A conversation with Michael O'Brien brought up the content of the work I am going to present in Korea in a couple of weeks, which has to do with the difference between a visual experience used to preempt spontaneous listening (read, music notation subjected to theoretical analysis) and a visual experience open to inter-personal exchange, therefore supporting spontaneous listening (Tonal Refraction).
He told me of a Robert Frost poem in which the poet evokes a diminished thing.
I brought up the question of boredom: How can people stand being bored by over-repetition of the pre-explained, almost pre-fabricated experience of something as vibrant as music. His reply: "It's safer."
Incidentally, the poem to which I have referred several times on this blog as being by Emily Dickinson is not by her, but by Frost.
"We dance around in a ring and suppose
But the secret sits in the middle and knows."
Apologies for the misattribution.
