tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post1446169985230982460..comments2024-03-26T15:57:13.443+00:00Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Research proves audiences become what they listen toUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-61565784796004977552013-06-18T16:49:06.929+01:002013-06-18T16:49:06.929+01:00Reader Sam Moore sends an email praising the premi...Reader Sam Moore sends an email praising the premiere of Jonathan Harvey's <i>80 Breaths for Tokyo</i>. This was played in the Saturday evening Aldeburgh Festival concert by the City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov, a concert that, unfortunately I could not attend. Here are Sam's thoughts about <i>80 Breaths for Tokyo</i>:<br /><br />>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><br /><br />The Harvey was absolutely mindblowing, and I would say I experienced the same "tirth" as you did in your recent post. The music was a hive of richness. It was both simple to apprehend on the surface (when you sense the music is "breathing" this structure allows you a cradle in which to place all the sounds - arguably the same soundworld housed in a more traditional structure would be harder to follow) and yet ludicrously and ecstatically complex when zoomed in on (like the structures of life itself). The image I thought of was a bucolic mountain stream: its trickling is musical to the ear, the complex play of sunlight on the water is beautiful to the eye - and yet the patterns which interweave to create these overall effects are magically intricate. <br /><br />It was also touching to note that, as a UK premiere, we were some of the first people in the world to hear this music. It's art at the cutting edge, exploring paths that no one else has trodden, and may never after, typical of a late style/late flowering of an artist: a sudden flight to convey ideas which have been earned through a lifetime and must be released before they are gone, a rush of energy like a dying star. This soundworld of the composer had been imagined in the brain of an artist, trapped in the pages of a score, and was now resounding in space - bouncing around the hall, flowing through new minds. Harvey is now dead and yet the ideas are alive, what was frozen has now thawed (like frozen sea voices in Rabelais Fourth Book of Pantagruel) and I felt that this was true transcendence and immortality, such as it can be experienced in any intellgible and tangible way.<br /><br />>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Pliablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-31550176678004729792013-06-17T13:27:56.112+01:002013-06-17T13:27:56.112+01:00Thanks for that kirkmc. As is inevitable in this k...Thanks for that kirkmc. As is inevitable in this kind of post views are going to differ, not the least in the wisdom of using Wikipedia pages as primary sources. Personally I prefer to rely on my extensive library which includes the writings of Marco Pallis, an acknowledged authority on Buddhism who has featured here recently - http://www.overgrownpath.com/2013/06/classical-musics-mighty-and-single.html<br /><br />In <i>Peaks and Lamas</i> page 301 Marco Pallis explains:<br /><br />"Similar considerations would have applied in India during the centuries when Hinduism and Buddhism coexisted there as separate currents of tradition: both continued to belong to the same civilization, the form of which had been laid down, under purely Hindu inspiration, at a time long anterior to the specific formulation of the Buddhist teachings. In an case, both in virtue of its origin and by the nature of its thought, Buddhism remains an Indian doctrine, having derived most of its basic conceptions, if not all, from the common root-stock of the Hindu metaphysic".<br /><br />Perhaps it is not me that is muddled.Pliablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-49814477224444898552013-06-17T12:18:25.897+01:002013-06-17T12:18:25.897+01:00Your post is interesting, but a bit muddled in sev...Your post is interesting, but a bit muddled in several ways.<br /><br />First, you say "Hinduism and its reformed cousin Buddhism." I'd suggest you read at least a Wikipedia page to find out a bit more about Buddhism; it's neither a cousin of Hinduism, nor a "reformed" version of it. But that's not the crux of your post.<br /><br />You then say:<br /><br />"This is the brain's newly-discovered ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections, and the discovery of neuroplasticity indicates that classical music is wrong in the way it is trying to reach new audiences."<br /><br />Well, first, neuroplasticity is not "newly-discovered;" it's just that it's been in the spotlight recently, because a number of vulgarized books have been published about it. It's been fairly well-known and accepted for a couple of decades now. Second, this has absolutely nothing to do with "trying to reach new audiences." You seem to think that somehow listeners need to be brainwashed into liking classical music; I know, that's a bit harsh, but that's what comes across in this statement. <br /><br />Next:<br /><br />"It is beyond doubt that classical music must develop its own form of plasticity in order to adapt to wide-ranging cultural and technical changes."<br /><br />I don't know what you mean by classical music developing "its own from of plasticity." This sounds like post-modern drivel, and means nothing. Honestly.<br /><br />And this:<br /><br />"By contrast research into neuroplasticity supports the dumbing-up approach. Because audiences become what they listen to, they will become progressively more receptive to challenging repertoire if exposed to it in the right circumstances. Dumbing-up means offering audiences a varied repertoire that mixes the accessible with a changing and challenging diet of the unfamiliar."<br /><br />I think this has nothing to do with "neuroplasticity;" you're falling into the now-common trap of neuro-whatever to define something. It's more about a musical vocabulary that people need to learn. When you're used to diatonic scales, chromaticism is dissonant; you need to learn the vocabulary, or the phonemes, if you prefer, of this new type of sound. The more you're exposed to these scales, intervals and chords, the less they shock you. <br /><br />Finally, regarding the main crux of your post, where you say:<br /><br />"Yesterday his Fourth Quartet transformed Aldeburgh Church into what in those Eastern traditions is known as a tirth, a transcedental location where one can "cross over", and that transformation triggered in me one of those rare experiences of being transported by music to another and better world."<br /><br />This is indeed interesting, but has nothing at all to do with neuroplasticity. This is an experience that people have at different times, and it can be caused by music, by smells or tastes (cf Proust's madeleine), or other stimuli. In zen, this is called a kensho experience, and when one has them, they are very nice, but one doesn't strive to have them; they just happen when they do.<br /><br />I describe a similar experience on one of my websites:<br /><br />http://www.readingemerson.com/2011/07/10/emerson-and-zen-buddhism/<br /><br />As to becoming what one listens to, there is certainly evidence that different types of music have effects on the brain. The problem is that no one has much of an idea what types of music do what, or to whom, or how. The bit about playing Mozart to babies to make them smarter has been disproven. <br /><br />And, as someone who has meditated for a couple of decades, and who has read a lot of the research, I see little link between meditation's effects and that of music. While certain types of music can certainly relax people - this is well-known and has been tested frequently - others can have other effects. If, say, a Mozart piano concerto relaxes, and an atonal string quartet enervates, then it's not "classical music" as such, but specific types of music that may have effects. kirkmchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17440232855814494434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-35976290231315298442013-06-16T20:13:25.776+01:002013-06-16T20:13:25.776+01:00First - congratulations! It's my sense those m...First - congratulations! It's my sense those moments are fairly infrequent and are to be treasured. <br /><br />I agree with you that the newly discovered plasticity of the brain is one of the most promising things to come out of the new neuroscience. We can literally change how we think and how we process sensory input. Plato's talking about how some modes of<br />music are better for us to listen to than others seems less arbitrarily judgmental seen in this light.<br /><br />What this really makes me think of is the term "flow", the term Csikszentmihalyi came up with to describe that "crossing over" that can happen when performing music and the music seems to be happening of it's own.<br /><br />It would be interesting to know how the performers felt about that particular performance. From what I can tell anecdotally, a performance that's a flow experience for the performers is more likely to trigger "crossing over" in the audience, but that it's not necessary. It's also possible that someone sitting right next to you was bored to tears by the same performance.Lyle Sanford, RMThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11312150272934828223noreply@blogger.com