# Balancing the predictable & the surprising in music...



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Discuss this quote, taken from a book on psychology, in relation to your experiences with music. The focus of the discussion is classical music, but other types of music - eg. rock and jazz, which it mentions - are okay to bring up as well -

"Music that is either purely predictable or completely unpredictable is generally considered unpleasant - tedious when it's too predictable, discordant when it's too unpredictable. Composers like John Cage have, of course, played with that balance, but few people derive the same pleasure from Cage's quasi-random ("aleatoric") compositions that they do from music with a more traditional balance between the predictable and the surprising - a fact that holds true in genres ranging from classical to jazz and rock (the art of improvisation is to invent what in hindsight seems surprising yet inevitable)."

Source: Marcus, Gary (2008). _Kluge - The haphazard construction of the human mind._ Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Co.

More info HERE at googlebooks.

_Gary Marcus is professor of psychology at New York University and director of New York University Infant Learning Center._


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

People tend to gravitate toward the familiar, but it's the hook that keeps them interested; e.g. the formula of a pop song.

Psychologically, I think randomness is threatening. Structure imputes safety and allows the listener (one can really say this about any sensory input) to find assurance in his assumptions and be able to focus his attention on the novel rather than on EVERYTHING.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Looking at the first part of the statement, the "predictable" -

I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. My listening has involved an exploration into the music of some relatively obscure composers of the late romantic era and I find that, well-constructed as some of the symphonies and concerti I've been listening to are, the predictability factor defeats any effort on my part to pay careful attention or to get really involved in what I'm hearing. Most of these works end up being background music to me - something to have on while I'm working when my mind will tune out of the music for minutes at a time.

A lot of this, though, may be the sheer volume of material available to us today. I would imagine that to a contemporary audience, who only had the chance to experience orchestral music in the concert hall and on a limited number of occasions, works that seem to me a bit imitative and unoriginal may have seemed fascinating and even significant.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I largely agree with the quotation. Although it's not true for everybody, for me I find that much pleasure in music derives from the listener having certain expectations of boundaries which are then bent or twisted slightly. Bend not enough or too little and you find yourself confused.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I think the balance of predictability with surprises is essential in music, because music isn't tangible. I can look at a painting over and over and finally get what the artist is driving at and I can read lines in a book/poem repeatedly until I get it, but music happens in real time, so I have to grasp it as it flies by or I can get lost very quickly. 

Peter Schickele commented about a man who came to his university with a computer printout which, for each note, showed what note would be the least expected following note. He was wanting to make sure a composer wrote the most engaging music by employing nothing but the least expected. Schickele wisely observed that if you want the least expected note, repeat a pattern three times, then do something different. You're guaranteed to produce the least expected note. In other words, mix the expected with the unexpected.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Unpredictable music usually contains rhythms and phrases that resemble human speech. These musical conversations tend to get quite complicated depending on how many voices are involved. The music of Elliott Carter being a good example.

In non-classical music, I enjoy the vocal phrasing of someone like Joni Mitchell. It's highly idiosyncratic, and can be tough to follow no matter how many times I listen to it. The same is true for the guitar phrasings of Frank Zappa. I find this approach far more interesting than music that falls squarely on the beat every time.

I'm in agreement with Vesteralen when it comes to much romantic music. I have the hardest time with concertos. I find most of them to be highly predictable, containing uninteresting rhythms and mind numbing virtuoso displays by the soloist.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I agree with the quotation.

Also, I suspect that there is a personality variable regarding need/tolerance for novelty: some people having a very high need for novelty (getting bored easily), others having some need for novelty, then others with less tolerance for it, over to others with very little tolerance for it. I suspect most individuals are fairly consistent with regard to different aspects of their lives: a person who enjoys trying novel foreign foods probably also enjoys meeting new people, considering unfamiliar ideas, hearing strange music, and so on. It would be, I think, unusual (not impossible of course) to find an individual who loves really bizarre new kinds of music but wishes everyone would dress the way they did in the 1950s, or a person who is has tried several different religious traditions but only likes the kind of foods they had as a child. So perhaps the point is: I think we can predict people's political opinions fairly accurately if we know what kinds of (say) music and food they enjoy.

This is not original thought by any means, but I suspect it's correct, and I am concerned not to attribute it to the various researchers who are working on this kind of thing because I'm afraid I would have expressed something incorrectly. I haven't read Chris Mooney's _The Republican Brain_, but I think it will cover some of this research, so if you're curious that would probably be a better source of information than I can be. (Also, he has an enjoyable blog: http://scienceprogressaction.org/intersection/)

Anyway.

Yes, I think what he said is true about music - and other aspects of life, from language to politics to food to fashion....


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Vesteralen said:


> Looking at the first part of the statement, the "predictable" -
> 
> I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. My listening has involved an exploration into the music of some relatively obscure composers of the late romantic era and I find that, well-constructed as some of the symphonies and concerti I've been listening to are, the predictability factor defeats any effort on my part to pay careful attention or to get really involved in what I'm hearing. Most of these works end up being background music to me - something to have on while I'm working when my mind will tune out of the music for minutes at a time.
> 
> A lot of this, though, may be the sheer volume of material available to us today. I would imagine that to a contemporary audience, who only had the chance to experience orchestral music in the concert hall and on a limited number of occasions, works that seem to me a bit imitative and unoriginal may have seemed fascinating and even significant.


This is a very interesting post, I've had a similar experience. Which late romantic composers/compositions fall into this category, out of curiosity?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Bend not enough or too little and you find yourself confused.


I think if you bend too much, you are confused, but if you bend too little, you are BORED and frustrated.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> This is a very interesting post, I've had a similar experience. Which late romantic composers/compositions fall into this category, out of curiosity?


My answer is going to include early and middle romantics as well -

Among those composers whose music has somehow failed to totally engage my mind (so far) are: Gade, Raff, Berwald, Svendsen, Arensky, Alkan and late Alfven.

Just to show that I'm not prejudiced against lesser-knowns, though, I would not include in this list: Crusell, Spohr, Moskowski and early Alfven.

None of the above-mentioned are at all _unlistenable_ for me. Their music is pleasant and not annoying. But, I just have the feeling that what they had to say had pretty much already been said (and often said better). But, again, that's from the perspective of someone with a whole world of music at his fingertips, so to speak, and not from the perspective of one of their contemporaries.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2012)

Gary Marcus said:


> "is generally considered"


But when I'm listening to music, there's only me. My ears, my brain, my experiences, my knowledge, my prejudices.

"Generally considered" doesn't enter into it.

I find what other people think to be interesting and fascinating, but when I'm listening to a piece of music, I'm thinking about the sounds and the sequences, not about what other people might or might not think about what I'm listening to.

It's fun to talk to people about things I've listened to, fun to find others who enjoy the same things, even fun to try to understand the people who don't enjoy the same things.

But not while I'm listening.

I tend to favor random noises, the more unpredictable the better.* But so what? Probably my favorite drinking buddy is someone who absolutely abhors modern music, who thinks avant garde is roughly equivalent to excrement.

We like cracking jokes and flirting with women, though, which is all you need in a (male heterosexual or female homosexual or any gendered bisexual) drinking buddy. (The male homosexual or female heterosexual drinking buddies have to pass other tests to qualify. Politics and philosophy are involved. Willingness to pay for drinks a plus.)

*I also get great pleasure from Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which is not unpredictable at all (especially after the gazillionth audition of it).


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

some guy said:


> I tend to favor random noises, the more unpredictable the better.


Do you get listening pleasure from say general road traffic, building construction sites when the workers are working? I'm curious.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Discuss this quote, taken from a book on psychology, in relation to your experiences with music. The focus of the discussion is classical music, but other types of music - eg. rock and jazz, which it mentions - are okay to bring up as well -
> 
> "Music that is either purely predictable or completely unpredictable is generally considered unpleasant - tedious when it's too predictable, discordant when it's too unpredictable. Composers like John Cage have, of course, played with that balance, but few people derive the same pleasure from Cage's quasi-random ("aleatoric") compositions that they do from music with a more traditional balance between the predictable and the surprising - a fact that holds true in genres ranging from classical to jazz and rock (the art of improvisation is to invent what in hindsight seems surprising yet inevitable)."
> 
> ...


Most pieces of classical music that I have listened to for the first time, and I stress for the first time, were by and large unpredictable. There were exceptions of course: when the composer arranged pieces from his and other composers' works, or "rehash" (your old favourite bug!) which to me, meant the composer from a later period decided to compose in an earlier period's style sounding at least vaguely familiar to other (earlier) composers. By and large, you could say even the most mediocre composer might have elements of unpredictability in music when listening to for the first time. I do not evaluate Johann Christian Bach for sounding very similar to young Mozart because they all belonged to the same period and all worte in that style.

I'm not convinced of the stochastic music from the 20th century, which I think deliberately intoduces randomness into the music (which is what a "stochastic process" basically means, and is a branch of mathematical statistics I understand). The end product often sounds like random noise to me, which I dislike. Member _some guy_ appears lucky enough to love that (stated above), but luckily for me, I do not and I don't envy those who might do.

As for the other end of being completely predictable, the closest example I can think of, again stressing about listening the piece for the first time, could be some examples of minimalism, where the repetition becomes predictable very quickly. Does this frustrate me? Yes, it does but to a much lesser degree than random noisy stuff.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Do you get listening pleasure from say general road traffic, building construction sites when the workers are working? I'm curious.


Be careful what you ask because in this case the answer may well be---YES!


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2012)

moody said:


> Be careful what you ask because in this case the answer may well be---YES!


Ah moody, HC already knew the answer would be "yes" before he even asked the question.:lol:


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Do you get listening pleasure from say general road traffic, building construction sites when the workers are working? I'm curious.


I enjoy a lot the noise of the aircraft engines!, specially the C-5 Galaxy:






(full power at 1:45!!)






(listen when they put the engines in reverse!)


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

My guess is that someguy might find a decline in his appreciation of random noises if he worked with me in overcrowded classrooms filled with urban pre-pubescents wired up on Fruit Loops and chocolate bars.:lol:


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> My guess is that someguy might find a decline in his appreciation of random noises if he worked with me in overcrowded classrooms filled with urban pre-pubescents wired up on Fruit Loops and chocolate bars.:lol:


Been there. Done that.

Had no effect one way or another on my listening habits or musical preferences.

I did drink a lot more after work, however.

Loved the jet videos, aleazk. The recorder in the first one was really getting a workout, too.

(There's an album called _Connections: Opportunities for Mistakes,_ which is made up of recordings of audio equipment failing. Lovely lovely noises.)


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some guy said:


> Ah moody, HC already knew the answer would be "yes" before he even asked the question.:lol:


so why you listen to composers, if you go out in the street there's random music 24 hours a day. More unpredictable than any work of John Cage, and completely free.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2012)

norman bates said:


> so why you listen to composers, if you go out in the street there's random music 24 hours a day. More unpredictable than any work of John Cage, and completely free.


Why do you listen to Beethoven, when there's all that Bach to hear?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I think I might take back what I said and disagree with the quotation now, or at least want to be more specific.

My problem is that what was once unexpected eventually becomes expected and so you have to invent a new unexpected. This suggests that music must always be changing to be interesting, and also that you may need to follow its history chronologically to really understand and appreciate it. I don't think either of those are necessarily true, so I take it back.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some guy said:


> Why do you listen to Beethoven, when there's all that Bach to hear?


this is not an answer, if you seriously think that absolute unpredictability is your ideal of music why spend money and time to listen human composers that certainly are more predictable than any natural sound you can hear everywhere. 
I like to hear different human composers because they organize sounds in different ways, and i think it's that organization the main reason of interest. 
By the way, do you like rock music? Often is a lot more chaotic than classical, talking of traffic:


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

some guy said:


> Why do you listen to Beethoven, when there's all that Bach to hear?


Because the best of Beethoven is far better than the worst of Bach, or even the median Bach piece.

We can do this all day darling.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2012)

Um, I was pointing out that the categories we're talking about here are not mutually exclusive.

Getting pleasure from Beethoven, say, does not mean that you listen only to Beethoven and nothing else. 

"So why do you listen to composers," in other words, is not a real question is my point.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

some guy said:


> Um, I was pointing out that the categories we're talking about here are not mutually exclusive.
> 
> Getting pleasure from Beethoven, say, does not mean that you listen only to Beethoven and nothing else.
> 
> "So why do you listen to composers," in other words, is not a real question is my point.


No of course listening to Bach and Beethoven is not mutually exclusive, but life is short and I probably will not listen every piece ever composed by Beethoven, or everything Bach wrote for the organ. Of course listening to modern music and listening to Bach and reading Homer and hiking in the Bavarian alps and working on your career and balancing your social life and finding love isn't mutually exclusive either. Everyone has priorities.

What your'e trying to do is raise the priority people put on listening and enjoying "modern music", that current they are under-appreciated, and that the full appreciation of it lies in the future, when people become rational like you and devote more time to it.

Promote it all you want, but your current attitude is condescending.

Why don't you start a few threads promoting these underappreciated composers? No one's stopping you.


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2012)

brian,

I was responding to a specific post by norman.

That is all.

As for what I am trying to do generally, your impression of that is very different from mine. Just so you know.

As for what I do or don't do to promote new music, TC forms a very small part of that. (There's only much time, as you suggest.)

michael


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some interesting replies here. Thank you for all of them.

I was alerted to this book by a person I know who's in the field of psychology. Otherwise it's unlikely I would have come across it. It isn't too scholarly though, as the quote shows, it can be understood by those outside of the psychology field.

I must stress that what this psychologist, Professor Marcus, is talking about, it's based on research. Psychology is related to statistics. THIS wikipedia article on Normal Distribution is related to this area, eg. working out in various fields of science, on what are things like means or averages in a certain area of research (eg. in this case, how the brain processes music, in cognitive psychology).

THIS graph from the above article shows an example of a bell curve. It's the graph in red, shaped like it's name, a bell.

In terms of the members of talkclassical forum, and most classical listeners in general, they would fit in the middle percentile of the bell cure, at the top and side to side, between -1 and 1 on this curve. This graph is not related to what Prof. Marcus says, but this is a way data in psychology is gathered.

People like some guy who have more esoteric taste would probably be at the "foot" of the hill or bell, on the above curve on -3 or 3. Somewhere outside of the average or mean, etc. I'm sorry I'm not a science oriented person, but I did read that chapter of the book, bits of it, where Prof. Marcus goes into many areas of music and how the brain processes music. Also things like why we listen to music, which can be for pleasure, or on a technical level, or because we want to be challenged, etc.

So I think that with "most" people, the mean or average, they will be in the middle of such a curve. I don't remember any tabulated data in the book, but I'm sure studies like this have been done in psychology. That's what Prof. Marcus based that statement on.

It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with anybody anywhere along the spectrum of listeners of classical, jazz, rock, etc. It's just that in most cases, people prefer a balance between the predictable and the surprising elements of music. This "balance" is not set in stone, every composer will do it differently, and of course, every listener will interpret the music differently (although averages do exist, that's what psychology as a science is often interested in)...


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Sid James said:


> In terms of the members of talkclassical forum, and most classical listeners in general, they would fit in the middle percentile of the bell cure, at the top and side to side, between -1 and 1 on this curve. This graph is not related to what Prof. Marcus says, but this is a way data in psychology is gathered.


TC is not a random sample of the population. I'm almost certain that a sizeable minority, perhaps even a marginal majority or more, are not between -1 and 1 i.e. between 1 and 4. Classical music in general is more unpredictable than pop music, has a far more complex harmonic structure, etc.

Most people are, at best, simply indifferent to classical music. Many people actively detest it (see my Mozart: Crime and Punishment Thread).



> People like some guy who have more esoteric taste would probably be at the "foot" of the hill or bell, on the above curve on -3 or 3.


Really? Are you really suggesting that those with esoteric taste i.e. listens to relatively obscure modernist music might be at -3? You mean 3 right? I mean, wouldn't -3 be someone be almost a complete deficiency in music processing processes?



> It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with anybody anywhere along the spectrum of listeners of classical, jazz, rock, etc. It's just that in most cases, people prefer a balance between the predictable and the surprising elements of music. This "balance" is not set in stone, every composer will do it differently, and of course, every listener will interpret the music differently (although averages do exist, that's what psychology as a science is often interested in)...


There's no need to mince words. You're insinuating that those with arcane taste in modernist music are smarter and their brain can process "unpredictability" better. Why expend long paragraphs over nothing?

Or do you believe the the distribution of general Intelligence and music-unpredictability processing is completely stochastic and has absolutely nothing to do with each other i.e. independent factors?

How do you know that harmonic-unpredictability affinity follows a normal distribution?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^I didn't mean those comments to be taken literally, word for word.

I'm not interested in semantics and stuff of the sort. I think people here will generally understand the gist of my last post. As I said, I'm not a psychologist.

You would probably have to read the chapter in Prof. Marcus' book for which this quote was taken from, which focuses on how the brain process music and stuff of the sort, to get a more comprehensive coverage of this area. But as I said it's in simple enough English that all people of good level of literacy will understand.

In my experience, and I know quite a few lovers of classical music personally (& of course, most of these don't only listen to classical music, incl. myself), most of them would not know most of the composers "some guy" has mentioned in the past. This does not mean they are not significant. Eg. Harry Partch and Helmut Lachenmann are known to those who've studied music at uni here.

I suppose ultimately the research in this kind of area of psychology, eg. the way the brain processes music, will focus (as I clearly said?) on averages and the people in the middle of the spectrum. There will be people, in lesser numbers, at either side of the spectrum (or bell curve or whatever).

& also I don't like your tone which I find confrontative. If you could just focus on what I said and not put words into my mouth - which seems to be a common practice here - I would really appreciate that...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> TC is not a random sample of the population. I'm almost certain that a sizeable minority, perhaps even a marginal majority or more, are not between -1 and 1 i.e. between 1 and 4. Classical music in general is more unpredictable than pop music, has a far more complex harmonic structure, etc.
> 
> Most people are, at best, simply indifferent to classical music. Many people actively detest it (see my Mozart: Crime and Punishment Thread).
> 
> ...


I'd like to consider a 2-D graph, with one axis representing "openness to novelty in music" and another axis representing whatever form(s) of intelligence you're worried about.

There _might_ be some kind of slight relationship between the 2 variables, but I'd guess not a strong one - too slight to predict.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Sid James said:


> I must stress that what this psychologist, Professor Marcus, is talking about, it's based on research. Psychology is related to statistics. THIS wikipedia article on Normal Distribution is related to this area, eg. working out in various fields of science, on what are things like means or averages in a certain area of research (eg. in this case, how the brain processes music, in cognitive psychology).


I've lost track of this thread. Which quote is it by Marcus and about listeners on where they sit in the Normal distribution? Sounds interesting. Did he mean classical music listeners or any folks today in general? If he meant classical music folks, then the population he was referring to would exclude non-classical music listeners, in which case your summary about most folks here at TC be around the statistical mean would make sense. But if Marcus meant all folks in general, then I would be interested particularly to see where classical music listeners would sit relative to all folks.

P.S.
Pyschology is not related to statistics; it uses statistics as an analytical tool to validate its own theories and or just for empirical analysis. Statistics is a vastly powerful subject which many disciplines use as an analytical tool from the arts to the social sciences to the natural sciences etc.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I've lost track of this thread. Which quote is it by Marcus and about listeners on where they sit in the Normal distribution?...


When talking of Normal distribution, I was just extending on the probable research behind Prof. Marcus' comments in my quote in the OP. As I said, this book is directed at psychologists and non-psychologists alike. I only read the chapter dealing with music, how the brain processes music, the preferences of people in general. As what I quoted from him in my OP, he talks of classical, jazz, rock.



> ...
> P.S.
> Pyschology is not related to statistics; it uses statistics as an analytical tool to validate its own theories and or just for empirical analysis. Statistics is a vastly powerful subject which many disciplines use as an analytical tool from the arts to the social sciences to the natural sciences etc.


Every person trained in psychology does do a subject/unit on statistics in relation to the field. Eg. how data is gathered and interpreted, represented on graphs, etc. I mean you know of psychological experiments, right? Just like any area of the sciences, there is research in psychology, which forms the basis of statistics, which is what Prof. Marcus based that quote on, which I put in my OP. I don't have the book, the acquaintance has it, I am really not interested in the whole thing. I skim read the chapter dealing with music and other things.

The quote was meant to summon general discussion on what he said. Not a debate about psychology. I was just adding to the debate at hand, some people referred to these ideas. Eg. the gist of what people asked, most people don't like "raw" street sounds. I bet there is a psychological study to prove that, eg. most people do not want purely or mainly random sounds. By the same token, as he also says, very predictable sounds/music also gets on most people's nerves...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> Classical music in general is more unpredictable than pop music,


not true, in the area of the experimental pop/rock music there are a lot of things that are really unpredictable and extreme (captain beefheart, faust, residents, dead c and tons of groups like that)



brianwalker said:


> has a far more complex harmonic structure, etc.


true.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Coming back to this -



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Most pieces of classical music that I have listened to for the first time, and I stress for the first time, were by and large unpredictable...


I think that it's true, one cannot predict what will happen in a work new to the listener, completely new that is. Or even pieces you haven't heard in years or decades. Many works like that, I hear afresh, even though I'd heard them ages ago.

I think the point is that composers who strike a good balance between predictability and unpredictability do it in a way that can be nuanced in it's variety. Listen to them all at once, and you may not realise much difference between say a composer's symphonies (eg. if he's composed a fair amount to compare). It's only upon subsequent listens that they become like unique individual works, which they are. Bruckner is often said to be very homogenous, too much so for some people. But dig beneath the surface of his symphonies and they are very different, esp. numbers 4 through to 9, say, which a number of people say are his finest. So there can be variety in homogeniety, not every work by a composer has to be radically different to strike the balance well. Eg. to appeal to the majority of listeners, or at least a good portion of that majority...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Coming back to this -
> 
> I think that it's true, one cannot predict what will happen in a work new to the listener, completely new that is. Or even pieces you haven't heard in years or decades. Many works like that, I hear afresh, even though I'd heard them ages ago.
> 
> I think the point is that composers who strike a good balance between predictability and unpredictability do it in a way that can be nuanced in it's variety. Listen to them all at once, and you may not realise much difference between say a composer's symphonies (eg. if he's composed a fair amount to compare). It's only upon subsequent listens that they become like unique individual works, which they are. Bruckner is often said to be very homogenous, too much so for some people. But dig beneath the surface of his symphonies and they are very different, esp. numbers 4 through to 9, say, which a number of people say are his finest. So there can be variety in homogeniety, not every work by a composer has to be radically different to strike the balance well. Eg. to appeal to the majority of listeners, or at least a good portion of that majority...


I think one reason that happens is that we have the habit of listening to recordings like this: Mozart, Piano Concerto #20; Mozart, Piano Concerto #21; Mozart, Piano Concerto #22; Mozart, Piano Concerto #23 - and so on. I know that is how I used to do it. Open up the Mahler box, start with the first disk, and off we go for five days of Mahler symphonies. Next, Bach's sacred music for two weeks of cantatas and oratorios.

Now that most listening comes via my computer, I'm breaking up those recordings and listening to one work at a time, and it's helping me a little. A great example is Vivaldi. Last year I began to perceive much more variation in his concertos than I had before.


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2012)

This thread has illustrated quite clearly that so much of what we habitually talk about as qualities of the object are really qualities of perception. In this case, that the balancing act attributed to the composer is just as much the balancing act of the auditor.

(I reject, just by the way (for those who haven't heard me say this a thousand times), the notion that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Beauty is in neither the object nor the beholder but in the relationship between the two.)


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

some guy said:


> This thread has illustrated quite clearly that so much of what we habitually talk about as qualities of the object are really qualities of perception. In this case, that the balancing act attributed to the composer is just as much the balancing act of the auditor.


True! That's why I keep going back to a piece of music over and over. My relationship to it is different each time, so if I don't enjoy it, there's always another day until I'm dead.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

some guy said:


> (I reject, just by the way (for those who haven't heard me say this a thousand times), the notion that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Beauty is in neither the object nor the beholder but in the relationship between the two.)


Can you elaborate on this for me? I see a glimmer of an idea of what you might mean, but I can't see it clearly.


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2012)

There's an idea that quality is something inherent in objects. In this view, Bach's _St. Matthew Passion_ or Michelangelo's _Pieta_ are intrinsically great. People may have various opinions about these works, but that doesn't matter. The works are great separate from what anyone thinks about them.

But people do have different opinions about things. And the phenomenon of people's differing opinions crystalized at some point into the saying that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I believe that no one who uses that phrase really believes it. But let's say that that's a valid counter idea to the intrinsic quality one.

What I notice right off is that both of these are static notions. That latter does imply a dynamic relationship. But it's only implied.

But what if we look at what actually happens when we experience a work of art? It's not static at all. We have on the one hand, the intrinsic characteristics of the work (its dimensions, materials, and so forth) and on the other our various brains, our experiences and tastes. Put the two together and you have a situation, a dynamic relationship. The object seems to be working on you, changing you, making you feel and think. And you, what are you doing? Are you simply observing? Or are you doing something active yourself? (Is observing more than passive?) You must be doing something. Just the fact that you can stand in front of Pollock's _Blue Poles_ in awe and your friend is saying that it looks like something any second grader could do should be proof enough of that!

So where is "beauty" in all this? It's not in the object, which I experience as beautiful but which HC (for example!) experiences as crap. If you try to isolate the characteristics of a piece which have little or nothing to do with perception, you're not left with very much. Length maybe. The sounds occur in a certain order (if it's that kind of piece) or randomly (if it's another kind of piece). It's played by a piano or an orchestra or a trumpet and timpani. Or a laptop quartet.

If you examine the observer, then, alone, with no objects in sight (within earshot), you get a brain with certain capacities hooked up to various organs. And only with some nice objects do those capacities actually function. The organ called "eye" has to have a certain amount of light to function, and there have to be some things that the light illuminates before the eye can actually do any seeing. And then, of course, the eyes' person can start in on all the judgmental stuff, the "that's great" or "that's crap" kind of thing.

I would locate "beauty" and "greatness" and "quality" (as well as their negative counterparts), where the objects meet up with the organs--in the interaction between observer and object.

Of course, neither of these things, observer and object, is ever completely separate from the other. But we do habitually talk as if they are, as if the value of objects inheres in the objects themselves, regardless of anyone's experience of them. As if observers were separate from any of the objects without which the sensory organs wouldn't do anything.

There's an interesting little book called "Saving the Appearances" (by Owen Barfield) with starts out asking the reader to think of everything she knows about rainbows, how they look, the circumstances under which they appear, the circumstance that they appear to move away from one as one approaches them, how they are, as we experience them, exactly a combination of raindrops, light, and our eyes. Take any one of those things away and there's no rainbow. Easy enough.

And then Barfield asks us to think about something like an oak tree in the same way. Hmmm. Not so easy! But what's the difference between perceiving a rainbow and perceiving an oak tree? Barfield would say nothing.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

some guy said:


> So where is "beauty" in all this? It's not in the object, which I experience as beautiful but which HC (for example!) experiences as crap. If you try to isolate the characteristics of a piece which have little or nothing to do with perception, you're not left with very much. ...


Thanks for mentioning me. I feel flattered that you need me to get your point cross. Left with not very much indeed. For example, as someone who enjoys random noise of no artistic value whatsoever - I mean specifically say random traffic noise and or a busy construction site with all the machinery and workings of modern engineering and materials - the listening relationship is one's perception. In this extreme example, one derives pleasure from pure noise, not at all composed as music, although one might well consider it as music, but the broader reality is of course, such is not at all music.

I leave it up to you with regards to how you handle the broader reality, but maybe that is totally irrelevant; afterall, as long as one enjoys the noise, that's all it matters.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

some guy said:


> This thread has illustrated quite clearly that so much of what we habitually talk about as qualities of the object are really qualities of perception. In this case, that the balancing act attributed to the composer is just as much the balancing act of the auditor.
> 
> (I reject, just by the way (for those who haven't heard me say this a thousand times), the notion that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Beauty is in neither the object nor the beholder but in the relationship between the two.)


This is interesting but you must admit, that whatever the powers of one's perception, certain works are going to try the patience of even the most flexible listener.

Eg. Satie's piano piece _Vexations_, which as the title suggests, can be quite vexatious & I'd add tedious. Not denying it is a highly innovative work, etc., but how many people would want to hear this short phrase repeated 840 times, which is what is thought Satie said it could be played for in order for it to be a "full" performance. John Cage organised the first public performance of this work, and according to THIS wikipedia article, it lasted around (a continuous) 18 hours. Only one person stayed in the hall to hear it right through to the end.

This is an extreme example, but you must have common sense to understand what I and Prof. Marcus is saying in the quote in my OP. This work is more of an experiment that lead to composers opening up music in various ways of their own. It is not what I'd call music that can be appreciated or favoured by the majority of classical music listeners. Satie has a number of popular works that are mainstream and even kind of cliche - eg. the _Gymnopedies_ - and I think he'd be glad that they're cliche, given his "invention" of muzak or what he called "armchair music."

I don't remember ever seeing anyone saying they have listened to _Vexations_ on this forum. I have seen the cd, it is a version that's one hour long. I think even that would try my patience, and I see myself as pretty flexible. Eg. I like Morton Feldman's _String Quartet #1_, which is 80 minutes or so long on the Naxos recording, but the music is not literal repetition, he varies the phrase, or a number of phrases, in subtle ways (same thing as what I was saying in my last post above regarding Bruckner's symphonies).

So, when repetition becomes too literal, it becomes kind of boring & irritating, tedious, etc. Perhaps Satie's intention was to make people squirm, but this is not usually a composer's intention, I'd say.

The other extreme is no repetition at all, everything being random and without anything to hang onto. That can be okay for a while, but probably not too long, or else it gets the same as literal repetition, very boring.

Of course, these are extremes. Most composers aim to do a healthy balance between these. That for me is the art of composing, or part of it. That's why Prof. Marcus' viewpoint from the field of psychological research is relevant to what we talk about often on this forum...


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2012)

Sid James said:


> I don't remember ever seeing anyone saying they have listened to _Vexations_ on this forum.


Ah. Well I don't remember ever saying it, either. Not here.

But I have. And it becomes better and better as the hours go on. Of course, I was doing other things while the radio played (a live radio performance on KPFA). But I think that's OK. I don't ever stop it. (After awhile, you cannot stop it; it's addictive.)



Sid James said:


> So, when repetition becomes too literal, it becomes kind of boring & irritating, tedious, etc.


All words pointing straight at perception.

The point I'd make here is that no matter how literal or how random, you change while you're listening. If something goes on long enough, you can become the kind of person who can listen to something for a long time. When it's literal repetition or when it's drone, you start becoming attuned to very small changes, so small you've never attended to them before. Now you can. When it's random, one finds that one doesn't need memory, supposedly _the_ big thing, to enjoy music.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

science said:


> I'd like to consider a 2-D graph, with one axis representing "openness to novelty in music" and another axis representing whatever form(s) of intelligence you're worried about.
> 
> There _might_ be some kind of slight relationship between the 2 variables, but I'd guess not a strong one - too slight to predict.


OK, what about the people who don't like Bach? Would that lower their score?

What would give a person a higher score of "openness to novelty"? The exclusive love of Bach or Xenakakis?

Is this just harmonic novelty? I listen to a lot of "experimental" contemporary indie music. Does that make me an "adventurous listener"?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> OK, what about the people who don't like Bach? Would that lower their score?
> 
> What would give a person a higher score of "openness to novelty"? The exclusive love of Bach or Xenakakis?
> 
> Is this just harmonic novelty? I listen to a lot of "experimental" contemporary indie music. Does that make me an "adventurous listener"?


I don't know, dude, but i know your hostility and (intentional? even, determined?) misconstrual of my posts make the discussion not worth pursuing. I don't have anything to gain or sell here.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

some guy said:


> Ah. Well I don't remember ever saying it, either. Not here.
> 
> But I have. And it becomes better and better as the hours go on. Of course, I was doing other things while the radio played (a live radio performance on KPFA). But I think that's OK. I don't ever stop it. (After awhile, you cannot stop it; it's addictive.)
> 
> ...


Well if you did that, listened to the whole of Satie's _Vexations_ (about 18 hours), then you must be very different from the majority of classical listeners I've come across. I am not meaning that one way or the other, it is not a negative statement.

I think most people on this forum, and many people out there into classical, would even be highly streched listening to (say) J.S. Bach's _Well-Tempered Clavier_, the whole thing, the whole 48 preludes & fugues in the one sitting. Of course it is different as it was not meant to be played or heard in the one sitting. I'm not sure if there has been a concert of it like that?

But most people here know this Bach work, or portions of it. Some here would be able to play these works. That's why I'm saying. Also, the topic of this thread is not necessarily to do with newer or_ avant-garde _musics.



> ...
> All words pointing straight at perception.
> 
> The point I'd make here is that no matter how literal or how random, you change while you're listening. If something goes on long enough, you can become the kind of person who can listen to something for a long time. *When it's literal repetition or when it's drone, you start becoming attuned to very small changes, so small you've never attended to them before.* Now you can...


Yes, this is a point, probably related to non-Western things, like Buddhism. Eg. with the chanting of Tibetan monks or Japanese flute (shakuhachi) music. It can go on for ages, and it can get you into a trance.

& not only that, things like West AFrican drumming, or Eurasian throat singing. Also Gregorian chants.

However, in relation to what we call "Western Classical Music," a focus on this kind of thing in a big way has only came in relatively recently (eg. post 1945, esp. in 1960's with minimalism & also John Cage's philosophies, & other composers into this stuff, eg. Harry Partch). & also composers from these places, eg. Takemitsu.

So people are still adapting to it, getting used to it, and many would not know it, or large aspects of it.

However, for example the Partch work I have - _Delusion of the Fury _- does have lots of variation within the repetition. It is an hour long but not all the same, not simply repetition wholus bolus. I would call it accessible to most listeners of classical music interested in the 20th century. I wouldn't say the same about _Vexations_ which is actually a much earlier work (from 1890's). It's also more interesting say than listening to Gregorian chants for like an hour, or hours on end. I don't think many people would enjoy that, despite it's possible transcendent qualities.



> ...When it's random, one finds that one doesn't need memory, supposedly _the_ big thing, to enjoy music.


It can be random but if it's within a certain framework (which may well be impossible to define concretely), it will appeal to more than just a few. People don't like unpredictability taken to an extreme. That's what the psychological studies would show, based on Prof. Marcus' statement I gave in my OP...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

science said:


> I think one reason that happens is that we have the habit of listening to recordings like this: Mozart, Piano Concerto #20; Mozart, Piano Concerto #21; Mozart, Piano Concerto #22; Mozart, Piano Concerto #23 - and so on. I know that is how I used to do it. Open up the Mahler box, start with the first disk, and off we go for five days of Mahler symphonies. Next, Bach's sacred music for two weeks of cantatas and oratorios.
> 
> Now that most listening comes via my computer, I'm breaking up those recordings and listening to one work at a time, and it's helping me a little. A great example is Vivaldi. Last year I began to perceive much more variation in his concertos than I had before.


Yes, the latter is my approach. I am okay with getting in deeply with one work at a time. Many of the works we love are very rich and we can listen to them for years and hear new things. That is what some guy is saying, in terms of perception. But I don't agree with the conclusion he makes exactly. I only knew one Messiaen work, his _Quartet for the End of Time _for almost 10 years before hearing a good deal more of his works, in a number of genres. By delving deeply into that, and even just thinking about and reading about it, I was well prepared to get into his other things later.

But to be more on-topic, "sameness" can inevitably happen with any composer with fairly homogenous style if one bites off more than one can chew. So often on these forums I read things like eg. "everything by composer x sounds the same." Yes, Vivaldi is an example, a big example. It doesn't matter if a composer does similar things, but I don't like if they do the same things. That's where homogeneity ends and rehash, getting out the carbon paper too much, begins. It's a topic for another thread, maybe, and my obsession :lol:.

But any composer who can do certain things well, one of the things being able to strike this balance which is the topic of this thread, their works can bear repeated listening if it's done in a way that doesn't clutter your brain with music overload. Then you're sick of the composer and maybe blame him because you've bitten off more than you can chew. Even the most wonderful things become cliche and run of the mill. You can't see the forest for the trees, so better step back a little and take it in one bit at a time, so to speak...


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