Online Discussion #8 is available for comments October 24-30. The rubric I’ll be using to grade your participation and a description of these assignments is available here.
Listen:
Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day. He has walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941. He has gone back through that door to find himself in 1963. He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all the events in between.
He says.
Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next.
—Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughter-House Five (1972)
When are we now?
If I asked you when you are as you listen to this piece of music, you’d likely say (after looking at me quizzically) that, of course, you’re listening to it right now (approximately sometime in the third week of October 2017).
There’s the experience right now of listening to the music, but is that the only place you are? In class, we talked about how listening to a piece of music can remind you of past experiences: places you’ve been, people you’ve been with when you he
ard that piece previously, or other pieces of music you’ve heard. Part of your brain is somewhere else—perhaps it’s more accurate to say that your brain is somewhen else. As you exist in the present, you’re also mentally in another time.
These additional sensations, memories, and times that a piece of music conjures up for you define your personal listening experience—the piece of music is a nucleus around which all these other ideas come into orbit. How varied, rich, deep, or extensive that orbit is for you is a big factor in how meaningful a piece of music seems to be.
Multiple simultaneous orbits
A piece of music needs three kinds of people in order to exist: a creator, an executor, and an auditor—in more common terms, a composer, a performer, and a listener (or in even more pop-friendly terms, a songwriter, a singer, and an audience). Notice that I said three kinds of people, not three different people: they could all be the same person! You as an individual could come up with a musical idea right now (create), sing or hum or tap it (execute), with no one around to hear it but you (audit).
It’s also possible for the three people in this triangle to exist in different points in time: a piece of music might be created by a composer in 1725, played by a performer in 1985, and listened to by you in 2017—time travel! And each person involved, because they’re existing at different points in time, brings different ideas, different purposes, different intentions, and different concerns to the piece—they’re experiencing a completely different orbit or constellation set in motion by the piece of music.
Here’s the flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal performing Johann Sebastian Bach’s Flute Sonata in E minor, BWV 1034, III. Andante. The work was recorded in 1985 but composed ca. 1725:
The composer—Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)— might have been thinking about his contractual obligations and pleasing his employer (like we talked about in class this week), or an aspect of his compositional technique, or his devotion to God.
The flutist in this recording, Jean-Pierre Rampal (1922-2000), had a different set of purposes: creating superlatively beautiful sound at all times, playing in a style that people wanted to hear in 1985, and continuing his ongoing project of recording every single piece of music written for the flute in an effort to raise the profile of the instrument (which had been largely ignored since the 19th century in favor of the piano and violin).
And neither of their concerns would be same as those, say, of a parent at their child’s recital playing this piece for the first time: “I can’t believe I’m paying all this money for lessons and Junior can barely hold his flute up,” or “Wow, I’ve got a great shot here for the video,” or “God, classical music is boring but they say it’s good for my kid’s brain or something.”
As your knowledge of music and music history broadens over the course of this semester, you’ll be bringing a greater range of understanding, depth, and nuance to your listening experience—the orbit set in motion by a piece of music. Your listening experience will entail the sounds you hear, your personal or emotional reactions, as well as some time travel: to the time when the piece was written and to the time when the piece was performed. The more you know about the thoughts, life, concerns, or intentions of the composer (and the performer!) and his/her time period, the more layers in your understanding of the piece.
Historical performance practice
Not only do compositional styles change (e.g., Baroque to Classical), but so do performance styles. The way in which people produce musical sounds, behave on stage, or program concerts has changed significantly over time as tastes change, new ideas come to light, and the technology of music (instrument production, amplification, distribution media) evolve.
In the classical music world, it was common practice in the 20th century for a performer to use the same style for a Baroque piece (written ca. 1600-1750), a Romantic piece (from the 19th century), and a modern piece. But in the 1970s, classical musicians began to think more consciously about one particular aspect of this time travel: would it be possible to perform musical sounds in a manner closer to a composer’s intentions—to go back in time and come away with a more “authentic” performance style closer to that of the period when the music was written? Were there aspects of a musical experience that could be brought to life that an ahistorical style would gloss over?
The historical performance practice movement rests on research done by hundreds of musicians (musicologists and performer-scholars) and brought to life in performances: re-reading historical documents such as instructional treatises (such as those by Johann Joachim Quantz and Leopold Mozart), music criticism, and first-hand audience accounts; iconography (the study of images, which we’ve done in class!); and taking contemporary philosophy into account. The historical performance practice movement also tends to use period instruments or modern re-creations of period instruments. So, for a piece written in 1725, a flutist would play on a wooden, keyless instrument used that time, rather than the metal, multi-keyed flute developed in the mid-19th century.
Here’s a recording of flutist Barthold Kuijken (b. 1949) performing the same Bach flute sonata and doing so on a period-appropriate instrument:
There are period keyboards, bows, horns, and vocal techniques, too, and playing on older instruments allows the musicians to time travel and immerse themselves in the technique of the past, and the sounds they make create a more vivid historical experience for the listener.
At first, “serious” classical musicians scoffed at the early music movement, saying that only musicians who weren’t good enough to be successful were trying to play in a historically-informed manner. And then many started noticing how much more of the music came to life when played in a historically informed style. Now there are a significant number of professional ensembles (Anonymous 4, The Hilliard Ensemble, New York Polyphony, Praetorius, The Tallis Scholars), concert series and festivals (GEMS, Amherst Early Music Festival), and degree programs in conservatories or music schools (Juilliard, Yale) devoted to historically informed music making.
Musicking
To bring this full circle, let’s return to the idea of where you go when you listen to a piece of music and why the listening experience is so important to the meaning of music.
Christopher Small (1927-2011) was a musicologist (a person who studies music and its role in society) whose work grew out of his discomfort with the way we typically talk about music: we talk in a way that suggests that music is an object, a thing that is already done (i.e., made by a musician), and we listeners just sit back and have no role in making it.
But wait!
Didn’t we just think about the idea that each of has a rich, varied listening experience, one set in motion by a musical experience but whose trajectory and scope is defined by us, the listener, and what we bring to the table?
To this end, Small coined a new term: “musicking.” Musicking is a progressive-tense verb (like running, evolving, becoming, doing) that implies a kind of ongoing action. In his mind, music isn’t a thing at all:
Musicking: To music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing. We might at times even extend its meaning to what the person is doing who takes the tickets at the door or the hefty men who shift the piano and the drums or the roadies who set up the instruments and carry out the sound checks or the cleaners who clean up after everyone else has gone. They, too, are all contributing to the nature of the event that is a musical performance… [To] pay attention in any way to a musical performance, including a recorded performance, even to Muzak in an elevator, is to music… [The] verb to music… covers all participation in a musical performance, whether it takes place actively or passively, whether we like the way it happens or whether we do not, whether we consider it interesting or boring, constructive or destructive, sympathetic or antipathetic… Value judgments come later, if they come at all. (Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening, 1998; p. 9)
Part of the reason Small coined this term (coming up with a new word is called a neologism), is that thinking of music as a “thing” or an “object” doesn’t let us appreciate music as it’s being made, only as a thing which has been made. However, music is just a means to create an opportunity to do something and to do something with other people. In other words, musicking creates relationships between people:
The act of musicking establishes in the place where it is happening a set of relationships, and it is in those relationships that the meaning of the act lies. They are to be found not only between those organized sounds which are conventionally thought of as being the stuff of musical meaning but also between the people who are taking part, in whatever capacity, in the performance. (Ibid, p. 13)
Our job as listeners is to forge those relationships: to engage, whether physically, socially, or intellectually, with the sounds we hear, the people making them, and the people around us who are also listening/participating. So, Small says that music is an action, one in which we should all take part:
The fundamental nature and meaning of music lie not in objects, not in musical works at all, but in action, in what people do. It is only by understanding what people do as they take part in a musical act that we can hope to understand its nature and the function it fulfills in human life. Whatever that function may be, I am certain, first, that to take part in a music act is of central importance to our very humanness, as important as taking part in the act of speech… If that is so, then our present-day concert life, whether “classical” or “popular,” in which the “talented” few are empowered to produce music for the “untalented” majority, is based on a falsehood. It means that our powers of making music for ourselves have been hijacked and the majority of people robbed of the musicality that is theirs by right of birth, while a few stars, and their handlers, grow rich and famous through selling us what we have been led to believe we lack. (Ibid, pp. 8-9)
In light of Small’s argument, we, the listeners, have an important role to play when it comes to “making music.” He says that “musicking… is an activity in which all those present are involved and for whose nature and quality, success or failure, everyone present bears some responsibility” (Ibid, p. 10)
Time travel: the future!
There’s also a composer-performer-listener triangle that’s oriented towards the future: what will happen next in the world of music, and how do we shape that future? Here’s a 2010 New York Times article from the newspaper’s music critic Allan Kozinn dealing with this very issue: 2010.12.28 Kozinn – Searching New Music For Keepers
Final thoughts
I think of the listening experience simultaneously as something that is social—listening to sounds made or conceived by another person, often with other people, and contemplating other people’s perspectives or ideas—but also solitary—no one can ever have the same listening experience as you, because they won’t have your exact knowledge, share youre past experiences, be in your body, or pay attention to the same things. Bridging the gap between the solitary and the social rests on our ability to articulate what it is that we think, experience, and why: sharing in words the richness of our listening experience with others.
-Dr. J.
Dr. Jones' Music Classes 
I think listeners are an active part of music making for the simple reason that if there weren’t people to listen certain genres of music, that music wouldn’t have continued to be made. As listeners, we take an active part in the appreciation of music by either accepting it or having reservations or completely being disinterested in that particular type of music. As a listener, I think I have the ultimate decision as to what I want to listen to, when and why. Also I greatly appreciate music from centuries ago to be performed in the style of the composer just to get a feel of their intension and catch a glimpse of what people of that time enjoyed in terms of music.
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I completely agree with you. Music is all about listening and without listeners it would have no values. It is also our duty as a listener to appreciate music.
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I agree as well without listening their wouldn’t be music and we would be stuck with the same type of music forever.
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I agree with you as well. We all listen for our on reasons. We learn to appreciate what satisfies our ears.
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I agree with you. Music is made for listening and its very important for the listener to appreciate music because without a listener there wouldnt be any music made .
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I agree with you completely. Just having the choice whether or not to listen to certain types of music is the reason we have so many different types of music. Not everyone is going to like the same type of music and thats what gives music that aspects of uniqueness and individuality.
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I agree your idea, and how do you think after we take well as a listener that will help the composer develop their music?
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the perfect thing is listener understand what composer want to express.
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I agree 100% with all this. If it wasn’t for us listeners, artists wouldn’t even have a career
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I agree. Music would literally be nothing without listeners. If you no listeners, then what exactly is the point of music? There’s so many aspects that tie into music, like in the reading, the composer, performer, AND listener. It would be incomplete without the listening aspect.
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I agree with you completely. Just having the choice whether or not to listen to certain types of music is the reason we have so many different types of music. Not everyone is going to like the same type of music and thats what gives music that aspects of uniqueness and individuality.
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I agree and think its amazing how many different type of music there is and how each person can have their own kind of music.
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Disregard this post. *This post was meant as a reply to the first post*
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How many people have actually thought that they are a part of the making of music by being listeners prior to this reading?
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Listeners is the reason why variety of music exist, everyone has different type of taste and composers or song writer try their best to make music that catches you ears. Artist get famous for a reason because they have millions of listeners ready to buy their album because they like music that the artist is composing
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I must say that I support your response entirely.What makes listening to music “rich” is when you really hear the lyrics or sound. It’s easy to listen to music as a background noise but if you take the time to just really concentrate on the music piece it can change you. Our individual understanding is what give off that beautiful essence of musical meaning.
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I absolutely love what you wrote in your comment and intact I agree with that. In addition to what you. and some others wrote, if listeners were not always a big chunk of the equation if not the most important, one type of music would not die off slowly or there would not be so much competition. If. music were not created for other people to listen and enjoy to it then it would just be a bunch of talented artists playing and making music just for themselves in which case there would not be a wide range of competition and music production industries that we have today.
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I didn’t really know about it. It is very interesting to be a part of any music just by listening to it.
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I never think about listeners actually are a part of the making of music until I read this essay. But it does make sense because most of music are made for people need, and a piece of music has its meaning only when there is someone understand it.
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I never thought about listeners as part of music making too. And it made sense to me too after I read the passage. I agree with you completely
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I had no clue of the concept of “musicking”, but I’m glad know I do. It’s interesting to learn these new terms and concepts widening my knowledge of music because I never thought of the audience as part of creating the music it’s really a different perspective that I would have never ever thought of, and I’m glad to finally see a baroque era piano because I was always interested what it looked like listening to it was always surreal because that instrument is a period piece that didn’t make its way much into modern day instrumentation. Did anyone else find the instruments interesting? Especially in a era where they were all handcrafted like the keyless flute.
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I never knew this concept and it intrigued me because it was a completely different perspective and my mind was just blown away.
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I definitely did think that before we even touched onto this discussion so not only was this more knowledge to what I knew but also was like a double assurance. I thought this before also because I always thought that without listeners, there would not be music production. If rich people or people who can or could have afforded music production, they always needed someone to sell it to us which enriches the market of music and reaches out to other people which comes from us the listeners.
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I never have. Now I actually feel like I contribute even though I can’t even play an instrument.
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I always thought by listening you’re apart of it because if an artist sees that people respond to a certain type of music (keep listening to it) they in turn make more music like it. We as listeners influence the making of music.
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I think our listening experience is so important to the meaning of music because it is something that varies every time we listen to a piece of music. For example, when we listen to a piece for the first time, that very first experience can never be experienced again. I think the idea of musicking is not only the listening experience but also the idea that any aspect of music is a part of the overall process. It includes the artists, composers, listeners, fans, producers, etc and they all are considered as a vital part of musicking.
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Can we use musicking to describe me listening to a song on my computer as much as we can use it to describe an orchestra concert involving hundreds of people?
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Most likely.
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That is a good question even though it is a simple one and according to me, you can definitely describe the two through the concept of Mu-sicking. I say this because bottom line the whole point of mu-sicking is to interact in music and play a role in it and take part as a whole. Mu-sicking is you joining a concert, listening to music online, singing yourself, talking about music, even just liking music or certain types in which mu-sicking does not have any barriers. Think of it as communication to the best ability and what I mean is that maybe I have the ability to go to a concert and or play instruments myself which means I am taking part in music but someone else might not have the ability to do so for whatever reason so they would listen to music on t.v, online or even try imitating singers online which is also taking part in music.
Please let me know if this helped at all or if you think so as well
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Musicking helps us appreciate music in different perspectives by letting musicians or listeners put their feet on someone else shoes. For example, a violinist and a pianist could learn how to play the same piece over and over, but give them the chance to learn it on different instruments, they will get the chance to hear and understand the difference on why people enjoy a piece. In addition, they will get to find out why a composer had chosen certain instruments or singers to perform the song or piece.
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Is there ever a chance that musicking will helps us to the possibility to replicate a piece perform 20 years agos or 100 years?,Especially with all the advance technology.
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well now, most of the pieces of music that we hear are reproduced by a certain musician. We don’t really have the original recordings of any given composer. This means that musiking definitely helps us reproduce music that was written hundreds of years ago.
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I believe it is possible through musicking!
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It’s pretty cool how Christopher Small took it upon himself to coin a new term for the act of listening to music as “musicking”. It sounds like a foreign word in my mind but it makes sense and in my own words I would define Musicking as the act of closing yourself off to the world around you and getting lost in the world of music instead where there’s no boundaries. I also understand the concept of the triangle consisting of a composer, performer and listener and the only dilemma that came to mind was that now a days the performance part is becoming more of a digitized thing rather than being live but that’s not to say live performances are going extinct or anything. It just doesn’t apply to hearing music digitally. That’s also not to say that a digitally made song can’t be played and or recreated with instruments live. Artists usually lip sync without back round performers playing instruments. Classical music on the other hand was made for that triangle of music and vice versa.
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Listening is such an important part of making music. It opens our minds to new ideas we can make for music. It also gives musicians different perspectives on how to listen and create new music that people would enjoy. This gives us variety, with everyone having different types of opinions in music they like. Also it gives us a chance to appreciate music from back in the day and compare to our music today and also learn how it evolved through time. Through this we can take some materials we learn from old fashioned music and incorporate it into new styles.
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Do you know any new song which is old fashion style music ?
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Can anyone give any guesses on how music first started in history?
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I think it is difficult to say exactly how music started in history. Maybe it was started with human voice itself because there were no instruments back then.
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When reading this discussion the part that states everyone can be a composer, listener, and performer really was so true. “Musicking” is a fun way of stating to really understand music you would have to clear your mind and truly listen with no outside ideas or experiences.
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Do you think “musicking” is same idea with triangle idea? or does it mean broad than triangle idea?
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Does anyone disagree with the point anyone can be a composer, performer, and listener? If so why?
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I think it is possible to be a composer, performer, and listener if anyone truly wants to. You can always give it a try to make your own kind of music and be a composer. Performing can be done anywhere and when it comes to listening I think everybody can do it without any struggle.
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Before I read this article, I didn’t know that a piece of complete music is made by composers, performers and listeners. But this paragraph well explained how important they all are by drew a triangle. The music is meaningless if there is nobody can listen to it, it can’t be listen if no one can play it, also, it doesn’t exist if nobody know how to write a piece of music. It’s just like a triangle, it’s stable and inseparable. By the way I really like the way to use math explain music. It makes the idea more clear and the material more acceptable.
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It is true. Math can be related to music. I think the basis of all musical sound can be described mathematically. For example, The high and low pitches always remind me of the sin and cosine curves. Did it remind you of anything related to math when you tried to describe a particular piece in class? let me know!
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Listening is the most important part of music. It allows us to learn to appreciate and allows us what are our likes and dislikes. We are all different in so many ways and our experiences have a great influence on how we view music. Also, I think if we were unable to listen to music, music wouldn’t have the same effect as it does on people now. Probably wouldn’t be as appreciated as it now.
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I agree sort of, however, I think that composer, performing and listener are equally important. The reason is that we cannot listen to music without composer and performer, and they need interacting each other by balance.
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Do you think if we couldn’t listen to music, would it have the same impact as it does now?
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When I listened to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Flute Sonata in E minor, BWV 1034, III, performing by flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, I could travel time from 1985 to 1725. Bach, his musical pieces did not match the baroque era’s people, however, especially, Schumann and Mendelssohn in 19 century contributed to spread widely Bach’s music. So, I wanted to concern with the flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, because he contributed flute’s popularization from favor of piano and violin in 19 century. Through those things, I felt his music are simple, calm and sacred god.
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When i think about music helping us travel back in time, it makes me realize that it is much like thinking of memories. Memories are in the past and music can transport us there too. So i really like this idea of music taking us back. I also agree that the reasons we play must can change how it sounds to the listeners. Because of this, the listener is probably the most important aspect of the music experience.
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does anyone else agree that all of the aspects leading up to hearing a piece of music affects how its heard? like for example when youre about to listen to a new album from your favorite artist, does it matter where you hear it? like a subway or the quiet of your room
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Yes that is why I listen in solitude I like to listen to my music not hear it there’s a difference between listening and hearing I listen to the instruments and the artist what they convey what they want me to pay attention too what the message is and why they choose to make the song the way they did. When you hear music it pretty much like background noise you know it’s there but are you really giving your all to acknowledge the artist? Or are you thinking about mid terms Work relationships problem stress or maybe even doing activities while having headphones on like jogging or cleaning.
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I never really thought about it like that, a distinction between listening and just hearing. When you are listening, whats the first part that you actually pay attention to first?
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Whatever the song wants to convey to me whether there’s an intro riff if even just someone trying to say something before he song starts it varies with all different kinds of music songs can start with a guitar bass drum voice or it ca all start at once.
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Yes, when I hear my favorite artist I will keep listening to it without thinking the lyrics, the tempo, the rhythm because I the style of his song never change it, the tone is always I like.
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Listening is the most important part of music. Listening to a piece of music can help lower stress and also it can help boost your creativity, by helping you see new things and get new ideas. Music was made to be listened to and if there were no listeners, music probably wouldn’t be noticed. Each of us has different aspects and reasons of the type of music that we choose to listen to and this is what makes music so unique.
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I agree listening is a big part of the music and without listeners, music could still exist but I don’t anyone would like to create it just so nobody will listen to it.
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I agree with you in my opinion it must’ve been so frustrating for the first ever composer of music to get people to listen to the music he made, people probably didn’t enjoy hearing music and believe it was all a bunch of noise but some people came around and gave listening to music a chance and thats why today music is everywhere would anyone else agree?
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If there are no listeners what would be the point of still continuing to make music?
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Music doesn’t have to be heard and making them doesn’t need a purpose, well that is to me.
Have you ever just started singing because you felt like it about some random thing that just popped out of your mind. Listeners are not needed to continue making music it is the will to make something that really matters.
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I had no clue of the concept of “musicking”, but I’m glad know I do. It’s interesting to learn these new terms and concepts widening my knowledge of music because I never thought of the audience as part of creating the music it’s really a different perspective that I would have never ever thought of, and I’m glad to finally see a baroque era piano because I was always interested what it looked like listening to it was always surreal because that instrument is a period piece that didn’t make its way much into modern day instrumentation. Did anyone else find the instruments interesting? Especially in a era where they were all handcrafted like the keyless flute.
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Similarly to most of the discussion we learn about, I found this discussion captivating, compelling, enlightening because of the new knowledge that I gained from this informative research. What makes music a rich experience for me is when an artist uses his/her talent to relay a powerful message even when I might not be able to relate to it as well as another person can. I enjoy the inspirational aspect, and social awareness that factors into the musicality. I especially enjoy how an artist incorporates their personal life, which encompasses experiences that many artists, or individuals in general face throughout their life as well. For instance one of my favorite artist name J.Cole had dropped a phenomenal album called, “4 Your Eyez Only “. He mixed in his personal anecdotes by using a fictional character that portrays the loss of friend he had been close to, and implied about his daughter, which was astounding news for media, He also evaluates the oppression, discrimination, hate crimes, and absurd issues that individuals project toward various groups, such as using methods of sexual harassment, and frequent prejudice criticism. This isn’t the first time he has touch on the contemporary struggles of an African American. He emphasize the ongoing stereo-types, and the degrading commentary and perception in which men and women face in modern day society. For instance in “Crooked-Smile , he empowers that women should acknowledge their worth and forget their insecurities, and turn it into optimism rather than pessimism. I hold onto songs like these, from artists that can impact and influence the listener on a larger magnitude , and through realism, rather than wish-full thinking. Although history I known to repeat it self, a change can be made through various method or forms, such as musical meaning express by various artists or individuals. One of the prominent reasons musicking can be considered rich is based on how everyone listens to , and understands music all around the world
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Are there any other artists/songs that’s capable of producing those same feelings for you? And if there is do you listen differently to them?
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I just wanted to say that I absolutely love the “4 Your Eyez Only” album. It’s definitely a lot more than just plain songs. I totally agree, if you listen to it throughout, it’s more than just a story of his friend. It speaks a lot about important issues that many people face everyday in society, it runs deep.
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Is music’s intention solely to be something to physically cherish? What other concepts beside the Multiple simultaneous orbits support and address Musicking?
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I find the term musicking so interesting. To explain musicking to someone that never heard the term before, I would say musicking is doing anything related to music at all, whether listening to it or tapping your feet while a car playing music drives by. The term is so universal, that anyone can do it. I think this term should be more popular in society today. So next time someone ask you what are you doing, tell them I’m musicking. Then explain to them what it means.
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I think listening to older music as a form of time travel is really interesting. Even with historical facts and what we learn in school, I don’t think you could ever fully relate to what they went through but listening to their music, you could get a sense of it by how they express their life in their music.
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Who are some popular artists or specific songs that you think people 100+ years from now will read about in class or still listen to?
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Listeners are the making of music, always has been and it will always be. Composers and songwriters create music base on what the listeners will like. It is a good thing that not everyone likes the same type of music because that means that there is a variety of music types and even if as you grow up your taste in music change the is many types of music out there, even music that was written years ago we still listen to it and even tamper with it to make it more to our likes. Although listeners are a big part of creating a piece of music composers and songwriters sometimes like to surprise their fans with something completely new.
From this reading, my favorite part was to learn more about the instruments. I had no idea there were so many different bows.
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If all music was the same could you listen to music?
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If that’s what you grew up with i think you’d get used to it. but if you were to transition from listening to whatever you like to only one genre i’d personally go crazy. I couldn’t listen to the same thing over and over again.
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The really make music become musicking, not only the song made by the composer but also the performer and listener. When a composer writes a perfect song but without performing it, this is definitely a pity for everyone. However, when a performer playing a song without listener’s reaction, feedback, the performer will feel disappointed that makes them don’t want to play the song anymore. If there no more performer want to play the song, and there is no reason for the composer to make the song. The chain can’t lose any of them, just like the triangle is much more stable. So we as the listener, we have to act best to react with performer, no matter good or bad feedback,
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I was shocked when i saw the word “Musicking” and told myself what does this mean I know it has to do with music because of the context of the word “Music” but what does it truly mean in this case? Well, musicking can mean anything related to music from dancing to singing “Musicking” is what a person feels in there mind and heart. Even, today anyone can be a composer and start to make music “Musicking” let others in society know when they ask you are “Musicking”- doing what you love to do in the field of music.
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contrary to Mr. Small’s reasoning I feel that music is an object but in a different sense. If we perceive objects as a state of matter that is solid then what is a state of matter that is a liquid, gas or wave. He isn’t wrong that music should not be seen as something made but something that is being made, but to me music is even deeper. If we are made of matter and matter is made of waves and energy makes up those waves, what difference does that have to sound and music to music. If we reason that music is not an object it looses its connection to us that is why i feel that music should be an object in a sense
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everyone knows that music can affect many aspects of our lives today. I want to ask what do you think music will affect in the future
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I think the music of today will serve as a basis for the new music to be created same as the music of the past, it’ll be used to describe the time period we live in.
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I find the idea of listening and thinking about “when you are” I often listen to songs i listened to in my early teens and i’m immediately transported to the person i used to be I always labeled it as nostalgia but to think about it as shifting times back and forth and becoming that person again is an interesting concept.
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I think the charming of music is the same song to different people has different meanings. and the reason for difference is based on cultures, experience and knowledge… to me, like some piece of music, especially for country music can always remind me the experience which happened on me before and I was surprised how the musician or composer can express my experience so well, they use soft and slow melody to tell a story which is like a time machine let me come back to the past and memorize those people who I’ve already lost and remind me something after you make a decision there is no other choice provided… it’s not just music, it talks about everything which is unique for you.
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is there a piece of music has ever make you feel it is talking about your story?
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The concept of musicking is done everyday throughout generations. Everytime i visit my cousin in New Jersey, she is always rehearsing and practicing her music for her upcoming videos. Me on the other hand, i just listen and dance whenever a song i like is being played. When you think about it, music wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for us listeners. If people made music and had no audience, then music would only exist towards them and everybody else probably wouldn’t even know what it is. That’s definitely a world i wouldn’t want to live in.
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What stood out to you the most about the term Musicking?
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What stands out the most to me about the term musicking is that it is a verb, in other words an action. This is implying that music cannot be defined by just notes on a paper, there are intangible parts to it that cannot be described by words (which is why he coined the term musicking).
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What stood out to me the most was that a piece of music needs 3 kinds of people to exist. I always knew it could be more than two, but this article showed me the’re usually always gonna be more than just two people.
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What stands out about the term music sticking is that music will never perish like people,it will alway carry across generations. Does not matter how old a piece is it will alway hold its value it will alway stick.
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The term ‘musicking’ was a great concept because, as the author mentioned, the word ‘music’ almost limits it to an object. In reality, music has intangible aspects that sometimes cannot even be described with words. This term, though, best encapsulates the many things that music brings to our lives.
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How do historical instruments differ in tone? What kind of sounds are associated with ‘historical’ music?
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This week’s discussion on musicking really opened my eyes a lot. I realized that I do it on a daily basis, and have done it for a while now. Reading it and understanding what it is in depth opens my eyes to it so now I’m gonna be more aware of it. Reading this article makes me wonder if the performer is more important than the listener now. Because the composer creates, but if the performer doesn’t give off the creation the way the composer intended for it to reach the listener, it makes me wonder would it still be received the same.
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I believe music has change throughout the years and without many composers and artist we would still be listening to the same music . Many people may not like classical music but from it comes many different style of music . Music style will alway have something in common
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I definitely agree with listening being a very important aspect in the music world. As I had said before, music would be nothing without it’s listeners. It would simply be incomplete. I always felt that listening to music was a very important aspect in music because I am always listening to music. I somehow always feel connected to the music, even though I don’t actually compose or perform it.I feel like you can pick up a lot from actually LISTENING, not just hearing, as someone had distinguished. When you truly listen there’s really a lot behind a piece of music, whether it is the musical features or the meaning behind it. People create music because they want it to be heard by others. It’s all connected, the composer, the performing aspect and listening.
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Does anyone think that if the composer just gives a performer music, that the message will reach the listener as the composer envisioned it?
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Going back to the triangle idea of composer, listeners and performers…there was a line in the article where it said “they can all be related but can also be in different time periods. I could not agree more because the types of music that I am mostly familiar with is Indian music and I would say that I know more about it and I have came across multiple songs recently that are now getting famous but have been originally composed or produced in the late 1900’s. Now there are a lot of reasons to why that can have happened but one of the most common things is that whoever caught on to the trees and pattern of today’s generation taste in music decided to change the beat of the same song that was created back, in 1900’s and made it a little more up beat and added some kind of music video or drama top it. That same song that was created back the, all of a sudden starts to get millions of views and comments like ” I wish we had more songs like these” that explains that the three things are related because of the taste of today’s music generation, composers catch on to that or music production people and the performers perform it in a certain way that it is scripted to catch attention and that gives it all a new meaning to an old song.
Am I the only one that has experienced such a thing? or do you guys agree to this as well? Like take an example of the songs you guys most listen to and let me know because for me in the field of Indian music, I have seen this multiple times.
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