[Smt-talk] the impossibility of listening

[Olli Väisälä]

Nicolas Meeùs wrote:

> The recent exchanges on this topic notwithstanding, I do believe  
> that STRUCTURAL analysis properly speaking indeed cannot be  
> extracted from listening of attending. Should one conclude that  
> structural analysis is unneeded, or pointless, or at least  
> unnecessary? I don't think so: such analysis, performed reading the  
> score, can have a tremendous effect on one's listening.

I find this very strange. So you suggest *structural hearing*, á la  
Salzer is impossible??? How I do analysis (largely structural, in the  
Schenkerian sense) more than 50% of time is auralizing a familiar  
piece in my head (often while cycling, walking, or lying in bed while  
moments of insomnia), and I fail to see what is the fundamental  
relevance whether I have become familiar with the music by reading  
the score or listening. (OK, sometimes score reading has shown that  
the barlines are in a different place from what I thought on the  
basis of listening; hence I admit there are some relatively marginal  
aspects affected by this factor.)

>
> Matthew Heap described the "ideal listener" as "one who is hearing  
> the piece for the first time". But that is an utopy. The competent  
> hearer is competent precisely because she is not hearing the piece  
> for the first time.

Here, on the other hand, I totally agree.

Olli Väisälä
Sibelius Academy
ovaisala at siba.fi