# Listening to the unfamiliar



## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

I'm working my way through Haitink's Shostakovich Complete Symphonies, and currently grappling with the 8th. Going by my previous experience, I know that I won't get maximum enjoyment out of this work until I'm familiar with it.

[I know this makes me a conservative concertgoer; I really only want to go and listen to what I already know - should I feel guilty, I wonder? There's a subject for another thread...]

I need to get to the stage where I know what comes next and can enjoy the anticipation as well as the realisation; can wallow in reassuring textures (DSCH? Reassuring?) as well as ride the mastered climaxes.

However, as an amateur listener (by which I mean someone who doesn't hear the key it's written in or understand what is meant by "the opening string octaves with their dotted note figures" which is part of the sleeve notes) I think it takes me longer than a pro to know what's going on, for it to become familiar.

Am I right?

More generally, do you prefer to move from one new piece to another, constantly in search of the unfamiliar? At what point in listening to a piece over time do _you _get maximum pleasure?


----------



## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> I really only want to go and listen to what I already know - should I feel guilty, I wonder?


No.



MacLeod said:


> There's a subject for another thread...


Please no.



MacLeod said:


> I need to get to the stage where I know what comes next and can enjoy the anticipation as well as the realisation; can wallow in reassuring textures (DSCH? Reassuring?) as well as ride the mastered climaxes.


Um. OK?



MacLeod said:


> Am I right?


About its taking you longer to this or that than so and so? Well, yeah. Probably. But so what? It's not a race. When you're listening to a piece, it's just you. Dinna fash about other listeners.



MacLeod said:


> More generally, do you prefer to move from one new piece to another, constantly in search of the unfamiliar? At what point in listening to a piece over time do _you _get maximum pleasure?


Without the word "maximum" in there, which introduces a concept alien to me and my listening, I prefer to listen to each piece for itself. Even when I "move" from one piece to the next, I don't leave the first piece behind. Even after one hearing, it has become a part of my experience. So if you're suggesting....


----------



## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

some guy said:


> Please no.


Too late already. I was referring obliquely to this brief exchange...

http://www.talkclassical.com/31059-what-audiences-want-post628223.html#post628223



> But so what? It's not a race.


I'm genuinely interested in whether a fuller (not, you'll note, a 'better') technical understanding makes it easier to enjoy.



> Even when I "move" from one piece to the next, I don't leave the first piece behind.


Nor do I. But I know that the times when a piece moves me most is towards the end of my familiarisation phase.


----------



## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> I'm genuinely interested in whether a fuller (not, you'll note, a 'better') technical understanding makes it easier to enjoy.


Nope. You can understand all the technicalities and still consider a piece rubbish. I don't know if it matters if the strings move in octaves with a dotted note rhythm or whether it just sounds nice and bouncy. The technicalities give you a vocabulary to describe things and to help your analysis. If you've got a good ear and like what you're hearing and can compare it to other pieces, fine.



MacLeod said:


> But I know that the times when a piece moves me most is towards the end of my familiarisation phase.


Just like a pair of shoes, when they feel really comfortable, they then fall apart. You've come to understand the piece and it now resonates with you so naturally it moves you because you've stopped "analysing" it or trying to work out how it does things and are just letting it happen.


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I've said this before, but to me the best definition of "artistic excellence" that I can think of is "the ability to reward informed analysis." With music I don't have many tools for that - I'm not too informed, can't do much informed analysis - but the "best" music is the stuff that the educated, informed critics can analyze and thereby find greater interest in.

Since I don't know music so well, I generally use literature to illustrate the point. Recently I showed a student a bit of a Norah Jones novel; we read a page, we found that the figurative language of several sentences implied an unwanted pregnancy. But that turned out to have nothing to do with the plot of the book or its themes or anything. It was just for a brief effect, with no more coherent or intelligent purpose. Now I don't blame Norah Roberts too much - she publishes about 1000 pages a year and at that rate of typing it's surprising that her writing doesn't have bigger problems - but this what distinguishes her from Charlotte Bronte, who used some similar figurative language in _Jane Eyre_ when Jane first ran away from Rochester, and she did it on purpose, with all sorts of greater significance. The point is, this is an example of a bit of analysis, and Norah Roberts' text can't bear it, while Charlotte Bronte's can. That is the essence of why one text is "better" than the other, and this kind of thing can apply to any human activity.

I don't mean that this is technically objective, but many people share these subjective values with me - they are intersubjective values rather than purely subjective, solipsistic ones.

So, the point is, I would argue that greater technical awareness makes the best art (or music or whatever) better and everything else not so good.


----------



## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

Taggart said:


> Nope. You can understand all the technicalities and still consider a piece rubbish.


My question was really whether technical understanding makes the process of reaching the point of enjoyment easier (quicker) - not whether it helps you determine the quality standard of a piece. This isn't about making judgements of the music, but making enquiries about the process by which listeners explore music. Let me exemplify.

Suppose two scenarios...

-you are listening for the first time to a symphony by Haydn, but you are familiar with other works by the composer and with the symphonic form more generally. Because of this, the pattern-finding by which you become familiar with the form, melody, rhythm is a better-informed process than for the listener who has never before heard any Haydn or any symphonies.
-you are listening to Debussy's _Jeux_. where form and pattern are much less regular, more fluid. Does the technically-informed listener still have an advantage over the amateur listener in making the journey towards familiarity?


----------



## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> I
> More generally, do you prefer to move from one new piece to another, constantly in search of the unfamiliar? At what point in listening to a piece over time do _you _get maximum pleasure?


I move from one piece to another constantly in search of the unfamiliar.

I also play pieces over and over again until I know them inside out.

And everywhere in between.

It varies of course, but I'd say my maximum pleasure is theoretically on the first playing and about the tenth playing of a work.


----------



## Sudonim (Feb 28, 2013)

I like to explore the unfamiliar. I remember when I first listened to Schnittke's 1st symphony that I loved how it seemed a surprise was around every corner. I have lots of 20th-century music still to listen to that I'm looking forward to hearing for just that kind of reason. (Earlier composers, Haydn for example, can surprise as well.)

But I'm with you, MacLeod, on taking some time to derive "maximum" (or perhaps "improved") pleasure from a piece. I can read music and know a tiny bit of theory, but I'm still quite the amateur - especially with classical music, to which I've only lately come. I've learned over my years of listening to music that I can't necessarily trust my initial reaction to a piece. I remember reading Robert Christgau saying that "one of my biggest skills as a critic (which took years to learn) is that I know when I know what I think" - in other words, he can perceive when his feelings about a song or an album are pretty much "settled" and there won't be a lot of hand-wringing or reconsideration later. Sometimes I think I have reached the same point, but not always. Especially with classical music, whose language I am only beginning to learn.

By the way: Wood, I love your new avatar. Monk is the man!


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> I'm genuinely interested in whether a fuller (not, you'll note, a 'better') technical understanding makes it easier to enjoy.


Well, it may speed _the getting familiar part_ more quickly, but as far as enjoyment, which is a generally vague word anyway, there are different sorts, I suppose somewhat or very dependent upon your temperament.

Joy of exploring the unfamiliar: gone, of course, once the piece is familiar to you 

Joy of 'getting the piece,' which does take familiarity.

Now, as to your enjoyment of the piece itself, that is really between you and the piece. Familiarity might make you overall more comfortable and appreciative, like repeated walks through a landscape can give you a greater love of this turn, that, and a more general feeling for the whole terrain. Conversely, with knowing some of the turns of events which are more of a nature of surprise, well, that can go either way.

Knowing music more technically I think does make for a quicker general knack for sussing a piece out, and more readily anticipating what is to come, but that is _just the technical,_ i.e. it is not necessarily going to have you liking the piece more or less. Some of the technical knowledge is akin to appreciating say, a certain clever or innovative detail of the engineering of a bridge -- but you don't need any of that, and I think that appreciation is _more an on top of_ or _in addition to_ the most important level of appreciation, i.e. aesthetically you find a kind of beauty there (beauty is as relative as every cliche in circulation about different perceptions of beauty, natch.)

So, though not a completely transferable analogy (since a bridge can be "taken in" all at once) knowing the engineering of the bridge crossing the Firth of Forth, or the Golden Gate Bridge in California, is not really going to accelerate or deepen your aesthetic appreciation of those structures, but may add some things of interest to or on top of what your eyes see.

I love when a piece is new to me completely, never before heard, because that first listening has all the delight and interest of discovery and constant surprise. Even with my training, this does not affect at all when I hear a work new to me from older eras, where some might claim predictability is inevitable.

An acquired familiarity does give you more a chance to look around and not be distracted or put off-center by each and every surprise, turn of the road. Too, like you, the more familiar I am with every twist and turn, then I would say if the piece still holds me, with what were initial surprises no longer any surprise, then I know -- for me -- that piece is one I would call "a place I like to go," and repeatedly.

I do know and readily recognize many musical tricks and turns, "getting those," often enough, 'in one.' That is of course because of a highly trained and practiced ear, so I'm sure my developed musical memory (includes longer structures) gives me quicker initial access. Knowing the technical bits and devices adds some _intellectual_ dimension of enjoyment, or "appreciation," of a piece, while for me, any piece of music (any sort) must have a basic visceral appeal and effect -- all the intellectually clever constructs in the world are not going to help me 'appreciate' that piece much more on the visceral plane, which to me counts more than anything. It is generally considered true, and I agree, that some of those technical aspects are what make a piece work in the overall, i.e. if they seem -- in a way -- as organic or necessary to the piece as any parts of the sounds it makes, that is probably where the piece gets high praise from all, lay or cognoscenti.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

When I was younger it would take repeated listening's before I would understand a piece. As I have gotten older and solidify my tastes, it does not take as long for me to determine whether or not I would like a piece.

The older I get the more I realize how subjective liking music is. Just because I like a piece does it mean it is great and just because I dislike a piece does it me it is bad. This is why I frequently clash with some of the experts around here.

I heard an analogy from a composer that really has helped me understand music better. David Holsinger, a noted band composer, was a guest conductor with a band that I play with. He considered himself a sound painter. If one considers a piece of music as a painting of sound, it really changes one perspectives. The difference between atonal and tonal music is that the composer is using different sound colors. I hope you find this helpful.

As far as technical knowledge, I really do not know. I have known many non-musicians who are very perceptive listeners. From my experience technical knowledge is really a tool that a performer needs to do a better job of performing a piece.


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Several points.

Understanding a work technically doesn't help your enjoyment of it, but does sometimes help you understand why you like a piece after it's determined you do like it. Program notes are good for life of composer, historical context, etc. But save the technical stuff until you really feel you have to understand it.

I've never personally understood helter skelter running from one piece to another as if here's some prize for having heard the most music. When I was learning the classical standard repertoire as a kid, I'd listen to a piece, and if anything about i5 spoke to me -- even just one passage from one movement -- I'd listen to it again, and again, until I'd absorbed the work and either liked it not. Even at a concert, where relistening isn't possible, if I heard a work that I thought I liked, I'd go get the record and listen to it the same way. Sometimes I was surprised (I was blown away by the Scriabin Third in concert, then got the record and discovered it was drivel (to me). more often then not I brought the concert experience to my listening and discovered new works that way. 

Technical analysis can work, or can be horribly pedantic. (I once bought a paperback of academic essays about James Thurber, whose writing I really liked. They told me nothing, and one misguided paper tried to analyze the effect of his humor by counting adjectives and adverbs, this telling you everything you need to know about some technical analysis.). I learned the basics of musical notation in school, as do most people, but was and am a dreadful sight reader. Nevertheless, in high school, after I'd immersed myself in classical music for a number of years and started wondering about some of the technical things I was reading, I bought and actually read through the shorter (paperback) Harvard Dictionary of Music, just so I had some idea what common terms meant. That's not a bad thing to do, but only after you find yourself really wondering about notation and terminology.

Short answer: best way the learn music is by repeated listening and enjoying it. Save the why until later, if at all.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> or understand what is meant by "the opening string octaves with their dotted note figures" which is part of the sleeve notes)


That means all the strings are playing the same note, but in different registers. And the dotted note figure is the rhythm that is made up of a beat that overstays its welcome and holds itself through to the next beat, followed by a delayed second beat.

Personally, I get a lot of enjoyment in learning the technical in and outs of a piece and it helps me a lot to enjoy the music on a deeper level.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

arpeggio said:


> When I was younger it would take repeated listening's before I would understand a piece. As I have gotten older and solidify my tastes, it does not take as long for me to determine whether or not I would like a piece.
> 
> The older I get the more I realize how subjective liking music is. Just because I like a piece does it mean it is great and just because I dislike a piece does it me it is bad. This is why I frequently clash with some of the experts around here.
> 
> ...


Morton Feldman commented that he found English music more literary influenced / based, and Amercian music more painterly.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Suppose two scenarios...
> 
> -you are listening for the first time to a symphony by Haydn, but you are familiar with other works by the composer and with the symphonic form more generally. Because of this, the pattern-finding by which you become familiar with the form, melody, rhythm is a better-informed process than for the listener who has never before heard any Haydn or any symphonies.


Yes. This doesn't necessarily depend on being able to describe something in technical terminology, though. One can develop a sense of "how Haydn does things" without knowing the ways in which those particular things are described "in the field". It does help one to communicate it to others, but that's not the same thing as understanding.



MacLeod said:


> -you are listening to Debussy's _Jeux_. where form and pattern are much less regular, more fluid. Does the technically-informed listener still have an advantage over the amateur listener in making the journey towards familiarity?


That depends entirely on both listeners. The technically-informed listener may actually be less receptive here, because the music doesn't fit the pre-defined schema that he or she is familiar with, while the amateur listener may simply be open to letting the piece do whatever it will without rigid expectations.

I know that in my case, I have for some time used listening in conjunction with a score (if available) to help me "get" a piece more quickly. It works for me for two reasons: it helps me focus on the music and nothing else, and having a visual shape associated with an unfamiliar theme makes it easier to grasp as it recurs. If, on the other hand, you find looking at a score while listening distracts you from listening, then obviously this approach won't work. Everybody is different!


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Rocco took me outside my Beethoven box when a notice came in the mail for a performance of Brahms German Requiem next month. He listened to it over and over on you tube, then bought a used copy. I wasn't all that excited about it but got a ticket to go anyway. When we went for the used CD the shop had 6 different used copies and since there was one with Gundula Janowitz singing soprano I could not resist. Am listening now and gaining appreciation for this great work. The concert will be wonderful, it is at Hill Auditorium at the University of Michgan campus and is known for it's world class acoustics. I saw Messiah there last December and the sound was excellent.


----------



## Guest (Mar 21, 2014)

Many thanks for the replies.



PetrB said:


> Knowing music more technically I think does make for a quicker general knack for sussing a piece out, and more readily anticipating what is to come, but that is _just the technical,_ i.e. it is not necessarily going to have you liking the piece more or less.


Interesting that you confirm my idea that it _might _help with familiarisation - but that word 'necessarily'...it can get people into trouble round here.



arpeggio said:


> When I was younger it would take repeated listening's before I would understand a piece. As I have gotten older and solidify my tastes, it does not take as long for me to determine whether or not I would like a piece.
> 
> The older I get the more I realize how subjective liking music is. Just because I like a piece does it mean it is great and just because I dislike a piece does it me it is bad. This is why I frequently clash with some of the experts around here.


This might sound picky, but I want to distinguish between 'liking' and 'enjoying'. 'Liking' seems to me to carry a summary decision with it: I've listened to this sufficiently to decide that I like it. 'Enjoying' is merely a process, a consequence of moment-by-moment interaction. I've listened to enough DSCH to know that I'm going to enjoy listening to an unfamiliar work, but whether, once familiarity is established, I will decide I like it - that's another matter. After all, if I didn't enjoy the process of listening to the unfamiliar, I'd never make progress.

Perhaps, to clarify, I should rephrase 'maximum enjoyment' as 'peak emotional response'. Most works that have led me to a point of joy only do so for a brief period. Beethoven's 6th used to, but doesn't any longer. I still listen to it and I still like it, but I don't reach the same 'high' any more. (Perhaps, like being married for a long time, passion has been largely replaced by companionship - a different but equally valid enjoyment)



Mahlerian said:


> I know that in my case, I have for some time used listening in conjunction with a score (if available) to help me "get" a piece more quickly. It works for me for two reasons: it helps me focus on the music and nothing else, and having a visual shape associated with an unfamiliar theme makes it easier to grasp as it recurs. If, on the other hand, you find looking at a score while listening distracts you from listening, then obviously this approach won't work. Everybody is different!


You've found me out here: at the moment, I've been listening in the car, in the office and walking the dog - perhaps not ideal circumstances for grasping the whole of a piece. If I were to sit down with a score, that might indeed help, as I've just enough musical knowledge to follow it. But I guess a musician, like a reader, can never again look at those marks on a page and _not _know what they mean.


----------



## Guest (Dec 13, 2014)

My musings on how I'm listening to Mahler prompted me to search for a thread about 'listening with intent'. I don't think it was this one, but it was the only one I could find.

My reason for searching for it was to revisit the idea about how familiarity is required to get the full import of a piece of music. Exploring the unfamiliar brings its own rewards, but until you know what comes next, you can't fully appreciate the passages where tension and expectation are built.

As PetrB says, once you're familiar, the joy of the unfamiliar is gone. I know that what I'm experiencing now, in exploring a particular piece, is only aided by careful and repeated listening in an ideal context. Yet that very requirement will ultimately lead to a diminishing return. I must say this bothers me, this paradoxical effect. I think there's a metaphor for life somewhere there...


----------



## Guest (Dec 13, 2014)

Ever read any of Herbert Brün's writings? He mentions how fleeting and therefore how precious is the time before familiarity.

Enjoy it while you can!!


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I enjoy exploring what has been previously unknown to me. To me, knowing the continuity of music history, I try to frame the new piece that I am hearing within structures or expectations of older pieces and trying to see how it all fits just like a puzzle piece.

Not the easiest method but it's all good for sure. It's like doing a scientific notebook for a physics lab doing this analytical listening.


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I'd say experience in listening to music from a certain time period, style, composer etc. probably helps more in getting familiar with the music than cold technical knowledge. 
Exploring and discovering new music can be a wonderful thing, like falling in love, it will never come back (with the same person) but it sure is a great temporary high.


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

GGluek said:


> (I was blown away by the Scriabin Third in concert, then got the record and discovered it was drivel (to me)


Just for the record, I liked your post but not this part of it. I'd say it was the recording's fault.


----------



## Guest (Aug 5, 2016)

Reviving this thread to ask a related question to 'familiarity'.

Listening yesterday for the first time to Mahler's 3rd Symphony (BBC Proms, LSO/Haitink) I was struck by the question of how the audience can "get it" at only one listen, which was presumably what it must have been like for the majority of the contemporary audience. Either that, or I am mistaken and there was no such thing as a lay audience: everyone listening either knew what to expect or how to deal with the unfamiliar...or I'm wrong in that there's nothing to get (despite what we know was written about it by Mahler himself) and peeps just got on with listening in the moment and never mind musical meaning. Hope that makes sense to someone.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I agree with you, I always need many listenings to know a piece better, but a good deal of the educated public of those days would know about what musical fabric and ongoings (sonata form etc.) that could be expected from the presented themes in a work, though. Hence also the bewilderment and uproar when things didn´t go as expected.

But another aspect is the rather embarrassing amount of repetitions found in some classical works; I think that this was a simple way of letting the public to become aquainted with them, in an era with few live performances and no recordings to return to, only reduced piano scores and various arrangements at times.


----------



## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> Reviving this thread to ask a related question to 'familiarity'.
> 
> Listening yesterday for the first time to Mahler's 3rd Symphony (BBC Proms, LSO/Haitink) I was struck by the question of how the audience can "get it" at only one listen, which was presumably what it must have been like for the majority of the contemporary audience. Either that, or I am mistaken and there was no such thing as a lay audience: everyone listening either knew what to expect or how to deal with the unfamiliar...or I'm wrong in that there's nothing to get (despite what we know was written about it by Mahler himself) and peeps just got on with listening in the moment and never mind musical meaning. Hope that makes sense to someone.


I do listen to many times exactly for the same reason as you do - in search of a meaning, hidden meanings. and each time I listen to something which is not even new for me and in fact I know a piece quite well I do find this musical meaning...mmm.....I'm rediscovering it each time, for me each time listening to something which is already "familiar" turns out to be "unfamiliar" and there is so much joy in it, being unfamiliar with familiar, seeing it always with new eyes or here we should say listening to it with new ears 

and something more ...as for your experience of Mahler's 3rd. I don't think that after first listening one can understand all layers of meaning , of course we can grasp something from the first time and first of all which is the easiest to get is aesthetic beauty of a piece , but usually a great piece of art is multi-dimensional and may offer much more for a listener especially for a one concerned about meanings.


----------



## Guest (Aug 7, 2016)

joen_cph said:


> a good deal of the educated public of those days would know about what musical fabric and ongoings (sonata form etc.) that could be expected from the presented themes in a work, though. Hence also the bewilderment and uproar when things didn´t go as expected.
> 
> But another aspect is the rather embarrassing amount of repetitions found in some classical works; I think that this was a simple way of letting the public to become aquainted with them, in an era with few live performances and no recordings to return to, only reduced piano scores and various arrangements at times.


Thanks joen. Two thoughts in response. First, it confirms one's suspicion that classical was written for an elite to understand, since your average Joe (like me) wouldn't have a hope in hell of making much sense of something as gargantuan as Mahler's 3rd. Second, whilst the repetition provides a helpful staging post, it can distort the overall sense of the piece. No wonder some people find Beethoven's 5th a turn-off!



helenora said:


> and something more ...as for your experience of Mahler's 3rd. *I don't think that after first listening one can understand all layers of meaning* , of course we can grasp something from the first time and first of all which is the easiest to get is aesthetic beauty of a piece , but usually a great piece of art is multi-dimensional and may offer much more for a listener especially for a one concerned about meanings.


Thanks helenora - and no, nor do I. In fact, it's difficult to get _any _layer of meaning at first sitting.

It's hardly surprising that audiences were dissatisfied when composers confounded expectation. Selfishly, they wanted to be able to fully enjoy and comprehend a piece when they first heard it, give that few would hear it again. Selfishly, composers set about changing the rules, regardless of audience needs. Easy for them of course, as they knew what they were writing about, and Mahler even confided in friends and explained the 'program' for the symphony (according to Wiki) though not to the public. In fact, according to Wiki, it wasn't performed in its entirety until five years after its premiere, and Wiki's listing of the performance history is rather revealing.



> Performance of second, third and sixth movements: 1897, Berlin, conducted by Felix Weingartner.
> Premiere of the complete symphony: June 9, 1902, Krefeld, cond. by the composer.
> Dutch premieres: Oct. 17, 1903 in Arnhem; five days later Mahler led the Amsterdam premiere with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.
> American premiere: May 9, 1914, Cincinnati May Festival, cond. by Ernst Kunwald.
> ...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_(Mahler)#Performance

How any individual listener might expect to get much out of a composition so rarely played is beyond my comprehension.

This is an extreme example, but the general point - that much classical music was not written for audience understanding - seems to hold true.


----------



## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> This is an extreme example, but the general point - that much classical music was not written for audience understanding - seems to hold true.


right! I absolutely agree. 
it is not for audience, even though there is a chance and now with technologies we have more of it that audience will get it and they do, at least some, but in fact you are right, any artist creates not for a public , it shouldn't be aimed for a public, if it is it's not an art it's a production of something with a goal to sell. The true art is always expression, self-expression where it's not a goal to be understood, the goal is to be expressed....therefore it's a bit cruel statement that a work of art is a thing in itself, it exists for itself and if an audience somehow gets it, well, good for an audience, but it changes nothing in a work of art as it is, because its own value will never be affected by public acceptance or non-acceptance. here I'm not talking about average Joe or non-average, I just speak about a work of art that will always be above us and it's an audience that should grow to get it, not a work of art should be created with an intent to be understandable by audience in easy way .Otherwise what we will get is a contemporary popular culture where so called artists create their art for the needs of their audience and satisfy audiences needs or/and reflect audience's expectations and tastes, etc.....but well, that's not an art regardless what fans of such art might think of....


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

helenora said:


> right! I absolutely agree.
> it is not for audience, even though there is a chance and now with technologies we have more of it that audience will get it and they do, at least some, but in fact you are right, any artist creates not for a public , it shouldn't be aimed for a public, if it is it's not an art it's a production of something with a goal to sell. The true art is always expression, self-expression where it's not a goal to be understood, the goal is to be expressed....therefore it's a bit cruel statement that a work of art is a thing in itself, it exists for itself and if an audience somehow gets it, well, good for an audience, but it changes nothing in a work of art as it is, because its own value will never be affected by public acceptance or non-acceptance. here I'm not talking about average Joe or non-average, I just speak about a work of art that will always be above us and it's an audience that should grow to get it, not a work of art should be created with an intent to be understandable by audience in easy way .Otherwise what we will get is a contemporary popular culture where so called artists create their art for the needs of their audience and satisfy audiences needs or/and reflect audience's expectations and tastes, etc.....but well, that's not an art regardless what fans of such art might think of....


As always: very wise words .


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> More generally, do you prefer to move from one new piece to another, constantly in search of the unfamiliar? At what point in listening to a piece over time do _you _get maximum pleasure?


I remain one of those who does "move from one new piece to another" as I am "constantly in search of the unfamiliar". Which explains why I explore so much contemporary music (both "classical" and non-classical, as in free jazz and noise-experimental music), but also seek out obscure Baroque and Classical and Romantic era works, too. I admit, much of this music proves ultimately unsatisfying (dull, boring, forgettable, drab....), but surprises abound.

Yet, I haven't abandoned "familiar" music, which explains why I have dozens of copies of the Complete Beethoven Symphonies, the Bach Brandenburg Concerti, Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_, and Schubert's _Winterreise_ .... And I re-listen to these works regularly!

So ... there is much adventure to be had in this musical world.

As for "maximum pleasure"? That's a difficult thing to assess. Sometimes a "first hearing" might prove the greatest pleasure I will derive from a particular work. Sometimes a particular interpretation (conductor/orchestra/performer) will prove enlightening. Sometimes greater knowledge of and information about a work will allow for increased enjoyment. I really don't worry so much about this aspect of it all. I know what I like, and I will continue to re-hear these works. I enjoy exploring the new and different, and shall continue on that route, too.


----------



## Poodle (Aug 7, 2016)

You can always try again


----------

