# Multi-Tasking?



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

> Haabrann: "I love to read about music while listening to it."





> Larkenfield: "One of the great pleasures in life."


From another thread.

I cannot multitask thusly. While I can walk and chew gum at the same time, I have found over the years that I cannot fully (maybe the key word is "fully") engage in music while doing something else that is close to equally demanding. My most close bond with music is headphones on, in a darkened room, eyes closed, though an exception is watching/listening in concert or via YouTube. But even then, my concentration on the music is not as complete. But perhaps those I have quoted above are discussing a more general period wherein they alternate periods of listening to and reading about music---I don't know. Or maybe they can multitask effectively, in which case I do envy them and anyone else so constituted and able.  Comments?

An old topic, but newly retriggered...


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## Haabrann (Mar 30, 2019)

In my case, it is not really a case of multitasking. 

When listening to a piece for the first time, or if I have a specific goal with the listening (for example comparing recordings and such), I have to listen exclusively.

But for example yesterday I was reading about HIP and came across the famed Adorno essay ''Bach defended against his devotees''. Then I put on a Gardiner Bach recording while reading. And then I pick up something from that essay I want to investigate further, I'm finding myself reading about harpsichord evolution, types, construction and playing. While listening to Bach on the stereo, on the sofa with the Ipad in hand, having a great time.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

I can read non-fiction on non-musical topics, write creatively, or do physical tasks while listening, but anything that requires my high concentration gets disturbed by random musical insights.

John Williams said once that he cannot drive a car and listen to music at the same time, or else he would crash into a tree. I can fully empathize with that.

While concentrating hard, I usually tend to have some sort of ear-worm music piece playing whole the time in my head in the background. Possibly it's an automatic response aimed at drowning the noise of the surroundings.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Be totally absorbing and appreciating a piece of music - just as if one were _only_ concentrating on it - whilst reading? Really? Surely, one impinges the other?

Having said that, I know Strauss (Richard) could and did sometimes compose music _*whilst*_ conducting another work.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Depends on the type of music and how familiar I am with it. When I was in college, I used to study for exams and listen to familiar Mozart or Morricone CD's I had at the same time, I was allocating about 10% of my attention or processing memory to the listening. The latest CD I bought which is of Rawsthorne's Symphonies, and which I never listened to before and aren't as easy to follow as Mozart or Morricone, I would surf the net with it on, and very little got through to me, at 10% of attention. I'm relistening to Rawsthorne at this moment, but devoting around 50% attention, and I think I'm getting it as if I was listening to it without doing other stuff.


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

Listening to music while reading: No way, no how. I learned long ago that if I try to listen to music while reading, studying, or doing something that demands some mental effort the music will either simply become background noise or might actually become quite annoying and distruptive to my concentration, especially in the case of opera or music with large dynanmic contrasts.

Listening to music while driving, cleaning, cooking, etc.: I find this quite pleasant and enjoyable, but as Phil says, how familiar I am with the music makes a big difference. If I try listening to a piece that is entirely new to me while multi-tasking, I find that most of it goes right over my head and that I retain very little of it. But if its a work or recording I'm familiar with then it totally enhances the activity Im engaged in.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

WildThing said:


> . But if its a work or recording I'm familiar with then it totally enhances the activity Im engaged in.


I'm at a point where I'm so busy, I can't devote a lot of time to intense, concentrated listening, which is frustrating. I've even thought of giving classical music up and going back to listening to three- to five-minute songs. Right now, like you, I am mostly collecting different interpretations of pieces I'm already familiar with. That doesn't require as much concentration as tackling someone like Ferneyhough, and I can do other things while they're playing.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

In general, if I want to listen to something then that's the only thing I can do. Trying to simultaneously read, watch TV, or any other activity that takes brain power shuttles the music to the background and I just hear it, not really listen. Depends on the music, too. When I clean house, do other chores and whatnot, I find some things like Tchaikovsky ballets, that Naxos Light British Composers series, and Joplin rags are great, But things like symphonies, opera, and concertos demand my brain's total attention. When driving, it's old country/western or '60s pop or Glazunov symphonies.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

There are some pieces of music that still remind me of the book I was reading when I was first listening to them (as a child). The music enriched the reading - but I'm not sure the reading enriched the music for me. 

Anyway, I never have a problem listening to music while reading or driving or anything else really. But my thinking style and my listening style do both rely on zoning in and out. That's the way I'm made and I am more than happy with the results! I am not a great believer in concentrating on a piece while it is playing but that hasn't stopped me getting to know a very large amount of music (to the extent of being able to hum along if I wanted to). I do probably rely on hearing something several times before I know it.


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## Guest (Oct 10, 2019)

I do not get much satisfaction from combining music listening with another activity. I get distracted, something in the music catches my attention, I get the feeling that I've missed the context. It causes a feeling of frustration. The exception is that sometimes listening to a new piece of music my attention will wander and I will loose the thread, thinking of something else. Then it is sometimes useful to listen to the piece through, even though I feel adrift, or that I am not getting it, just to have a roadmap of the piece in my mind when I subsequently listen with (hopefully) better attention.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Baron Scarpia said:


> Then it is sometimes useful to listen to the piece through, even though I feel adrift, or that I am not getting it, just to have a roadmap of the piece in my mind when I subsequently listen with (hopefully) better attention.


I've done that several times with a new piece; listened casually three or four times, then sat down and intensely focused on it. It has helped me fit the overall picture with the individual details.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

As one ages, so I am told, insomnia becomes more likely, more prevalent. It has become so with me but I find it an almost unmixed blessing in that I am retired and need not concern myself with getting "enough" sleep to perform next day adequately at work. So my nightly bouts with insomnia often find me, headphones on, fully engaged with music--old and new (but mostly old). The focus of a relaxed unworried sleeplessness allows me to find new pleasures even among and within pieces I've heard numberless times, making the old to a certain extent new again. I wish this blessing, though, only on those in a position like me to profit from it; the toll of sleeplessness on working people can be severe, as I know from personal experience.

On the non-concentrative aspects of music, I love Rock and Pop, loud, while driving--can be marvelous on a sunny day on a hill-and-dale road, swooping along--a pleasure completely unknown to even the most self-indulgent aesthetes of, say, 200 years ago. We do have Handel's several wonderful efforts for his George by water and otherwise, but not the same thing. For puttering about the house, multi-disk compilations--of Haydn symphonies, Respighian Ancient Music, or Rimsky-Korsakov's operatic suites and orchestral pieces--serve quite well.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Strange Magic said:


> From another thread.
> 
> I cannot multitask thusly. While I can walk and chew gum at the same time, I have found over the years that I cannot fully (maybe the key word is "fully") engage in music while doing something else that is close to equally demanding. My most close bond with music is headphones on, in a darkened room, eyes closed, though an exception is watching/listening in concert or via YouTube. But even then, my concentration on the music is not as complete. But perhaps those I have quoted above are discussing a more general period wherein they alternate periods of listening to and reading about music---I don't know. Or maybe they can multitask effectively, in which case I do envy them and anyone else so constituted and able.  Comments?
> 
> An old topic, but newly retriggered...


"How can you hit and think at the same time?" ~ Yogi Berra

However, you can watch a game and eat a hotdog at the same time in Yogi Berra Stadium. 

Effectively trying to concentrate on another matter and give full attention to music means you'll get half the music and do a crappy job on the other task. Serious listening for me means headphones, eyes closed, and no self created distractions.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I have found over the years that I cannot fully (maybe the key word is "fully") engage in music while doing something else that is close to equally demanding._

I think your final two words are the definer here. I find I can drive the car and listen to a lot of music that is not too demanding but I could never drive and concentrate on the intricacies of an opera, oratorio or a complex symphony simultaneously.

I work out at home using hand weights and stretch bands to all manner of music and have no problem doing both. Of course the only competition to the music is counting strokes or lifts or whatever. I may get lost in that if I concentrate too hard on the music.

The old cliché is that classical music is meant to be heard and is not dinner music. Mozart wrote a lot of music for royal parties that is somewhat intricate though I doubt the royals paid much attention to it while dining.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I often listen while doing other things. I call this 'indirect' or 'subconscious' listening, for while my conscious mind may be focused on one thing, I believe the subconscious hears everything else in the background and this can sometimes be an advantage because it has the ability to get an accurate impression of the whole performance. Then I know what I wish to hear again. Not everything has to be taken in consciously the first time; with recordings, there's always the second chance. I see nothing wrong with this and sometimes it's possible to be doing more than one thing at a time. In fact, it's possible that two simultaneous activities can enhance each other. There's more than one way to take something in because there are different dimensions to the mind and consciousness.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

There is one phenomena where I like "multi-tasking" of sorts. Namely people speaking with music in the background of their speech. Video essays use it often. So did state broadcasts in and right after World War II.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Browsing through the threads here while listening to music is about as much multi-tasking as I'm willing to do. Besides, listening to music through headphones (which I prefer to do) commits me to sit in one place and focus better.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I like to listen to music while I cook - that's about the level of multitasking I can handle. No reading or talking.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

If the music really catches my attention from the beginning and sounds engaging, I avoid being multi-tasking. If the music meanders and doesn't go to the point, I do other things. So it depends on the work is playing at the moment.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

My multitasking involves either reading headlines and a few sentences of each news article online, or reading threads here. And I mark and correct school work while listening. But I can't read books and listen to music at the same time. My marking doesn't involve much reading of words and sentences and paragraphs, my students don't write essays for me to read - I'm not that kind of teacher. You might also find me doing housework and listening to music, but not while using the vacuum cleaner of course. And I sometimes make scale models in my workshop, and then I also have music on to listen to.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm deeply averse to having music playing when my mind is busy with anything else. It isn't just that I can't focus on the music, but that I'm so wired to be musically aware - of melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation - I can't tune music out even when I want to. This makes even shopping an annoying experience, regardless of the music playing, unless the volume is very low. I find myself listening critically to the adolescent pop tunes radiating from the ceiling of the store, thinking how trite and mediocre they are and wondering how anyone can actually like them, and as often as not I leave the store infected with an earworm and walking to its rhythm until I can replace it in my mind with something else. 

I can dust, cook and wash dishes to music. That's about it. While driving I prefer talk radio. While enjoying the outdoors I leave electronics at home, and frown at those who can't seem to do the same.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I enjoy listening to music and visiting various forums such as this one. I do miss something by not giving my full attention to the music, but I can always come back to it again and again.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Certain music, such as Eno's ambient music, does not "demand" that you listen to it, as much other music does. 
Also, I find that music without singing in it is easier to blend-in to your environment. A lot of jazz is like that.
As I get older, much of the time, I listen to music to silence "earworms" that constantly run through my mind. 
Some people hear chatter or 'voices,' I suppose, but I hear music, almost constantly. This is probably what Beethoven experienced when he was writing The Grosse Fugue.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I enjoy listening to music and visiting various forums such as this one. I do miss something by not giving my full attention to the music, but I can always come back to it again and again.


Are you saying that you listen to music and visit forums simultaneously? That could be an interpretation of your post. Curious how that works for you if that is the case.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

> Woodduck: "While enjoying the outdoors I leave electronics at home, and frown at those who can't seem to do the same."


Complete agreement with you there! When outdoors, Mother Nature supplies the music.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Strange Magic said:


> Are you saying that you listen to music and visit forums simultaneously? That could be an interpretation of your post. Curious how that works for you if that is the case.


Yes, that's what I mean. As I said, it takes away from the music, but it's fun for me. I'm more about feeling the mood and energy of music anyways!


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## Guest (Oct 11, 2019)

Strange Magic said:


> While I can walk and chew gum at the same time,


You can? You're superevolved, then! :lol:

Me, I regularly try to read and listen at the same time, but fail miserably. Currently working my way through the 5 CDs of music in _The Beatles _(Super Deluxe 50th Anniversary) and trying to read the accompanying book explaining each song's origin and recording history - and failing either to remember what I just read, or missing the very nuance in the different recordings that the boo is describing.

This is, of course, not the same as deliberately putting on music to have in the background while doing something else - cooking, washing up, ironing etc which is pretty easy as it only requires concentration on one thing.

But then, I get to the end of 2 minutes of cleaning my teeth and can't remember whether I've done top and bottom, front and back, and have an angst attack trying to recall if I did both armpits in the shower.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> I often listen while doing other things. I call this 'indirect' or 'subconscious' listening, for while my conscious mind may be focused on one thing, I believe the subconscious hears everything else in the background and this can sometimes be an advantage because it has the ability to get an accurate impression of the whole performance. Then I know what I wish to hear again. Not everything has to be taken in consciously the first time; with recordings, there's always the second chance. I see nothing wrong with this and sometimes it's possible to be doing more than one thing at a time. In fact, it's possible that two simultaneous activities can enhance each other. There's more than one way to take something in because there are different dimensions to the mind and consciousness.


Well put! Exactly how it is for me.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I personally do both: multi-tasking and critical listening where I'm 100% focused on the music. The former typically happens at work, where I don't need my ears for anything so I listen to music. I've actually found this is a good way to discover new artists because it actually demands that they do something interesting enough to capture my attention when it's focused on something else. The artists/composers that manage to do this make their way into my "critical listening" sessions where I give them all my attention. 

I've also discovered that some music actually works better in one situation or the other. I don't think I've come up with any definitive rules as to what works better in each, but I've noticed some things. EG, simpler music works well when multi-tasking because I can still catch the gist and the hooks even without paying attention, and they tend not to outstay their welcome in part because I'm not so focused on them. However, complex music can work well too whenever it's rich in mood, atmosphere, or different tonal qualities because these things are also easy to grasp even when my mind is pre-occupied. However, music where much of the rewards is in the details of the musical language itself tend to work best when critically listening.


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## Haabrann (Mar 30, 2019)

Not sure if I get the _multitasking _ perspective.

We consume music, and other forms of art, in so many different circumstances and situations. If I want to experience a painting or a piece of music fully (to my capabilities such as they are), then I, of course, have to devote my full attention. What you get out depends on what you put in.

In other situations, like when relaxing and reading about music, the music functions more like a movie score. Like I mentioned (my last 5 post or so just appeared, having pended moderation of the first 10 posts) when listening to a HIP Bach piece when reading about HIP practices and research. And then, if I come across a piece about Gould and the Goldberg variations, I may put on Gould and then the attention drifts naturally and sequentially between the text and the music.

Other times I just want the mood and the atmosphere, and then put on a harpsichord version of the Variations, while reading about harpsichords.

Surely, this can't be anything but normal? Seems like the most natural thing in the world to me.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I too can't read or talk and listen at the same time. When I was at school, I could never do my homework with the radio on. If I 'just listen', though, my mind drifts off. 

The best way for me to listen is to sew or clean or draw or make notes on my response to the music. Those things, and especially the last, seem to sharpen my concentration. 
And of course, making notes on anything is invaluable when you have the memory of a Codgerette. 

PS Playing Music during my levee is also very pleasant.
Madame la Marquise


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Clearly, people vary in their abilities and/or their preferences in their manner of attending to music. It's all good (isn't it?). My focal field may be more narrow than most--I cannot simultaneously attend to interacting with TC on my iPad, and watching something (news?) on The Tube. One or the other will be a blank (Guess!:lol.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> ...While enjoying the outdoors I leave electronics at home, and frown at those who can't seem to do the same.





Strange Magic said:


> Complete agreement with you there! When outdoors, Mother Nature supplies the music.


_Aha!_ An admission that you two are capable of listening to John Cage's 4'33"!


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> _Aha!_ An admission that you two are capable of listening to John Cage's 4'33"!


Question: Who is not capable of listening to John Cage's 4'33"? There exists, however, a much more enigmatic work by Cage but not acknowledged by him. As we recall, performances of 4'33" are bounded by the performer first raising the lid over the piano keys, then, performance finished, the lid is closed. Cage's other, greater work commences when that selfsame performer closes the piano lid, and then ends when he next opens it. The implications are profound.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> Question: Who is not capable of listening to John Cage's 4'33"?


I don't think that question answers itself. I think we can all imagine what it would be like to hear the work, but I'm not sure we all have the patience to actually sit there and listen to a performance. (I'll come clean and admit I've never actually listened to the work.) I sometimes wonder what conversations about Cage would be like if all of the participants talked from experience rather than imagination. It might be much more productive. On the other hand, it might be as tedious as ... I won't say it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Please, no recording during the performance of 4'33". And please turn off all cell phones.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> Question: Who is not capable of listening to John Cage's 4'33"? There exists, however, a much more enigmatic work by Cage but not acknowledged by him. As we recall, performances of 4'33" are bounded by the performer first raising the lid over the piano keys, then, performance finished, the lid is closed. Cage's other, greater work commences when that selfsame performer closes the piano lid, and then ends when he next opens it. The implications are profound.


Is this a joke? I don't recall any work like that.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Blancrocher said:


> I don't think that question answers itself. I think we can all imagine what it would be like to hear the work, but I'm not sure we all have the patience to actually sit there and listen to a performance. (I'll come clean and admit I've never actually listened to the work.) I sometimes wonder what conversations about Cage would be like if all of the participants talked from experience rather than imagination. It might be much more productive. On the other hand, it might be as tedious as ... I won't say it.


Now, imagine a cloud hovering overhead.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> Is this a joke? I don't recall any work like that.


Surely you joke when you ask if my post is a joke!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> Surely you joke when you ask if my post is a joke!


No, I'm a man who takes his 4'33" very seriously.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> No, I'm a man who takes his 4'33" very seriously.


Then you will certainly appreciate that other Cage work that occupies the space that is not that occupied by 4'33" but rather occupies the area outside of the Venn diagram circle enclosing the better-known work. The unacknowledged Cage piece is where 4'33" is not.

The illustration below, from George Gamow's classic _One Two Three Infinity_, may help in understanding Cage's genius here, in turning 4'33" inside out, as it were, to reveal all that lies outside it and turning that within.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Please, no recording during the performance of 4'33". And please turn off all cell phones.


Such precautions might be wise for the sake of first-time listeners, but for the initiated they would be an attempt to manipulate the work and a negation of the point of it, which is to make us hear WHATEVER occurs in the aural field as music. To experience a phone going off in the next seat as a component of a concert may be possible only for the spiritually advanced. For others, it might be a invitation to multitask: to attend to the performance while committing phonicide.


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## Kollwitz (Jun 10, 2018)

If I didn't listen to music while doing other things I'd have very little time to listen. Cooking, ironing and doing the dishes enable a fairly satisfying listen to familiar works. My drive to work is 35-40 minutes, most of it on country roads requiring little mental effort. With pieces I know already, this enables me to get a lot of enjoyment and lodge the work more firmly in my mind. With new pieces, on Radio 3, for example, it's enough to get a sense of whether I'd want to explore further. If I'm driving somewhere unfamiliar or requiring particular concentration, I can't cope with listening to music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Such precautions might be wise for the sake of first-time listeners, but for the initiated they would be an attempt to manipulate the work and a negation of the point of it, which is to make us hear WHATEVER occurs in the aural field as music. To experience a phone going off in the next seat as a component of a concert may be possible only for the spiritually advanced. For others, it might be a invitation to multitask: to attend to the performance while committing phonicide.


I suppose this is a sign that "silence," no, not "silence," but the _absence _of the ubiquitous ringing of cell phones, has become 'obsolete' in this modern world. To mark our era, and this particular 'period' version of 4'33", it must surely contain the sound of cell phones going off, and perhaps the sound of a jet passing overhead.

A HIP version of 4'33" could contain some of the old-fashioned "silence" that used to be, before the industrial revolution launched a new era of noise.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> Question: Who is not capable of listening to John Cage's 4'33"? There exists, however, a much more enigmatic work by Cage but not acknowledged by him. As we recall, performances of 4'33" are bounded by the performer first raising the lid over the piano keys, then, performance finished, the lid is closed. Cage's other, greater work commences when that selfsame performer closes the piano lid, and then ends when he next opens it. The implications are profound.


Can you read music?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Luchesi said:


> Can you read music?
> 
> View attachment 125258


"I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it" -- John Cage


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> "I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it" -- John Cage


I don't know why he said that. I just listened to Metamorphosis I. It's easy to follow.






If Vivaldi had said it I'd understand it. Perhaps a religious comment?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Poor Vivaldi. Doesn’t he at least get credit for all the gifted young female students he nurtured? He also wrote one of the most famous works of all time and so much of his music is full of energy and vitality. He didn’t write the same pieces over and over and many listeners hold him in high regard. According to some musicologists, even Bach himself was influenced by him.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

One thing I wonder about listening with full concentration, particularly to very familiar music in a new-to-you performance, is how one avoids a conversation with one's inner critic. To me the worst thing I can do when listening to music (whether I am reading book or working as well or just listening to the music) is to make judgments about what I am hearing. That has to wait for the end when the cumulative impact is clear.


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