Composer with very mixed feelings about the digital world

In an online interview LA-based composer Jeffrey Roden explained:

I have very mixed feelings about the digital world in general and would hesitate to say that the net worth of it has been positive for music and its listeners... Technology has made many very wonderful things possible. More music is not one of them.. 

The photo above shows Jeffrey Roden with members of the Bennewitz Quartet during a recording session for his 2016 double album Threads of a Prayer Volume 1. Swiss philosopher Max Picard lamented how "Nothing has changed the nature of man so much as the loss of silence" and Threads of a Prayer is an extended hymn to that lost silence. This overlooked essay in the power of the silence between the notes can be compared to the music of Morton Feldman, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener. But as Roden explains, such comparisons are not only meaningless, but disrespectful and demeaning:

Although I am paraphrasing, Hemingway said talking about the work too much took away its vitality. Everyone should derive from the work something of their own. In the best work the process is collaborative with the audience bringing their own feeling into the perception. This is the most irksome thing about a great deal of modern culture be it pop or otherwise. It is the amateurish way the makers seem determined to inform the recipient what the content of the work is about. It is a completely and utterly disrespectful, demeaning act all the way around. There has to be a trust between the artist and audience that allows for the audience to draw upon their own perceptions to understand and react to the work presented.

 As befits a digital sceptic, Jeffrey Roden has a very small digital footprint. Threads of a Prayer is released on the German niche label Solaire Records which has ambitions to occupy the space once occupied by ECM. Solitaire was founded by the legendary recording engineer Dirk Fischer, which is reflected in the album's exemplary sound quality. All the production values are focussed on the CD production which comes with quality documentation and presentation. 

Solitaire's album description describes how careful listeners will be able to discern the underlying spiritual questions, but the music works perfectly fine without any conceptual considerations – as an antidote to the constant noise of the world outside. It simply depends how you listen, and psychiatrist Christophe André has some pertinent observations on the way we listen. I have taken the liberty of paraphrasing those observations to place them in a musical context:

There are three basic mechanisms in listening to music: respect for the musicians and composer, letting go, and the ability to allow oneself to be touched. Respecting music is above all not judging what it is saying while we're listening.

We automatically tend to judge what we hear: we appreciate it, don't appreciate it, agree, disagree; we find it amenable or stupid. It is difficult to keep these judgements from reaching our minds, but when we notice them, we can acknowledge them and detach from them, and then do our best to return to true listening. 

 Many people listen badly, because they are already preparing how they are going to respond. In true listening, you don't prepare your response - you just listen and let go. You might sometimes have the feeling that this approach is a bit risky, but your response will be more profound and appropriate if you have totally abandoned the idea of preparing it.

This letting go is the condition for sincere and authentic listening in which you are ready to be touched, be moved, be without judgement, be without control, be without desire to dominate. Ultimately you just let yourself listen with no intention at all.

Park your responses elsewhere. Forget Jeffrey Roden's views on the digital world. Forget his absence from Facebook and Instagram. Just listen to Threads of a Prayer without judgement. Just let go. And be ready to be moved.