I agree that Zander’s approach is a shorter way in to a “guaranteed to move!” experience, but I think Jen’s critique that he has prescribed the experience I’m supposed to feel is pretty important.

I didn’t (mean to) say I think Jen’s observations are a replacement for Zander’s. I think they’re the fuller next step.

I strongly disagree that Jen’s comments don’t also make the piece more graspable. To use the most extreme example, I literally could not hear the overtone singing in the piece they played until I understood the formal context of where to place my attention. Yes, the air was vibrating in the same way before and after I’d been taught about overtones, but inside my brain those sounds went unnoticed and unheard until I knew “where to listen”.

Or take an example from Zander instead of Jen. His discussion of impulses is a purely formal one, but it makes an enormous difference in how I hear that music. And I propose it makes a bigger difference than just playing me the “many impulses” version next to the “one impulse” version. Without the context to understand, I’d get some kind of contrast between the two. I’d know something was different, and I might be able to fumble around with a fuzzy feeling of what it might be, but confusion doesn’t make that experience better, it makes it confused. Once he’s guided me to identify impulses, all that emotional fuzziness gets washed away. That quick education about impulses is just a single, smaller version of what Jen was trying to do by describing to me the other formal structures and intentions I could be hearing if I only knew how to listen. Hey, if her words didn’t work for you, cool, I’m just saying that both of these people are educating me about forms and context and how the artist made what they made (and why), and boy I completely disagree that they should only be talking about these things with other musicians because they completely transform how I hear that music.

I think Zander’s formal analysis of impulses would be a *fantastic* thing to teach a theater audience. Get a good actor and a good bit of Shakespeare and show them why they can understand the actor when his impulse matches a full thought, and why they can’t make any damn sense of it when the actor just mechanically stresses every other syllable in the iambic line.

I mean, a medium like theater needs this education more than anything else! What other art form gives me more freedom to direct my attention, and more vectors along which I might choose to direct it? Where should I look? What should I look for? Where should I listen? What should I listen for?

These things aren’t a left-brain burden, they’re the firm frame of the expert dancing partner. Anyone can dance with a great dancer! A great dancer gives them a frame and nudge at the right time. Well, I want all my artists to give me a frame and to give me a nudge. I may often be clumsy, but I want to dance and they can help me do it if they don’t leave me to flop around on my own.

However, for most people, that language doesn’t mean a whole lot. I don’t know much about music myself, so I’m the audience you were hoping for, but I can tell you that my response to Jen’s description was bafflement. I have no idea what this means, for instance: “The fact that the accompaniment is moving while the melody doesn’t also emphasizes how the notes of that melody hang suspended in the air, not only above the eventual E at the end of the descent, but above the gently moving surface of the accompaniment.”

I’m not saying that what she wrote isn’t wonderful, but what I am saying is that it isn’t a substitute for what Zander said. It took Jen dozens of sentences to explain what Zander explained in one. And yes, that is to reduce the complexity of the piece of music, but it also makes it graspable. It gives me a way into the music, allows me to connect to it.

Perhaps more importantly, Jen’s description appeals to the left brain, Zanders’ to the right. And I’m not certain that helps in the experience of the work. It sort of requires me to sit back in my chair and keep some intellectual distance, rather than imagine my way inside the piece. She is focused on the form, Zander on the effect. And maybe, after the music has been experienced, Jen’s approach can be used to enhance the experience, to answer the question “how’d Chopin do that?” But I think it gets in the way of the initial experience.

I guess I am being a picker of nits. All I’m trying to say is that certain modes of description have their place, and that Zander’s place may be before the experience, and Jen’s after.

I needed to hear that this week. Thank you.

I did start vibrating sympathetically.

I loved reading this.