I uploaded the first edition of the document over a decade ago. This is now the 14th edition, which I've spruced up a bit. You can download it from Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/16881645/Emotion_and_Magic_in_Musical_Performance_Version_14.
I've added a new preface, which I've reproduced below the asterisks.
* * * * *
Prefatory Note: On the Phenomenology of Musical Experience
I’ve been a musician for most of my life. Early on I read Jean-Baptist Arban say, of music, “There are other things of so elevated and subtle a nature that neither speech nor writing can clearly explain them” (see p. 34 below). I sure liked the sound of that. But what did it mean? Somewhat later I read musicians talking about how, on this or that occasion, the music “played itself.” What could that possibly mean? At some point I came to experience the second, that is to say, I experienced something to which that phrase could reasonably be applied. And I think I know what Arban had in mind. That is to say, I have heard playing to which that phrase could reasonably be applied. I may even have done some myself.
And so, back in the mid-1990s, I started assembling accounts about, well, musical experiences that caught my attention. I wrote brief descriptions of some of my own experiences and collected anecdotes about the experiences of others from various sources, magazine stories, interviews, books, and, more recently, online articles. I put the first edition of this document online about ten years ago and have then updated it when I came across more anecdotes.
I’ve never established explicit criteria for these anecdotes, for that would contradict my fundamental reason for creating this collection in the first place. I am simply on the lookout for interesting things that happen to musicians – also listeners, but mostly musicians themselves – while performing. The idea is to get a large and diverse set of accounts in one place so that we can look at it and ask: What’s going on?
That is to say, there is a sense in which I do not know what these musicians are talking about. The experiences are often hard to describe, we don’t talk about them, and there so there is no standard vocabulary. And yet I feel that these phenomena are the life of music. And so I’ve gathered these anecdotes together into a single document and offer it to anyone who is curious. One day, I assume, or at any rate I hope, one day someone will begin to make sense out of it all. My job is simply to provide something to make sense of.
What happened? And by that I do not mean a deep question about underlying causes and significance. No, I’m asking a simple question about phenomenology: What kinds of experiences are there? Under what circumstances did they occur? How common are they? How do we classify them?
Finally I note that I have never undertaken a systematic search for such anecdotes. The ones I have gathered here are simply ones that I’ve come across in the ordinary business of thinking and investigating. I have no idea what a systematic search of either the web of the archives would turn up, much less systematic interviews of a wide range of people, musicians and non-musicians alike. Needless to say, we desperately need an extensive and systematic effort to collect such stories.
* * * * *
This document is in five parts. The first contains various experiences I’ve had as a musician. These are my windows into how emotion & magic arise in musical performance. Many of these experiences are of a kind sometimes known as altered states of consciousness (ASCs). I list these first, not because I think they are somehow special. How could I possibly know that? I list them first simply because I am able to describe them more completely than the anecdotes I have collected from others. With these, I know what I’m talking about. They span my musical life from my middle school years into the current millennium.
The second part contains a few statements by listeners. The third part collects a few anecdotes from musicians I know. The fourth part is a list of passages by various performers that I’ve collected from various sources over the years. I’ve come across these anecdotes in the normal course of my reading. There has never been a period when I specifically looked for such anecdotes, but I’ve read about music and musicians all my life. These stories do not represent a systematric effort to collect such stories.
Finally, I offer a typology of sexual experiences that, Leola, a sex educator and healer, has developed. The typology applies to musical experiences as well. The stories in this collection are mostly about restorative and transformational music, to use her terms.
What’s new with the 14th Edition
That third part, anecdotes from musicians I know, that’s what’s new to the collection, and they’re what prompted me to expand my original preface. At some point I may go through the whole collection and classify them according to the typology in the fourth part. That would be a good way to begin making sense of these various anecdotes. I’m sure various issues would turn up in that process: Some experiences won’t fit one of the categories; others may fit in two or even three; it may be impossible to tell in some other cases. But that’s more than I want to undertake at this time.
About the mandala on the cover
I uploaded the 13th edition to ChatGPT and asked it to create an image suitable for use on the cover. I put that through several iterations before I decided that perhaps a mandala would be more suitable. The final image is based on the fourth mandala ChatGPT created. I uploaded it to Photoshop, played with the color a bit, and added the lens flare effect.
No comments:
Post a Comment