just listening
27/10/12 06:47
The Contemplating Music class spent about six or seven weeks analyzing one movement of Stephen Hartke’s King of The Sun. In one of the last weeks, after much discussion, listening, probing, we decided to do a contemplative exercise and then listen to the whole piece again. I found myself quite delighted by the process, mostly because I find the piece so engaging and delightful, but the delight caused difficulty for me in the act of just listening, of truly being open to hearing the piece unfold in my consciousness. It occurred to me at those moments that while my delight may have been simply about the music, it was as likely to have been because I thought I’d discovered some key to understanding the structure, to the process of its unfolding and creating its impact on the listener. Further thoughts have occurred to me over the weeks since that took place: Is delight in listening to music deeply and repeatedly a kind of self-congratulation? Is delight memory? Certainly delight of that nature is a kind attachment to my thoughts, rather undeniably a game of illusion that my delight comes only from the music. These are questions anyone who would analyze music needs to raise.