rubbish! When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear".


But if we don't "really listen" the first few times doesn't this mean that we, maybe, in practice, need to "hear that several times" until we "really listen"? How do we get into the habit of "really listening" the first time?


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> I'm not sure exactly what Debussy meant by his statement, but as I am inclined to read it, it makes perfect sense. I generally know on first hearing whether I am going to care deeply about a piece of music. It might take years to fully understand it to my satisfaction, but the love of the work - which is what I think Debussy was talking about - is immediate and instinctive.


That's not always the case for me. A recent example is Ligeti. I bought a four disc overview of his music a few years back (after watching the ballet "Polyphonia" set to several of his piano pieces.) Some works appealed to me right away, but the soundscapes did not. I hadn't cared for them in "2001" either. Then a month or so ago, I forced myself to try again - and they clicked. I don't know why.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> I'm not sure exactly what Debussy meant by his statement, but as I am inclined to read it, it makes perfect sense. I generally know on first hearing whether I am going to care deeply about a piece of music. It might take years to fully understand it to my satisfaction, but the love of the work - which is what I think Debussy was talking about - is immediate and instinctive.


For you - but maybe not for everyone. :tiphat:


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

jegreenwood said:


> That's not always the case for me. A recent example is Ligeti. I bought a four disc overview of his music a few years back (after watching the ballet "Polyphonia" set to several of his piano pieces.) Some works appealed to me right away, but the soundscapes did not. I hadn't cared for them in "2001" either. Then a month or so ago, I forced myself to try again - and they clicked. I don't know why.


Was that 4cd set Clear or Cloudy? I have it, and thought it was amazing, except for the Mysteries of the Macabre.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> I'm not sure exactly what Debussy meant by his statement, but as I am inclined to read it, it makes perfect sense. I generally know on first hearing whether I am going to care deeply about a piece of music. It might take years to fully understand it to my satisfaction, but the love of the work - which is what I think Debussy was talking about - is immediate and instinctive.


I'm the opposite. There are literally hundreds of works I love now that I didn't think well of after one listening. Conversely, many works I greatly appreciated after one hearing are 'dead meat' to me now.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Debussy said, "When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear".


The irony for me is that no other composer's music disproves this claim more than Debussy's himself. Unless I am reading along with a score, I definitely do not hear or notice everything I "need" to hear the first time around. Much of the appeal of his music for me are the subtle nuances of orchestration that border on imperceptible unless one knows to look for them. There is a wonderful moment in the first movement of _La mer_ (figure 9 for anyone who wants to look it up) where the cellos, playing in divisi, have the melody for a few measures, except for two (!) eighth-notes that are doubled by a solo (!) trumpet. I've heard this piece in live performance several times and never noticed this detail until I read along with the score. There's also the very beginning of the movement where two harps are playing on alternating beats, which initially seemed totally unnecessary to me since there is seemingly no reason why a single harp could not play exactly the same rhythm. Again, it's only after studying the score that I realized that Debussy's method allows for both harps to sustain their notes for two beats more than what would have been possible on a single harp. This would not necessarily have been totally undetectable without the aid of a score, but considering that the intro is barely audible to begin with, coupled with the fact that the harp part is just accompaniment to the strings anyway, I can easily see why this detail was not even on my radar the first hundred times I listened to this work.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

So how does one know when to persevere and when to just move on? I mean, that is the real question is it not? I have an answer but it is far from a definitive guideline.

Wouldn't it be a lot simpler if this was the case:

If you add up the numerical values of all of the notes, and the sum is an odd number, you know its a good piece that you should try hard to appreciate. If the sum is an even number and you don't care for it on first hearing, move on. If the sum is an even number and you like it on first hearing you have bad taste.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Composers' remarks tend to be strategic and applicable to their own situation. Debussy would have liked more people to hear and play his music, and a better climate for classical music in France. Also he may have been making a distinction between French and German music -- his competitor -- Wagner and the post-Wagnerians particularly. Wagner audiences were encouraged to study the libretto, hear lectures, learn the complex network of leitmotifs, etc. before going to the complex and otiose operas.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> For you - but maybe not for everyone. :tiphat:


Well, of course!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eschbeg said:


> The irony for me is that no other composer's music disproves this claim more than Debussy's himself. Unless I am reading along with a score, I definitely do not hear or notice everything I "need" to hear the first time around. Much of the appeal of his music for me are the subtle nuances of orchestration that border on imperceptible unless one knows to look for them. There is a wonderful moment in the first movement of _La mer_ (figure 9 for anyone who wants to look it up) where the cellos, playing in divisi, have the melody for a few measures, except for two (!) eighth-notes that are doubled by a solo (!) trumpet. I've heard this piece in live performance several times and never noticed this detail until I read along with the score. There's also the very beginning of the movement where two harps are playing on alternating beats, which initially seemed totally unnecessary to me since there is seemingly no reason why a single harp could not play exactly the same rhythm. Again, it's only after studying the score that I realized that Debussy's method allows for both harps to sustain their notes for two beats more than what would have been possible on a single harp. This would not necessarily have been totally undetectable without the aid of a score, but considering that the intro is barely audible to begin with, coupled with the fact that the harp part is just accompaniment to the strings anyway, I can easily see why this detail was not even on my radar the first hundred times I listened to this work.


Maybe that detail isn't one of the things one "needs to hear"! Not every detail in a piece of music is meant to register consciously - quite the contrary, in fact. Especially in the matter of orchestration, a composer is striving for an overall effect which we may not be meant to break down into its components as we listen. Spend your time doing that, and you'll probably miss out on the very thing you "need to hear."


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Phil loves classical said:


> Was that 4cd set Clear or Cloudy? I have it, and thought it was amazing, except for the Mysteries of the Macabre.


It was. "Mysteries of the Macabre" is not my favorite, but I like it.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Yes of course difficult music exists. Difficult by way of hard to perform well, hard to comprehend on score and of course, hard to enjoy. In that sense, difficult music exists, abundantly.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Was that 4cd set Clear or Cloudy? I have it, and thought it was amazing, except for the Mysteries of the Macabre.


What's wrong with the Mysteries of the Macabre?!


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Especially in the matter of orchestration, a composer is striving for an overall effect which we may not be meant to break down into its components as we listen. Spend your time doing that, and you'll probably miss out on the very thing you "need to hear."


Is it a zero-sum game, though? We can listen for the overall effect _and_ for the details; it's not like we get only one shot at a piece. And if both types of listening provide aesthetic enjoyment, then sticking to what a composer wants us to do, assuming we can even determine what that is, doesn't seem all that important. So I guess my real response to Debussy is to say I'm automatically suspicious when someone tells me what I "need" to hear in music, even (or especially) when it's the person who wrote the music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eschbeg said:


> Is it a zero-sum game, though? We can listen for the overall effect _and_ for the details; it's not like we get only one shot at a piece. And if both types of listening provide aesthetic enjoyment, then sticking to what a composer wants us to do, assuming we can even determine what that is, doesn't seem all that important. So I guess my real response to Debussy is to say I'm automatically suspicious when someone tells me what I "need" to hear in music, even (or especially) when it's the person who wrote the music.


Is Debussy telling you what you need to hear in _La Mer?_ I don't think so. You're free to investigate the music as much as you like, and I'm sure he wouldn't object to your interest in how he created the effects he did. But if he had wanted to draw your attention to his harp writing, he could have done it so that you'd notice it without having to consult the score.

When I hear the opening melody of Wagner's _Parsifal,_ I hear a soft "stringy-reedy" sonority that I can't analyze, but doing so isn't essential to my understanding of what the music is about. The effect is supposed to be mysterious, something incomprehensible and magical arising from the unseen depths of Bayreuth's mystical gulf - an effect which continues as that melody is repeated surrounded by more magically unanalyzable sounds that glow and pulsate like a halo around a divine being. The fact that Wagner was trying for an effect that transcended the easily recognized sounds of individual instruments wasn't intended to keep us from looking at the score; if we're conducting it or studying orchestration, we will certainly want to do so. But if we're trying to dissect the components of the sound while listening to the work, we're not fully immersed in the experience Wagner hoped to give us.

I think you're missing Debussy's meaning when he says "what we need to hear." Even if we don't think about his harps and how they're scored - which I'm sure most of us never will - we can experience the essence of the work.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> But if we're trying to dissect the components of the sound while listening to the work, we're not fully immersed in the experience Wagner hoped to give us.


But this just circles back around again to my point: why are we assuming one cannot hear the components of the sound and the overall effect at the same time? I understand that a whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, but it doesn't follow for me that knowledge of the parts diminishes the whole. This is a variant of the common objection often leveled at music theory: i.e. the ability to identify chord progressions hinders the sheer sonic experience of music. I've never found this to be true. One of my favorite dishes is the _saag paneer_ at my local Indian restaurant, and after ordering it so many times over the years I was finally motivated to ask them for the recipe, which they happily shared; and I can attest that knowledge of the recipe has not diminished the sheer gustatory experiencing of eating the dish. Nor has knowledge of grammar and syntax taken the magic out of David Foster Wallace's prose for me; his sentences strike me as witty every time, even (or especially) when I am consciously recognizing his placement of subordinate clauses, etc.



Woodduck said:


> Even if we don't think about his harps and how they're scored - which I'm sure most of us never will - we can experience the essence of the work.


Certainly. My quibble is with the converse: the suggestion that experiencing the essence of the work entails not thinking about how it's scored. Music isn't a zero-sum game for me.


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2017)

Eschbeg said:


> The irony for me is that no other composer's music disproves this claim more than Debussy's himself. Unless I am reading along with a score, I definitely do not hear or notice everything I "need" to hear the first time around.





Eschbeg said:


> So I guess my real response to Debussy is to say I'm automatically suspicious when someone tells me what I "need" to hear in music, even (or especially) when it's the person who wrote the music.


Just to be clear, my retort to JeffD was a lighthearted play on Debussy's idea that you'll hear all you need to make your mind up, especially if you've already decided you don't like either of them. (I have no opinion of either Jessica Simpson or Justin Bieber, but I know what I'm _supposed _to think of the latter!)

The idea of 'need' is odd. What I hear is what I hear; 'need' doesn't come into it. If I hear the parts rather than the whole, who is the composer to tell me my ears are not hearing what they 'need' to hear? Of course, that's not quite what he said either, but since the meaning of 'what you need to hear' is dependent on the meaning of '_really _listen', itself without clear definition, I'd end up taking his words with a pinch of salt.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eschbeg said:


> But this just circles back around again to my point: *why are we assuming one cannot hear the components of the sound and the overall effect at the same time?* I understand that a whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, but *it doesn't follow for me that knowledge of the parts diminishes the whole*. This is a variant of the common objection often leveled at music theory: i.e. the ability to identify chord progressions hinders the sheer sonic experience of music. I've never found this to be true.


I'm a musician, so you may trust that I'm neither arguing against understanding the construction of what one is listening to, nor making a general statement that knowledge of how a musical effect is achieved diminishes our experience of it. You cited specific instances in which the nature of an orchestral effect might not be analyzable by the ear, and I replied that _thinking about__ such effects_ - trying to figure them out - while listening may, in cases where the composer intends that not every instrument's contribution to the aural image should be distinguishable, be a distraction. Thinking "hmmm...I wonder what's making that sound; is that a bassoon in there somewhere? - or maybe it's a clarinet in its chalumeau register doubling a muted cello - or maybe it's all three? I'll have to look at a score" is a perfectly legitimate exercise, but it may not be the ideal way of absorbing the music and feeling what it's trying to communicate. Of course, if I already know what's making the sound, I won't have to think about it, and I'll give my whole mind to what the music's total effect evokes for me, with maybe just an incidental, passing thought of the composer's subtle craft.

But whether or not thinking about the nuts and bolts of orchestration or harmony or counterpoint while listening is an exercise that appeals you or me isn't really relevant to understanding Debussy's point. It's certainly possible to know how he scored his harp parts, to go to the library and consult a score, and even to think about it while listening to the music, but if his methods are not actually apparent to the ear it's pretty obvious that knowledge of them is not what Debussy means by "what one needs to hear." He can't be saying that we _need_ to hear what he's made it impossible to hear - namely, the technical procedures by which he's achieved the sounds we actually do hear. The reductio ad absurdum of that would be to think that what we _need_ to hear in a piece of music is _everything,_ audible and inaudible! Clearly, in saying, "when we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear," he was talking about grasping the meaning and quality of the whole: the sum of the parts, not all the parts themselves, and certainly not all the techniques by which the parts were created.


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## lehnert (Apr 12, 2016)

People enjoy what is familiar but not too familiar. That's why you don't usually enjoy a piece the most during your first listen but you need some time to get acquainted with it. The more complex the music is, the more listens you are going to need to understand it fully. And at the same time, if you listen to something too many times it stops being as interesting.

For the same reasons, you will not immensely enjoy something that is trivial or very predictable - like a simple major scale. You will also not enjoy something that is so complex or random that your brain cannot find any patterns - like white noise.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

The structure of music, i.e. compositional technique, orchestration, etc., etc., may very well be of the utmost complexity, but the emotion conveyed or expressed can still be of a harmonious (in the sense of ’complete’ or ’limited’) whole.

This whole process of ’rendering the difficult easy' is, surely, in my opinion, one of the very hallmarks of genius. Debussy is (thus) really saying something like: ”There is no difficult emotion.”


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Woodduck, Eschbeg and MacLeod: I think you guys are misreading the Debussy quotation. As I read it he is addressing what we need to make a snap value judgment about a work, not what we need to understand or fully appreciate a work's many facets or to parse its harmonic or tonal structure — what the love of a work requires, not what our intellects wish ultimately to extract from it. I think he is expressing exasperation at those who need to start analyzing a work before deciding whether or not they like it. That, he seems to believe, one should know with one attentive hearing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Woodduck, Eschbeg and MacLeod: I think you guys are misreading the Debussy quotation. As I read it he is addressing what we need to make a snap value judgment about a work, not what we need to understand or fully appreciate a work's many facets or to parse its harmonic or tonal structure - what the love of a work requires, not what our intellects wish ultimately to extract from it. I think he is expressing exasperation at those who need to start analyzing a work before deciding whether or not they like it. That, he seems to believe, one should know with one attentive hearing.


Is this, more or less, what I said in post #52? _"Clearly, in saying, 'when we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear,' he was talking about grasping the meaning and quality of the whole: the sum of the parts, not all the parts themselves, and certainly not all the techniques by which the parts were created."_


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

EdwardBast said:


> ...As I read it he is addressing what we need to make a snap value judgment about a work, not what we need to understand or fully appreciate a work's many facets or to parse its harmonic or tonal structure - what the love of a work requires, not what our intellects wish ultimately to extract from it. I think he is expressing exasperation at those who need to start analyzing a work before deciding whether or not they like it. That, he seems to believe, one should know with one attentive hearing.


Thanks for suggesting an interpretation that some of us did not see. I, and others, thought he was referring to what is required to enjoy any work - i.e. a single listen. We thought he meant one should be able to listen to a work once and enjoy that work (assuming one would ever enjoy it). We thought he was dismissing the need for many to become familiar with the style or language of new works before enjoying them.

You suggest he was actually differentiating between enjoying a work aesthetically and intellectually. If so, I would agree that while one can enjoy a work more if one enjoys it both aesthetically and intellectually, one can enjoy a work without the latter.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> Thanks for suggesting an interpretation that some of us did not see. I, and others, thought he was referring to what is required to enjoy any work - i.e. a single listen. We thought he meant one should be able to listen to a work once and enjoy that work (assuming one would ever enjoy it). We thought he was dismissing the need for many to become familiar with the style or language of new works before enjoying them.
> 
> *You suggest he was actually differentiating between enjoying a work aesthetically and intellectually. If so, I would agree that while one can enjoy a work more if one enjoys it both aesthetically and intellectually, one can enjoy a work without the latter.*


I think it is probably part of a general anti-intellectual, anti-Germanic stance, the same one that inspired the famous statement (paraphrasing): "Oh, he's starting to develop, let's get out of here." I think he was saying that there's no need to over-think things because music is a sensual phenomenon, not an intellectual one.



Woodduck said:


> Is this, more or less, what I said in post #52? _"Clearly, in saying, 'when we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear,' he was talking about grasping the meaning and quality of the whole: the sum of the parts, not all the parts themselves, and certainly not all the techniques by which the parts were created."_


Yes, that says it nicely. Sorry I missed that!


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Debussy was clearly being a bit 'spiritual' about this. And I'm sure a lot of people approach music in his way all the time. I don't and I'm sure a lot of other people don't. There have been a few pieces that have grabbed me at first hearing, in their entirety, but more often than not when I'm listening I shift between listening to technical structure and the entire effect. I'd conjecture that a lot of musicians - especially those who read and write out scores - can't help but listen to parts of the whole.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

I have a couple of comments on this subject in addition to some good ones others here have made already. First, Debussy had the reputation of being a very poor conductor of his own music. He seemed to think the players only needed to reproduce exactly what he wrote in the score, and, voila! his ideas would come to life, fully and perfectly. Reportedly he would shout at rehearsal -- "Play what I wrote! No interpretation, I don't need it." Ravel, who famously wrote that players are "slaves", seemed to have a similar attitude and a similar lack of conducting ability. Neither seemed to understand the careful and lengthy study needed to be able to understand their music and play it well that goes vastly beyond simply getting the notes right. This is no doubt because they themselves already had that understanding, not only of their own music, but of any of their predecessors' music that was important to them.
What goes for players pretty much goes for listeners as well. Repeated careful listening to a Beethoven symphony will give you a deeper understanding, even if you found it exciting and wonderful on the first hearing. That doesn't mean you need to attend lectures or read books, though the best of those can help you understand why it is you like what you like, if that's important to you. So I appreciate the argument that "explanations" aren't necessary for listener enjoyment, but not the argument that music can be fully and immediately appreciated on a single audition. Most of us would need to read a Shakespeare sonnet more than once, and look at a Rembrandt portrait for more than a minute, to more fully appreciate it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> I think it is probably part of a general anti-intellectual, anti-Germanic stance, the same one that inspired the famous statement (paraphrasing): *"Oh, he's starting to develop, let's get out of here."*


:lol:

I'd forgotten that one.

:lol:

:lol:

I need to stop rereading it.

:lol:


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

It does for me, and evidently for many members of this forum, not to mention Tchaikovsky, Benjamin Britten or George Bernard Shaw.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

No music is difficult _after_ it's understood, and one can only speak for oneself. But for some listeners that revelation may take a lifetime, depending on the composer, work or the listener's determined interest... There are times when one's latest reaction to something could be opposite to one's first hearing. Not everyone has the ability to absorb something new like Debussy. How about rocket science or brain surgery? Is everything comprehended, understood or appreciated from the first reading? Sometimes time and a repeated exposure to a new work are what leads one to the unexpected or stunning revelation. The only question then is whether the time spent was worth it, and I believe that under most circumstances the answer is yes.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Agamemnon said:


> But what Debussy meant is that true music is communication and if there is no communication on the first time you listen to it, it can't be music. Music is an 'universal language' so a musical piece should not be like hieroglyphs which the listener must decipher before being able to read it. He doesn't mean to say that the first time you hear a musical piece you should hear all notes or all meanings of the notes in it: he simply claims that if it is art you should be able to comprehend and enjoy it the first time you hear it (even though you may find new things in it the next time you hear it).


Well this is true for me 90% of the time, it connects first time or never and that has not changed as far back as I remember.
I will admit to to the one exception and that is G F Handle I was subjected to this terrible music every time we had a music evening at a certain persons home he would program 50% of the evening with Handle's oratorio ughhhh then after a couple of years it clicked with me and now I love it.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Agamemnon said:


> I have found it in The Rough Guide to Classical Music and the full quote is:
> 
> "Love of art does not depend on explanations, or on experience as in the case of those who say 'I need to hear that several times'. Utter rubbish! When we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear.


My own interpretation of Debussy's remark is that the key to whether we will or ought to follow up on a piece of music and make it our own is determined quickly by if one or the other conditions apply: A) we like it immediately and wholeheartedly, or B) we detect quickly that it will have a strong potential for us liking it. My own examples of condition A) would be the Shostakovich 2nd piano concerto or Tchaikovsky ballet scores. For B), examples would be Debussy's own _La Mer_ or Bartók's _Concerto for Orchestra_. Either way, there must first be established a positive connection--the eliciting of a positive response in the listener. This can occur through an immediate sensual appeal that later may be reinforced by an appreciation of the more intellectual appreciation of the scoring, instrumentation, etc. Or the appeal can be made through sheer initial novelty (_Le Sacré_), or sudden drama (beginning of Brahms' 1st symphony) or unexpected timbres or textures (again, _Le Sacré_). But the sine qua non is that first attraction--its presence is the hallmark of what will likely become a favored, enjoyable piece of music.


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## Guest (Sep 13, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Woodduck, Eschbeg and MacLeod: I think you guys are misreading the Debussy quotation. As I read it he is addressing what we need to make a snap value judgment about a work, not what we need to understand or fully appreciate a work's many facets or to parse its harmonic or tonal structure - what the love of a work requires, not what our intellects wish ultimately to extract from it. I think he is expressing exasperation at those who need to start analyzing a work before deciding whether or not they like it. That, he seems to believe, one should know with one attentive hearing.


Possibly I am 'misreading', but if I made a snap value judgement and stuck with it, I'd probably not have bothered to persist with half the music I now enjoy, because one listen isn't enough to make a _valid _judgement (by which I mean valid for me - not for others). My snap judgment about Mahler was that his work was detestable. It took more than one listen to come to enjoy some of his symphonies (1,3,5,6,7) - and that's without technical analysis, since technical analysis is largely beyond me.

It occurs to me that trying to recall the process of moving from 'not knowing' to 'enjoying' a work is rather like to trying to recall what it was like not being able to read.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> Possibly I am 'misreading', but if I made a snap value judgement and stuck with it, I'd probably not have bothered to persist with half the music I now enjoy, because one listen isn't enough to make a _valid _judgement (by which I mean valid for me - not for others). My snap judgment about Mahler was that his work was detestable. It took more than one listen to come to enjoy some of his symphonies (1,3,5,6,7) - and that's without technical analysis, since technical analysis is largely beyond me.
> 
> It occurs to me that trying to recall the process of moving from 'not knowing' to 'enjoying' a work is rather like to trying to recall what it was like not being able to read.


I was by no means saying Debussy was right, I was just trying to interpret what he meant. In fact, I think he was dead wrong in thinking people will have what they need to evaluate a work on one hearing, as your testimony and that of others above proves.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> I was by no means saying Debussy was right, I was just trying to interpret what he meant. In fact, I think he was dead wrong in thinking people will have what they need to evaluate a work on one hearing, as your testimony and that of others above proves.


Right. I think this is an example of a phenomenon I've mentioned in other threads. Composers, even (or especially) the greatest ones, are often unreliable music critics and commentators, whether writing about their own music or that of others. Maybe this is because they are so deeply and passionately invested in their own outlook and ideas, as they must be to create their own original work, they can't or don't want to engage in neutral dispassionate analysis.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I'm a musician, so you may trust that I'm neither arguing against understanding the construction of what one is listening to, nor making a general statement that knowledge of how a musical effect is achieved diminishes our experience of it. You cited specific instances in which the nature of an orchestral effect might not be analyzable by the ear, and I replied that _thinking about__ such effects_ - trying to figure them out - while listening may, in cases *where the composer intends* that not every instrument's contribution to the aural image should be distinguishable, be a distraction. Thinking "hmmm...I wonder what's making that sound; is that a bassoon in there somewhere? - or maybe it's a clarinet in its chalumeau register doubling a muted cello - or maybe it's all three? I'll have to look at a score" is a perfectly legitimate exercise, but it may not be *the ideal way* of absorbing the music and feeling *what it's trying to communicate*. Of course, if I already know what's making the sound, I won't have to think about it, and I'll give my whole mind to what the music's total effect evokes for me, with maybe just an incidental, passing thought of the composer's subtle craft.
> 
> But whether or not thinking about the nuts and bolts of orchestration or harmony or counterpoint while listening is an exercise that appeals you or me isn't really relevant to understanding *Debussy's point*. It's certainly possible to know how he scored his harp parts, to go to the library and consult a score, and even to think about it while listening to the music, but if his methods are not actually apparent to the ear it's pretty obvious that knowledge of them is not what Debussy means by "what one needs to hear." He can't be saying that we _need_ to hear what he's made it impossible to hear - namely, the technical procedures by which he's achieved the sounds we actually do hear. The reductio ad absurdum of that would be to think that what we _need_ to hear in a piece of music is _everything,_ audible and inaudible! Clearly, in saying, "when we really listen to music, we hear immediately what we need to hear," he was talking about grasping *the meaning and quality of the whole*: the sum of the parts, not all the parts themselves, and certainly not all the techniques by which the parts were created.


We are in agreement on much of this. Hearing details of scoring may be a distraction, or it may not be. Where we depart, I think, is in how we make that call. I'm hesitant to defer to things like "the point of the work," "the intended meaning," "what the composer meant," etc. My suspicion (it's hardly an original point on my part) is that those phrases are code for "how _I_ hear the music." How does one determine whether hearing the solo trumpet doubling the cellos was part of Debussy's point or not? It may seem obvious to argue, as you have, that the difficulty of hearing it indicates it's not part of the point; but seems equally obvious to argue, as I would, that the fact that Debussy did it in the first place indicates it's part of the point. (And I would definitely not go so far as you as to say these details are "impossible" to hear. I did not hear them at first, but I can easily imagine someone with better ears than me who did. Why is my impression more representative of "the point of the music" than this other person's?)

To put it another way: once I became conscious of the fleeting moment where the trumpet doubles the cellos, I started hearing it every subsequent time. Why isn't every subsequent time just as "ideal" a way of listening to that passage as when I didn't hear it? As far as I can tell, the only way someone other than me can judge which way is "ideal" is to see which one comports with their own experience, which reinforces my suspicion that notions like "the point of the music" or "what the composer intended" are really mirrors of _our_ thoughts. If it really were about what the composer intended, then we should be asking ourselves whether Debussy heard the difference that that solo trumpet made. And the answer to this seems pretty clear.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

You are all making this so difficult!  I think Debussy meant something very simple like: 

A new composition is played for the first time to an attentive audience of let's say 100 people. This audience is then asked 'did you like the piece?' If the audience (or let's say the majority of the 100 people) then responds: 'no we didn't like it but maybe/probably we will like it if you can explain the piece to us or if we can hear the piece for another three of four times' THEN the composition has failed. I.e. failed to communicate what it needed to communicate. 

And this is equivalent to: if you pay attention then you will hear everything you need to hear (so you don't need an explanation or hear it multiple times).


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Agamemnon said:


> You are all making this so difficult!  I think Debussy meant something very simple like:
> 
> A new composition is played for the first time to an attentive audience of let's say 100 people. This audience is then asked 'did you like the piece?' If the audience (or let's say the majority of the 100 people) then responds: 'no we didn't like it but maybe/probably we will like it if you can explain the piece to us or if we can hear the piece for another three of four times' *THEN the composition has failed. I.e. failed to communicate what it needed to communicate. *
> 
> And this is equivalent to: if you pay attention then you will hear everything you need to hear (so you don't need an explanation or hear it multiple times).


And you think (or Debussy thinks) this test *to judge the success or failure of a composition* (let's say one of Debussy's late sonatas) is equally valid if your 100 listeners have spent their lives listening seriously to classical music or spent their lives listening seriously to the Rolling Stones, Robert Johnson and Duke Ellington? I can't agree.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

jegreenwood said:


> And you think (or Debussy thinks) this test *to judge the success or failure of a composition* (let's say one of Debussy's late sonatas) is equally valid if your 100 listeners have spent their lives listening seriously to classical music or spent their lives listening seriously to the Rolling Stones, Robert Johnson and Duke Ellington? I can't agree.


I agree entirely, even though I'm a huge fan of Debussy's late sonatas, especially the trio for flute, cello and harp, and the Rolling Stones, and Robert Johnson, and Duke Ellington. if the musical language is a bit more complicated, it takes more time to get used to it. You could say the same for the best jazz. Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, et al. produced some sophisticated music. And Robert Johnson, wailing (growling?) above a few strums on his acoustic guitar, is a lot more sophisticated than he may seem at first, which is why he had so much influence on later bluesmen, jazzers and rockers.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

fluteman said:


> I agree entirely, even though I'm a huge fan of Debussy's late sonatas, especially the trio for flute, cello and harp, and the Rolling Stones, and Robert Johnson, and Duke Ellington. if the musical language is a bit more complicated, it takes more time to get used to it. You could say the same for the best jazz. Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, et al. produced some sophisticated music. And Robert Johnson, wailing (growling?) above a few strums on his acoustic guitar, is a lot more sophisticated than he may seem at first, which is why he had so much influence on later bluesmen, jazzers and rockers.


For the avoidance of doubt (and I don't think you misunderstood me) I used the Stones (at their best), Johnson and the Duke as examples because I consider their music worthy of serious attention.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> A new composition is played for the first time to an attentive audience of let's say 100 people. This audience is then asked 'did you like the piece?' If the audience (or let's say the majority of the 100 people) then responds: 'no we didn't like it but maybe/probably we will like it if you can explain the piece to us or if we can hear the piece for another three of four times' THEN the composition has failed. I.e. failed to communicate what it needed to communicate.


Or maybe the audience failed.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Improbus said:


> Or maybe the audience failed.


Do keep this in mind when laying into a piece of modern music. My hope is that this acknowledgement of potential audience failure is not magically converted into composer failure as required.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

jegreenwood said:


> For the avoidance of doubt (and I don't think you misunderstood me) I used the Stones (at their best), Johnson and the Duke as examples because I consider their music worthy of serious attention.


Yes, I did understand your choice of examples. And as I said, I agree entirely.


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## Timothy (Jul 19, 2017)

All music is difficult, in to justify it's existence. Why should we listen to anything?


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Never the music that is bad so blame it on the audience or the listener.


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## Guest (Sep 14, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> But perhaps this (ability of) anticipation is secondary and not the true joy or beauty of music: perhaps it's true beauty reveils itself immediately when listening so it is not necessary to be able to anticipate it's movements or notes. What do you think?


The discussion has got rather stuck on what Debussy said, rather than answering your substantive question, to which the answer seems to be, "Yes".

I agree that anticipation is key to enjoyment of music, and until you've heard a piece a few times and got a sense of its shape, high spots, tensions etc, you can't anticipate.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

Music can be like a theme park attraction. Sometimes, it is great on the first visit. Other times, once the brain knows what to expect, it can just relax and enjoy it.

I think you can know if a piece of music is worth further listening at that point in your life after hearing it one time. Either something will be interesting or attractive, or it won't.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

What a question


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

Imagine never listening to a avant-garde music and then hearing "Kontakte" by Stockhausen. Ah, the beauty!


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

I don't understand why it is so hard to understand what Debussy and I are talking about. To put it this way: if you must hear a piece several times before enjoying it, what then is the point of premieres? Nobody would like the music played on a premiere... And what was the point of performing music anyway before the invention of recorded music when people usually didn't get a chance to hear a piece even a second time? Apparently people back then found a way to enjoy music right away on the first time hearing it. And I think that Debussy was right what their way was: to 'really' listen, i.e. to immerge yourself into the music. And when you really listen I think even Stockhausen can be enjoyed the first time you hear it.

But maybe is what you are saying that things have changed since recorded music exists. Maybe music have become difficult since the invention of the LP and CD because since then people are able to hear a piece more than once so composers took advantage of that to make their music incredibly complex and difficult to enjoy. That would be an interesting discussion. But for now, can we agree that at least before the invention of the recording of music there was no difficult music because difficult music would not get any audience since people were not able to hear a piece twice?


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Agamemnon said:


> I don't understand why it is so hard to understand what Debussy and I are talking about. To put it this way: if you must hear a piece several times before enjoying it, what then is the point of premieres? Nobody would like the music played on a premiere... And what was the point of performing music anyway before the invention of recorded music when people usually didn't get a chance to hear a piece even a second time? *Apparently people back then found a way to enjoy music right away on the first time hearing it. *And I think that Debussy was right what their way was: to 'really' listen, i.e. to immerge yourself into the music. And when you really listen I think even Stockhausen can be enjoyed the first time you hear it.
> 
> But maybe is what you are saying that things have changed since recorded music exists. Maybe music have become difficult since the invention of the LP and CD because since then people are able to hear a piece more than once so composers took advantage of that to make their music incredibly complex and difficult to enjoy. That would be an interesting discussion. But for now, can we agree that at least before the invention of the recording of music there was no difficult music because difficult music would not get any audience since people were not able to hear a piece twice?


Tell that to Igor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring#Premiere


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

jegreenwood said:


> Tell that to Igor.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring#Premiere


I think that you can only be shocked by a musical piece when you understand it so I think the riot at The Rite if Spring only confirms my position.  Actually, I guess the audience was shocked like they were shocked at Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon: both works are 'neoprimitivist' and therefore 'barbaric' in style which shocked. But this shows the audience did understand these works: they didn't hear/see meaningless tones/paint but they understood what Picasso and Stravinsky were saying but they found this offensive (like all modernist art aims to be offensive). Only when people find a masterwork boring they don't hear what they need to hear (and I am afraid 99% of all people of today would found The Rite of Spring boring...).


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> I don't understand why it is so hard to understand what Debussy and I are talking about. To put it this way: if you must hear a piece several times before enjoying it, what then is the point of premieres?


You and old Claude eh? Well this is a bit queer isn't it (by which I mean 'odd'). A première is just a first presentation, everything has to have a first time. This says nothing about whether it should be 'understood' or enjoyed. I've been to many film premières at the cinema and came out at the end thinking: 'that wasn't very good' and I think I made a valid judgement even though I didn't hide behind the curtains until the next showing to watch again and make sure.



Agamemnon said:


> Nobody would like the music played on a premiere... And what was the point of performing music anyway before the invention of recorded music when people usually didn't get a chance to hear a piece even a second time? Apparently people back then found a way to enjoy music right away on the first time hearing it. And I think that Debussy was right what their way was: to 'really' listen, i.e. to immerge (immerse, submerge?) yourself into the music. And when you really listen I think even Stockhausen can be enjoyed the first time you hear it.


I doubt it's all-or-nothing; either everyone listens intently and 'gets it' or they don't listen properly and fail to get it. No, there are other factors at work, prejudices even, that may or may not be overcome by listening further. Tchaikovsky was lukewarm to a lot of Wagner and praised some of it up to high heaven. He, like a great number of other composers, played through the scores of current works at the piano and attended performances wherever they were held (Tchaikovsky watched early Wagner operas in different countries to see repeat performances). 
You may be right that people listened carefully at concerts performed before the availability of recordings, but I don't think it's a legitimate step to assert that they therefore enjoyed and understood it any more than people listening now.



Agamemnon said:


> But maybe is what you are saying that things have changed since recorded music exists. Maybe music have become difficult since the invention of the LP and CD because since then people are able to hear a piece more than once so composers took advantage of that to make their music incredibly complex and difficult to enjoy. That would be an interesting discussion. But for now, can we agree that at least before the invention of the recording of music there was no difficult music because difficult music would not get any audience since people were not able to hear a piece twice?


That is a most interesting point.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

jegreenwood said:


> Tell that to Igor.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring#Premiere


One interesting thing about that wiki article that I'd never thought about before is that the famous review of the (then) famous and prominent French music critic Henri Quittard of the 1913 premiere of The Right of Spring, calling the work "a laborious and puerile barbarity" and adding "We are sorry to see an artist such as M. Stravinsky involve himself in this disconcerting adventure", implies that he came to the premiere holding Stravinsky in high regard as an artist, presumably for The Firebird, which premiered in 1910 to rave reviews and made Stravinsky a big star, and Petrushka, which premiered in 1911. Nowadays, these three three works are regarded by many as Stravinsky's masterpieces, and if anything The Right of Spring is regarded as the greatest of the three. It's interesting how differently some critics ranked the relative merits of these three works back when they were first performed. Of course, Nijinsky's difficulties in choreographing The Rite, which dismayed and disgusted Stravinsky, played a role in the reviews, but that's a hazard of premieres.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Agamemnon said:


> I think that you can only be shocked by a musical piece when you understand it so I think the riot at The Rite if Spring only confirms my position.  Actually, I guess the audience was shocked like they were shocked at Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon: both works are 'neoprimitivist' and therefore 'barbaric' in style which shocked. But this shows the audience did understand these works: they didn't hear/see meaningless tones/paint but they understood what Picasso and Stravinsky were saying but they found this offensive (like all modernist art aims to be offensive). Only when people find a masterwork boring they don't hear what they need to hear (and I am afraid 99% of all people of today would found The Rite of Spring boring...).


That was their way of *enjoying* (your word) it? And for that matter, I doubt they comprehended it either.

Perhaps someone more familiar with Stravinsky can comment in greater depth as to whether he ever expressed his intent with the piece.

Edit - the Wikipedia article has this to say:

In a note to the conductor Serge Koussevitzky in February 1914, Stravinsky described The Rite of Spring as "a musical-choreographic work, [representing] pagan Russia ... unified by a single idea: the mystery and great surge of the creative power of Spring".

Is that what the first audience took away when they started rioting?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Debussy's comment was directed at the piece but not as a whole to which he was entitled to.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

ArtMusic said:


> Debussy's comment was directed at the piece but not as a whole to which he was entitled to.


I don't know what this means.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> I think that you can only be shocked by a musical piece when you understand it


I'm not shocked by the piece, nor was I when I first heard it...are you saying I don't understand it?


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> You and old Claude eh? Well this is a bit queer isn't it (by which I mean 'odd'). A première is just a first presentation, everything has to have a first time. This says nothing about whether it should be 'understood' or enjoyed. I've been to many film premières at the cinema and came out at the end thinking: 'that wasn't very good' and I think I made a valid judgement even though I didn't hide behind the curtains until the next showing to watch again and make sure.
> 
> I doubt it's all-or-nothing; either everyone listens intently and 'gets it' or they don't listen properly and fail to get it. No, there are other factors at work, prejudices even, that may or may not be overcome by listening further. Tchaikovsky was lukewarm to a lot of Wagner and praised some of it up to high heaven. He, like a great number of other composers, played through the scores of current works at the piano and attended performances wherever they were held (Tchaikovsky watched early Wagner operas in different countries to see repeat performances).


"Me and old Claude" is not odd: I simply decided to be on #teamClaude. I think I understands what he means and that he is essentially right, so I am trying to get his point (in my interpretation of course) across...

Yes, "immerge" is an odd word though: I am not a native English speaker and at school I was far better in mathematics and science than in foreign languages so I make many mistakes when I am trying to speak/write in English... But I guess you understood me anyway.

So Tchaikovsky was lukewarm to a lot of work of Wagner. Well, I don't see that as a negation of the point at stake. As you probably know Nietzsche even turned from an admirer of Wagner (to the extent Nietzsche aimed to worship Wagner as a god) to someone who totally rejects Wagner and his music. This has nothing to do about suddenly not being able to understand Wagner's music - Nietzsche understood Wagner's music all too well when he rejected it, as he probably would have said when someone would doubt that - but, like the people who started a riot at Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, he was disgusted by the (christian/decadent) content of Wagner's music. Probably there is a misunderstanding stemming from my chosen phrases like 'enjoying' music which is not the right phrase: it is not really about enjoying (or to like) the music but 'understanding' music which phrase I avoided though because it would confuse even more: like Debussy also says (put in my words) music isn't - to the listener - quantum physics you need to figure out or only trained or intelligent people can grasp, or - which is the same thing - you need to hear it many times to be able to grasp it. What it is about is communication: you 'understand' a piece when the piece speaks to you so it conveys meaning to you. It doesn't matter - for our discussion - if you like or are repelled by it's meaning. As a matter of fact, a lot of modernist works even aim to repel in a sense as it wants to be sublime instead of beautiful... And so, I think Tchaikovsky understood Wagner's music but he simply was lukewarm to it (as Nietzsche was even disgusted by it) like you are lukewarm to a lot of movies which can happen even if you understand the movie very well...

The point is: every serious composer wants his new piece to be applauded at it's premiere which simply means that Debussy was right that every composer wants his music to be grasped at first hearing. If that doesn't occur something is wrong with the audience or with the music... BTW, maybe 'grasp' is a well-suited term: grasping doesn't involve understanding in a rational, discursive way which latter meaning must be avoided.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

MacLeod said:


> I'm not shocked by the piece, nor was I when I first heard it...are you saying I don't understand it?


Nope, the rules of logic don't support your implication. See my response to eugeneonagain above where I try to clear up this types of confusion!


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> Nope, the rules of logic don't support your implication. See my response to eugeneonagain above where I try to clear up this types of confusion!


Sorry, but I think the lack of logic and confusion is yours. It doesn't matter how much Debussy might _wish _that the audience grasps his music at first hearing, the fact that some don't suggests several possible things, one of which is that the music is more difficult to grasp for some members of the audience than others, and more difficult than Debussy thinks.

In the case of _Rite of Spring_, _if _what needs to be grasped is that it is shocking, then anyone who hasn't found it shocking hasn't grasped it. I don't believe that its point was to shock. Whether it does or not is irrelevant to what is meant - and as others have said, composers are unreliable witnesses to what they intend by their music.

Getting away from Debussy - which I tried to do earlier, since what he thinks is not the main point of your question - it seems obvious that there is music that some find 'difficult' to grasp at first hearing. As you say, let's not make this complicated.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Agamemnon said:


> I think that you can only be shocked by a musical piece when you understand it...


Oh, I just can't agree. I quite often listen to pieces of music that shock me - I might find them jarring, random, violent, or obscene. What I usually feel as well as the shock - after I've listened - is a deep dismay that I am so at odds with the creator of the piece, that I just *don't understand him/her*.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Ingélou said:


> Oh, I just can't agree. I quite often listen to pieces of music that shock me - I might find them jarring, random, violent, or obscene. What I usually feel as well as the shock - after I've listened - is a deep dismay that I am so at odds with the creator of the piece, that I just *don't understand him/her*.


I find that I am not shocked by music that is jarring, random, violent, obscene. Rather, I find myself cold, indifferent to it. I conclude that the music's composer has either deliberately or just erroneously chosen to speak in a language that s/he knows, or should know, will not be understood by me. Whether it can or should be understood by others does not concern me; I am a creature of "conventional" tastes. Sometimes this music seems to be a case of mere, pure _épater le bourgeoisie_, or so I interpret it. A century or two will serve to separate out the wheat from the chaff.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> I find that I am not shocked by music that is jarring, random, violent, obscene. Rather, I find myself cold, indifferent to it.


What exactly is "random" music? Or "obscene" music? Can musical sounds or phrases be intrinsically obscene? And concerning the other adjectives, it's all in the ear of the behearer, isn't it? Is any one piece of music any of these things to all listeners? I suppose different listeners would site different musical examples to correspond with these simplistic one word descriptions.

And I know, Strange Magic, that it's your personal interpretations or reactions to certain musical pieces, but you did state that music "Is" violent, obscene, etc...


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

There is music that is supposed to jar, or be obscene. Stravinsky composed Rite of Spring to "send them all to hell", so is intended to be shocking to the audience of the time that were used to traditional practice, even though listeners of our era may find the language now common, from the movements after Stravinsky. There is usually a reference to a system or setting that cutting-edge music involves for it to be cutting edge. Debussy's view works only for a certain perspective, that music is only concerned about nominal qualities like colours and rhythms which every listener should be able to grasp, but not for program music, development of motifs and harmony, and in structure which involve some more listening experience with conventions.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

starthrower said:


> What exactly is "random" music? Or "obscene" music? Can musical sounds or phrases be intrinsically obscene? And concerning the other adjectives, it's all in the ear of the behearer, isn't it? Is any one piece of music any of these things to all listeners? I suppose different listeners would site different musical examples to correspond with these simplistic one word descriptions.
> 
> And I know, Strange Magic, that it's your personal interpretations or reactions to certain musical pieces, but you did state that music "Is" violent, obscene, etc...


For convenience, and to acknowledge Ingelou's immediately preceding post, I repeated her usage. I have no interest, actually, in defining/debating those terms--let's just agree that such is the sort of music that shocks her, and that I believe her. My point, again, is that, in my case, I am not shocked by certain music; rather, I am indifferent to it. Question: are you shocked by certain music? If not, what is your enduring reaction to music you dislike? Others are fond of saying they "hate" this or that. My view is that hatred should be reserved for more serious crimes than bad music or art.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

starthrower said:


> *What exactly is "random" music? Or "obscene" music? Can musical sounds or phrases be intrinsically obscene? And concerning the other adjectives, it's all in the ear of the behearer, isn't it? Is any one piece of music any of these things to all listeners? I suppose different listeners would site different musical examples to correspond with these simplistic one word descriptions.*
> 
> And I know, Strange Magic, that it's your personal interpretations or reactions to certain musical pieces, but you did state that music "Is" violent, obscene, etc...


I am surprised to find you apostrophising Strange Magic, as the adjectives were *mine*. What I said (in post #95) was:

*'I quite often listen to pieces of music that shock me - I might find them jarring, random, violent, or obscene.'*

Please note the italicised words.

) I *might find them* - I acknowledge that this is *my personal reaction*. The subject under discussion was music that 'shocks' - also a personal response. There is no suggestion that such qualities are intrinsic to certain sounds or arrangements of music. Indeed it *is* 'in the ear of the behearer', as you put it.

b) *or* - implies that the music might 'shock' me for a number of different reasons. Four examples are given. There is no suggestion that individual pieces of music might have the power to make me have all four personal responses at once. I should think it most unlikely.

Also - c) This whole thread is basically about personal response & the ear of the 'behearer'.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> My view is that hatred should be reserved for more serious crimes than bad music or art.


I'm all for that. I don't really have strong emotional feelings about music I don't like. And my apologies to Ingelou.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

starthrower said:


> I'm all for that. I don't really have strong emotional feelings about music I don't like. And my apologies to Ingelou.


My personal response to this post is that it was 'handsome'. :tiphat:


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

starthrower said:


> I'm all for that. I don't really have strong emotional feelings about music I don't like. And my apologies to Ingelou.


As opposed to _unemotional_ feelings?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Improbus said:


> As opposed to _unemotional_ feelings?


No! I said I don't have *strong* emotional feelings. Just clarifying what I clearly clarified.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

starthrower said:


> No! I said I don't have *strong* emotional feelings. Just clarifying what I clearly clarified.


Which is different from simply *strong* feelings?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

starthrower said:


> No! I said I don't have *strong* emotional feelings. Just clarifying what I clearly clarified.





Improbus said:


> Which is different from simply *strong* feelings?


'Strong emotional feelings' are soppier than 'strong feelings' - we all have emotions but if you're told that you're *emotional*, it means you're *awash* with them.

And then there's 'tired and emotional', a euphemism for 'drunk' based on the British foreign secretary George Brown (of glorious memory).


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Improbus said:


> Which is different from simply *strong* feelings?


OK, dj logic, you win. I admit my redundancy.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

starthrower said:


> OK, dj logic, you win. I admit my redundancy.


No harm done.


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