# Watching Music



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Here's what Stravinsky had to say (and we're not talking about opera here):

"I have always had a horror of listening to music with my eyes shut, with nothing for them to do. The sight of the gestures and movements of the various parts of the body producing the music is fundamentally necessary if it is to be grasped in all its fullness. All music created or composed demands some exteriorization for the perception of the listener. In other words, it must have an intermediary, an executant. That being an essential condition, without which music cannot wholly reach us, why wish to ignore it, or try to do so—why shut the eyes to this fact which is inherent in the very nature of musical art? Obviously one frequently prefers to turn away one’s eyes, or even close them, when the superfluity of the player’s gesticulations prevents the concentration of one’s faculties of hearing. But if the player’s movements are evoked solely by the exigencies of the music, and do not tend to make an impression on the listener by extramural devices, why not follow with the eye such movements as those of the drummer, the violinist or the trombonist, which facilitate one’s auditory perceptions? As a matter of fact, those who maintain that they only enjoy music to the full with their eyes shut do not hear better than when they have them open, but the absence of visual distractions enables them to abandon themselves to the reveries induced by the lullaby of its sounds, and that is really what they prefer to the music itself."

What do you think? Personally, I very much agree with Stravinsky. Although I can of course still reach the heights of ecstasy when just listening with the comfort of my earphones, I think music is rightfully seen as a physical act with a human mediator that needs to be seen.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Im doing it right now. Watching Alexander Nevsky being performed in the Concertgebouw (on TV). Joy!


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

It certainly adds an extra dimension. Thus CDs are rendered useless - well, not quite, but I certainly get much more from being able to see a piece performed (none more so than Stravinsky's!). Was his quote spoken/written in English or translated? If the latter he was more erudite than I am in my natural language!


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I really enjoyed Bernstein's Mahler cycle on DVD, he especially is a lot of fun to watch. I don't think there's anything wrong with having that visual element, if anything I think one of the next logical steps to take in music, after opera, ballet and the relatively new concept of music video, is to combine sound and visuals to create a new form where the two absolutely need eachother. Not just images with a sound track, or music with a visual accompaniment, but a genuine merging of the two, with both controlled entirely by the composer/creator. Sort of like how Wagner took charge in opera by writing music and libretti, here the composer would be that and the director, too. The closest we have to what I have in mind right now is probably Zappa's 200 Motels movie, where the music is very much intertwined in many different ways with the on screen action.

Sorry, I got way off track, just another one of my head-in-the-clouds ideas. To get back on topic; I think that watching performance footage is just as valid as listening to the music. People don't go to concerts blindfolded, unless they're really stupid, but then I guess there _are_ plenty of really stupid people around. I notice there are some proponents of music as a purely audible medium around here, I wonder; do they also disapprove of reading the score while listening? I don't do that, but I know there are plenty who do, are they wicked degenerates?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Ideally, I agree. Video is the future of music, even classical music.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Hmm. Sometimes it's great to see people actually playing, and it adds to the experience. Sometimes, though, especially with "program music"... I just want to imagine, and forget that there are actually people and instruments that produce the music!


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## kmhrm (Jan 17, 2012)

Crudblud said:


> are they wicked degenerates?


They are degenerate mortals..... 

I don't often go to live concerts (its difficult) But its a plus, or a thrill.

Actually, few years ago; I have been to my first ever concert on the new year's eve. It was a mix of excerpts/themes/lied from famous operas, waltzes, symphonies. The relative I went with is an experienced listener. He was insulted by the decorations and Christmas tree lying near the stage. He told me "The only architecture I care for is the music and the orchestra" I guess its obvious that there is the thrill of the seeing how music works. I still prefer to hear it on CD and sometimes with score, which is marvelous. 
But, in summary:
bread(high quality indeed)= music 
bread + wine + chesse = music + score
a feast = concert

unfortunately I can't have a feast everyday. It's unbearable if everyday.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Crudblud said:


> The closest we have to what I have in mind right now is probably Zappa's 200 Motels movie, where the music is very much intertwined in many different ways with the on screen action.


The music in this film is an element of the on screen action. It was recorded in real time during the shooting. Not a recommended procedure even by Zappa himself.

I have to confess that I've never purchased a classical DVD. I do want to try a couple, but I can never sit still in front of the screen to watch a whole piece. Most of my DVDs sit around and collect dust.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

"_I have always had a horror of listening to music with my eyes shut, with nothing for them to do. The sight of the gestures and movements of the various parts of the body producing the music is fundamentally necessary if it is to be grasped in all its fullness_."

While I think there definitely is something to the visual aspect of music, I think this statement perhaps goes a little too far...I wonder what composers like Joaquin Rodrigo, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder would have thought if someone suggested to them that they had never been able to grasp music in all its fullness?


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

How can the mind's eye see the beautiful images sparked by the music if your eyes are focused on saliva dripping out of trumpets and sweaty hands plucking strings? I prefer to listen to music in a dark room and pretend I'm floating in a sea of nothingness, awaiting for the music to paint it's own landscape in front of my eyes.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

EarthBoundRules said:


> How can the mind's eye see the beautiful images sparked by the music if your eyes are focused on saliva dripping out of trumpets and sweaty hands plucking strings? I prefer to listen to music in a dark room and pretend I'm floating in a sea of nothingness, awaiting for the music to paint it's own landscape in front of my eyes.


Stravinsky's got you covered on that one: "As a matter of fact, those who maintain that they only enjoy music to the full with their eyes shut do not hear better than when they have them open, but the absence of visual distractions enables them to abandon themselves to the reveries induced by the lullaby of its sounds, and that is really what they prefer to the music itself."


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

I like watching musicians and sometimes it adds to the experience of listening to music for me. But the assumption that people who close their eyes while listening to music just do so in order to "abandon themselves to the reveries induced by the lullaby of its sounds" comes across as a bit presumptuous and arrogant. When I close my eyes, I don't usually go off on programmatic daydreams or sink into drowsy passivity. When I close my eyes, it allows me to focus on more aspects of the music than I can keep straight in my mind when I'm also receiving visual stimuli. I often notice more that way.

If I want to commune with people and think about human experience in relation to music, I'll look at the musicians. If I want to be aware of all the beautiful details of orchestration and the intricacies of form, I'll close my eyes. Maybe Stravinsky can take it all in at once, but I can't.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Meaghan said:


> I like watching musicians and sometimes it adds to the experience of listening to music for me. But the assumption that people who close their eyes while listening to music just do so in order to "abandon themselves to the reveries induced by the lullaby of its sounds" comes across as a bit presumptuous and arrogant. When I close my eyes, I don't usually go off on programmatic daydreams or sink into drowsy passivity. When I close my eyes, it allows me to focus on more aspects of the music than I can keep straight in my mind when I'm also receiving visual stimuli. I often notice more that way.


This is what I do as well. I'm not a fan of imagining scenes that aren't implied by the music (not that I'm knocking other people who do it), but getting rid of the visual distraction can certainly hope concentration on aspects of form and style.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

you only see, in videos, what the director wants you to see, so they're very limiting.

live is best, but it takes much time, money and effort.

dvds of operas can be very good, or to see artists we will never otherwise see.

i very much enjoy cds and rarely watch dvds unless it's to see the Klemperers, Kempffs, Furtwangler, etc.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

This is the proper way of "watching" music:


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## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

This made me feel better about sometimes imagining myself conducting or players playing their instruments while listening to music. 
I guess I just try to perceive all the sounds, and it helps to have clear "imagined" sound representations.

But then again, sometimes I experience sceneries or images, sometimes emotions and sometimes the music seems to range from being totally "flat surfaced" (I don't mean musically shallow, but visually) to sharp as spikes. And even sometimes I can associate colours with certain pieces. 
I haven't found any tendencies or what exactly in those pieces provoke different imagined visual experiences, but it truly adds to the listening experience.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

I once had an experience while at a performance (by Arthur Rubinstein) which made an indelible impression. I was thinking that Chopin is my favorite composer, the piano is my favorite instrument, and Rubinstein is my favorite pianist. So I closed my eyes in order to savor the moment more intensely. 

When I opened them again, I could see a shimmering light connecting Rubinstein and the piano, a circle that connected them, a glowing connection between the instrument, the composer, and the pianist. 

It was only that one time, and it remains as vivid for me today as it was all those many years ago. :angel:


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

EarthBoundRules said:


> How can the mind's eye see the beautiful images sparked by the music if your eyes are focused on saliva dripping out of trumpets and sweaty hands plucking strings? I prefer to listen to music in a dark room and pretend I'm floating in a sea of nothingness, awaiting for the music to paint it's own landscape in front of my eyes.


Yes this.

The cognitive dissonance of listening to that beautiful ethereal oboe melody floating high above, and to watch a singularly unattractive fellow with a red bloated face and neck, forcing all that air between those two little reeds.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Being a Bear of Little Brain, I find that, aside from the full concert experience, I can best absorb and follow and appreciate CM when I just listen to it without visual stimulation. Can't multitask well, maybe. I do alternate listen-only episodes with occasional YouTube viewings, but that often just whets my appetite to again hear and concentrate on the piece later in listen-only mode.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I have to be doing something with m eyes. A live concert is one thing, but if Im listening to CD/iPod/radio/etc., I have to be reading or driving or something. For the same reason, I hate being read to.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

No. Light, movement, audience noise... ultimately everything but the sound itself is a distraction. 
If it were possible, I would be the only audience member at a concert held in complete darkness. That would be my ideal concert.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

EarthBoundRules said:


> How can the mind's eye see the beautiful images sparked by the music if your eyes are focused on saliva dripping out of trumpets and sweaty hands plucking strings? I prefer to listen to music in a dark room and pretend I'm floating in a sea of nothingness, awaiting for the music to paint it's own landscape in front of my eyes.


That's very interesting, because I watch a lot of videos. I have never seen saliva dripping from the mouth of a trumpet player or sweaty hands on plucked strings. But I have seen a lot of pretty women in the string sections sounding like angels, and brass sections dressed in tuxedos that could down the walls of Jericho.

I sometimes like watching live performances or dvds as a reminder that actual people play the music and it just doesn't spring from the head of Zeus. The immortal composers were once flesh and blood human beings too, but how many listeners ever think of them that way? Usually they're thought of as an abstract historical figure who somehow left behind a magical legacy from out of the pages of a book.

So, I've rarely been distracted by the visuals of actual living people in the act of creating and playing their hearts out, though I can still understand if someone still wasn't interested in watching them. Then there's also the plus of seeing the tremendous, well-deserved reward of applause after a particularly fine performance. I feel that the visual can often add an extra dimension to the entire experience.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I watch a lot of DVD too and I like them very much, we also have the Mezzo channel and Brava on T.V and they gives us hours of interesting, and not so interesting music, 24/7.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

_'All music created or composed demands some exteriorization for the perception of the listener'_. And then he goes on to say that's an 'essential condition', without any real justification.

As long as you know roughly how music is being played or have seen a concert once before, I don't think your experience is seriously hampered by not seeing the musicians.

It's a pretty poor thesis from the old fascist :lol: He's assuming that his own preference/cognitive wiring is the only true one.


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## T Son of Ander (Aug 25, 2015)

Perhaps Stravinsky's statements are a reaction to the growing popularity of recorded music. What year did he say all that? Perhaps he was afraid recordings would be the death of live performance.

I personally think seeing the musicians play is a very cool experience. But with orchestral music, I don't think it adds _that_ much. Seeing a string section bowing doesn't do much for how I perceieve the music; the same with watching a horn or wind player. The percussion is more interesting, as is the conductor. Also, I suppose, when themes are bouncing around the orchestra, it can be cool to see the players. Mostly, I think seeing the performers is more rewarding when it's a smaller ensemble, or especially, with popular music. Then there's a level entertainment value added to the music.

Stravinsky does have a point... but only to a point. I think he went too far.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

CypressWillow said:


> I once had an experience while at a performance (by Arthur Rubinstein) which made an indelible impression. I was thinking that Chopin is my favorite composer, the piano is my favorite instrument, and Rubinstein is my favorite pianist. So I closed my eyes in order to savor the moment more intensely.
> 
> When I opened them again, I could see a shimmering light connecting Rubinstein and the piano, a circle that connected them, a glowing connection between the instrument, the composer, and the pianist.
> 
> It was only that one time, and it remains as vivid for me today as it was all those many years ago. :angel:


I was fortunate enough to see Rubinstein in one of his last recitals. He had just released an album pairing Beethoven's Op 31/3 and Schumann Op 12 Fantasy Pieces and I remember that they were both on the program. There was something incongruous about this old, frail man summoning such powerful and poetic sounds. I vividly recall the radiance and impish smile on his face during the last movement of the Beethoven, which is a playful and joyous piece. That was an instance of the visual enhancing the music


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Some visuals can ruin my enjoyment. I have a Blu Ray of Barenboim playing the 5 Beethoven PCs and the close ups show the sweat pouring off his face, landing on the Piano like raindrops and splashing all over. If I had been present in the audience I wouldn't have seen that, especially since he was also conducting he was facing the Orchestra and had his back to the audience


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

It depends. I can find it thrilling to participate, eyes wide open, in a performance where the player(s)/singer(s) have great stage presence and the audience is alive with delight. But, that happens in intimate venues only for me. I have too often found it tedious to be in the cheap seats of a large hall gazing at the back of some conductor or at some tiny little pianist.

But, to answer Polednice's question - when Stravinsky says "the absence of visual distractions enables them to abandon themselves to the reveries induced by the lullaby of its sounds, and that is really what they prefer to the music itself", I don't think he's being honest. He doesn't even bother with all the sacred music that's traditionally performed out of sight of the congregation. 

Does anybody else think they get a better grasp of what is going on with their eyes closed? "Get it" more personally and intensely? Can concentrate better on its lines and colours (or is that only us synaesthetes?)


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

Musique concrete composers are fuming at this!


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