Saturday, July 5, 2014

Making the Effort

Because so much music has already been heard it doesn't require more listening to, right?

So one would think, judging from the right-note/wrong-note mentality so pervasive in the music pedagogy business.  What is worth listening to is the child playing as well as the music being played.

I was recalling yesterday listening to one of the first LPs I ever owned, a recording of Arthur Grumiaux and Clara Haskell playing Mozart sonatas.  As I listened the first time I was as if in heaven.  The second time, some days later, was the opposite experience.  I had already heard this!  I had, essentially, memorized those wonderful sounds.  Hearing them again somehow negated their power.

I could see the enemy in full view.

Think about it:  Don't you recall specific sounds that you heard last year--maybe even five, ten, thirty years ago?  Granted they have been distorted by many factors in the meantime, but don't they remain essentially as they were, precious because fleeting, once-in-a-lifetime events?