It centers around the recently published book by Philip Ball - 'The Music Instinct' . Ashamedly I have not read it (its on a quite long to-do list!) Philip Ball supposedly argues, or provides support to the idea that a brain will comprehend the music of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven more effectively than that of Webern, Schoenberg or a post-tonal composer. The aforementioned composers present logical patterns and progression within their music that are easier for our brains to decipher and follow. Thankfully, Ball does say 'it would be wrong to dismiss such music as a racket'. So the discussion arising from the book is one that revolves around readily perceptible patterns, cultural conditioning and what is 'natural'. The Telegraph says it shows why joe-blogs cant understand the 'subtleties of the chaotic sounding compositions', and on the 'natural' front David Huron, an expert on music cognition from Ohio State University, says that 'predicting what happens next has obvious survival value' and that post-tonal music has 'no pleasure from accurate prediction'. Dr Timothy Jones of the Royal Academy of Music says that with atonal music 'certain people can learn to appreciate it'.
So what do I think: well the snippets taken out of context do disservice to the Telegraph article, which is probably on a more middling ground than I give it credit for. One of the things people say to me at the end of a new music concert, or 'non new music' friends who are talking about new music - is that they just don't understand it. I think comprehension is an important factor in this. But there are two main areas.
Firstly, I don't 'understand' new music it certainly doesn't make sense to me, but I am not sure much music does. That isn't to say it doesn't culture within me every feeling under the sun. For me listening and appreciating music is not about understanding it, it is about what it makes me feel and the better a piece is the more it makes me feel. This then leads on to my second area.
Confusion seems to cloud some peoples perception of new music. This, I think might be not only to do with the atonal aspect of the work but also due to the approach we take to listening. I think as a race we can try to hard. We live in a world where we continuously work at full tilt and must apply ourselves to everything we do. In terms of cultural enjoyment, we need to understand a film or play's plot, see what a picture is and what it stands for and be able to hum the latest tune.
I didn't 'understand' Rothko's art at all until about four years ago when I did an improvised performance in the Rothko room at the Tate Modern with the National Youth Orchestra. During this improvisation (which I wasn't keen on at the time by the way), I felt a real power coming from the art on the walls (permission to vomit). I think the music helped, but I realised I was looking at the pictures and not really trying to understand them and they just seemed to draw me in. I didn't try, I just let it happen (so to speak). I found it a really difficult thing to do, but it is now something I try and do with all things that I know there is no way I will be able to 'understand' on first hearing or seeing.
New music should be played more than once - or played before and after and in the interval of a concert to help our little grey cells - I find atonal music is a catching, cumulative 'disease'. You have the initial feeling, and then on second, third, fourth hearing it gets better and better (if I like it...) as I suppose I can predict what is coming and take satisfaction in waiting and and then my desire to hear point X in a work is satiated!
So try an experiment - take some Xenakis and don't 'do' just listen and 'feel'!
Step 2: listen to it once each day for a week and see how you feel at the end of the week as opposed to the beginning. Answers on the back of a postcard.
F
P.S effects are much better in a concert.
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