Priming an audience: Information Finding Championship - Season 1 : Round 22 entry MUSIC
This is an entry for Round 22 of the Information Finding Championship run by @apolymask and the community account @ifc.
Apologies, seeing as this is a post about music, it really requires that you find some quiet time to listen to a couple of things!
Listen to this first
Try to think about what this short piece means to you, what sort of emotion/thoughts that come to mind. Just write them down for later reference!
Priming an audience
... or leading a horse to water!
As musicians, we seem to think that the messages that we atttempt to transmit via our performances should be self-evident and obvious. However, I have learnt over time that this just isn't true. Music evokes many emotions and thoughts that are complex and intertwined with personal experience and context. Things that are powerful for one person might be totally meaningless for another, what one person finds joyful another finds tinged with sadness.So, as musicians, the best we can do is provide an interpretation, a suggestion, of a particular message/emotion/thought.
However, it is possible to prime the audience to think along the same lines. This is a bit of a controversial topic amongst musicians, because of the previously mentioned idea that the audience "should just get it", with the subtext that if they don't they are dumb-arses.
Auditory Illusions
If you can, listen to this without watching the screen. It is pretty long, but interesting, but you only need to listen to one to start to get the idea.
This is the idea, that our auditory senses, with the right prodding can be motivated to find patterns and suggestions in otherwise completely random noise. In this case, it isn't totally random, but you can find examples of finding words in white noise. You don't hear the words unless you are told they are there, and then you can't unhear them! I just couldn't find any that didn't give the game away....
Context
Here is Pachelbel's Canon, the bane of cellists and the staple of every wedding.
What are the ideas and thought that run though your mind? Sombreness, Beauty, Seriousness?
Well, my particular field of specialisation in Classical Music is Historically Informed Practice. So, without going into a long rant, let me just say that in the 300 years since that Canon was written it has been completely butchered and bastardised from its original intention.
There is much evidence (musical and otherwise) to suggest that it was supposed to be a piece of unbridled joy and striving, new discovery, and wonder... Well, I guess a wedding ceremony is supposed to be the same...
Manipulation
Sorry, I have no idea about that image. Being restricted to Pixabay and free sites sometimes returns weird weird weird results... Sigh, I miss the good old days of just pulling images from Google....
Anyway, how do we incoporate these ideas into musical performances?
The most traditional way is via programme notes and pre-concert lectures. This informs the audience about the pieces and performance, which hopefully plants the seeds of the ideas that the performers want grow in the audience. This isn't so sucessful, as you don't tend to read the notes at the same time as the music, and the lectures are often given by people who are not the performers!
Another way, which is better, is to have the performers talk in between the pieces. To try and set the scene for the music that follows. This has the added benefit of breaking up the sombre quality that afflicts most classical music concerts...
Combination with other art forms. I have played in orchestras where they include other art forms, like dance/actors or video installations or lighting effects. This works to varying degrees and is perhaps the most controversial amongst traditionalists. Personally, when done tastefully (which is another subjective measure...), it is the most effective way of transmitting a message/thought/emotion. I have to say, historically, it was rare for music to be sat down and listened to anyway, so perhaps this would be the best way forward?
Second listen
So, a second listen to the original piece of music. This aria is a completion of Bach's uncompleted Markus Passion (by Jorn Boysen) performed on original instruments by @musicapoetica. @bengy is the violinist, I'm a performer and I have limited composing ability!
The Passion setting is the story of Christ told from the gospel of the disciple Mark. This particular excerpt from the Passion occurs immediately after the CRUCIFIXION of Christ.
Or if you aren't religious (like me), it is the moments after the most unimaginable disaster has struck. The news that you wish you would never hear...
Different thoughts?
Disclaimer
This was written from the point of view of Classical Music, specifically instrumental music but also vocal music where the language is not known). Popular music is slightly different as you can often listen to the lyrics!
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This is a beautiful post @bengy I love the things I am learning about music and poetry among others through this contest! Thank you for sharing!!!
Thanks for reading! We are all learning lots from each other!
I loved those auditory illusions! Those were so cool. Music is really so interesting, especially the classical music. It's amazing how you can feel the type of emotion just by the sound.
What a great post @bengy
Yes, music is a great tool for conveying ideas that just can't be put into words. However, that is also it's down side, it is inaccurate and highly subjective!
oh definitely - it's a doubled edged sword lol
This was nice, I like the wedding song, both versions, I am still unsure of the opera type voice in classical music, I guess if I knew latin it would be different, but alas I am illiterate when it comes to latin.
It was German in the song, but it does sound a little bit like Latin if you don't know it! (You had me thinking I posted the wrong piece!) This voice is not your normal operatic voice, it is an Early Music voice. Hard to describe the difference without examples, but much less wobbly vibrato and less screaming!
Glad you liked both versions of the Canon, I have to say the first version drives me nuts! But it is generally what people want when they request it at weddings... Can't have the bride skipping down the aisle!
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First song made me feel like of.. Somber. Tis a beautiful song though.
The Auditory Illusions was pretty fascinating!
Second song kind of makes me feel like I'm in a royal palace or something.
Heh.
Even if it is wedding music, classical music still tends to relax and calm me. There's something about it that is very soothing.
In regards to how I feel about the final song.. It almost has an angelic feeling to it.
Great entry! Thanks for sharing and for teaching me something new!
There has been an unfortunate development in the last century or so to divorce music from speech. Which leads to the idea of perpetual beauty of tone and sound. Unfortunately, endless beauty is meaningless. Things are only beautiful in comparison, so you need contrasts.
Unfortunately, this infection is so deep, that you have difficulty convincing musicians (classical) to make hard or harsh sounds, even when it is apparent that the music requires them to do that. There is an instinctive stepping away from the edge...
This has led to the idea that classical music is soothing, when in fact it should span the entirety of human emotions, both ugly and angelic.
I think this is mostly umm.. In a more compartmentalized way. The average person has been separated from it, however the powers that shouldn't be are using it a lot to control people through popular entertainment. Music is one of their main forms of mind control. Get a good sounding beat, and then put some trash words in there and you'll have people jamming and feeling good to really unhealthy and even immoral ideology. A classic example of this is the mainstream rap culture of "Kill them and fuck the hoes and do drugs and be a piece of shit' essentially.. But.. Pretty much all different styles of music do this as well. Except you could argue, songs with no lyrics. Though.. Pretty much all major mainstream music in my opinion is designed to sound good, and deliver a segregated form of behavior which the people in power desire the population to possess.
You may highly disagree with that, but.. I truly believe that. I've done a lot of research into the entertainment aspect of the occult, and the people in power are clearly hiding all kinds of messages in popular music, and not just in the lyrics either. But subliminal and supraliminal as well in music videos and album covers etc etc etc.
I used to listen to classical music a lot so I definitely can vibe with this! I've felt all different kinds of emotions from different songs and styles. Which I think is both a good thing and pretty fascinating if you think about it. How certain tones/sounds in different combinations create such response among our brains. Though I'ma stop myself before I rant on forever as I have a bunch of other messages I need to try to get to. Cheers.
Sorry, the part you first quoted was specifically about classical music and not more! But it might have parallel to what you were talking about. The making of classical music into a saleable product has debased many of the things that made it meaningful. Thus the focus meaningless beauty and an emphasis on the visual in an auditory art!
I have to say, the defining of music tastes and musical success by a small group of gatekeepers has been a disaster. Not financially for those in the loop, but for the art firm of music in general. I'm hopeful this wave of decentralisation will go in some part to fixing this abuse of power.
Although, in not sure I would have enough to support where I think you are going with your conclusions! I prefer to blame the mass impact of many individual greed impulses and preservation of mediocrity above a conspiracy! Perverse incentives.
Ah.. Oops my bad for the misunderstanding. Lol..
I do agree it has been a disaster for art in general, and whether simple greed or something deeper, in the end it's still both of those things in my opinion. It's greed and a conspiracy, a conspiracy is just a group of people coming together with a similar goal. Though.. In regards to my kind of conspiracy, yeah I don't expect you to agree with me there. I think it's part of a larger plot to dumb people down and control them. And.. I think you rarely ever get to the pinnacle of fame without being in one of the secret societies. During my research I've found almost every major famous person eventually leads to a secret society, even going back hundreds of years. That doesn't necessarily mean they are all bad, but.. When the world is so messed up and they don't speak out about it, it makes one wonder.
A mass of individual desires and a conspiracy have similar outcomes, but I think they are different in the cure.
A gathering of individual desires suggests that the system and power structures give incentives to act and behave in a certain way. For instance, if we don't place a price on pollution, then there is no real incentive for the mass of the population to favour a cleaner ecosystem. To paraphrase, it is a bit odd to expect that a system that favours maximising personal gain could produce a net social good. In this interpretation (my preferred, unfortunately), people act in a greater good way only if it somehow benefits them (not necessarily in a financial sense). Thus, the way to harness this is to create rules and power structures that channel these individual desires.
In a conspiracy (please correct me if I'm wrong!), the idea is that there is something that is holding back the natural development of society. In that case, the cure is to target the cancer and then things will go to their natural state. It is a more optimistic view, as it suggests that if people were left to develop freely then a potentially better society would emerge? Although, I'm much more pessimistic about this. I would suggest that even if that was possible, a new "power centre" would develop.
I generally agree with your ideas here and I think you have a great way with words and putting these kinds of things into mental pictures.
I suppose that's possible, but this would almost imply this is our human nature. Which is possible.. But.. I'd like to believe we're not limited or confined to this and that there is a better way. I think perhaps in time if enough people learn to truly learn deep spiritual concepts like the "golden rule" then.. No one would ever on purpose try to infringe on others again, that would leave mostly just accidents and people accidentally hurting each other.. But.. I think if everyone truly learned the golden rule, there would be no desire to rule over each other.
I think it is the nature of a large group of individuals (humans and otherwise). I do remember reading a paper about the optimum balance of selfish and altruistic members of a society (animal). It turns out that a balance of the two is required for a stable society.
Completely selfish is destructive, but completely altruistic should also be unstable. A small mutation to have a slightly more selfish trait would in a few generations completely dominate.
I forget the balance though, just that the point of stability was somewhere in between. Admittedly, it is a simplistic model, but I think the idea that a completely altruistic society is unfortunatly not as stable a community as we would hope to believe it would be.