The Enjoyment of Music (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Arthur Wermald Pollitt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0282318127 ISBN 13: 9780282318123

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2018

Synopsis

Excerpt from The Enjoyment of Music

What then is meant by listening? Something m more than the mere reception of sounds by the ears. Listen is to attend, to stretch and bend the mind with sense of hearing to what is offered. It means, theref the effort to exclude other things the what he desires to hear and tries not to hear other sounds. He gives himself to this and for the time takes himself away from the rest of the world. If we are to listen to music we shall repeat this double process of attention of reservation over and over again for the same sounds, the same groups and sequences of sounds, the same piece or work. From this repetition two results must follow first, we get into the habit of listening to this work as a whole, and second, within the work as a whole we learn to distinguish various parts we learn, in fact, what to listen for, and we listen for that. But we shall not always listen to the same work, when we are listening to music; we: shall hear various works by various writers. To all of them we shall come with the determination to attend, with the willingness to yield ourselves to them, and yet with the sturdy purpose of retaining our judgment and our self respect. We shall listen for what they have to say.

As in listening to an orator we are not content to have our ears delighted with the notes of his voice, but also insist on knowing what he means, so in listening to music we are not, or ought not to be content with sounds, but must know what the musician means by them. Yet here a danger threatens us. The musician means what he says in sound, that and nothing else music must be musically received. It is not to be translated into the language of words.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0282318127
• ISBN 13: 9780282318123
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 154