The Tyranny Of Conscious Thought
Reddit loves this quote:
Which may or may not be due to Thomas Beecham. (Image via weheartit.com).
My initial reaction to this is to agree with the top rated comment in the thread discussing the quote:
“But good music makes me think. It’s a different, more contemplative type of thinking, but it’s most definitely conscious”
But… now I can’t tell. Do I agree or not? It’s really hard to recapture the feeling of listening to music, when you aren’t actually doing just that. I guess it doesn’t have to be either one or the other — perhaps the best music (“best” music) makes you do both of these. At times it demands to be analyzed and consciously processed. At other times, in other situations, it pushes and pulls at your thoughts like a leaf twisting between eddies.
I’m partial to my favorite pieces partially because they make sense. I feel like I “understand” them, that the turns the melodies and harmonies and rhythms take follow a logic. Listening to them makes me feel like a child hearing a favorite bedtime story for the hundredth time: even though you know what is going to happen, you are captivated by the unfolding.
This isn’t exactly a conscious fascination. I don’t think: the violins are going to drop off and then the timpani will roll the whole orchestra into a crescendo. Instead, I can feel it coming.
Maybe I agree with that quote more than originally anticipated…
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Is “thought” the word? I know that I cannot listen to music and not pay attention. Forget trying to fall asleep. The moment music ceases to be very interesting, it becomes very annoying.
And yet, like many writers, I find, I can work along quite happily to baroque music — especially Bach (what a scandal) — to which I’m not paying any attention at all. I’d know if it stopped, or if someone played the bourrée instead of the allemande, but that’s not really conscious attention, is it?
The quote must have been made by a romantic. A view more characteristic of the Enlightenment would recognize that music is a mild sort of electro-convulsive therapy: it resets the pulse of nerves.
February 5th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
I like the ECT analogy. And I’d never heard that about writing and Baroque music — maybe I’ll try that when I am trying to isolate myself from the lab to think about a problem at work.
It seems like something in between thinking and not thinking, doesn’t it?
February 9th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
When I first came across this quote elsewhere, I read it in terms of making/performing music rather than listening to it. I didn’t think of it in terms of listening to it. I tend to agree with the statement in terms of performing music (And lots of other art forms) to a certain degree. I would reword it slightly to say “A function of music…” instead of “THE function of music”.
I agree with you when it comes to listening to music. Music is much more likely to inspire a thoughtfulness when I’m listening to it. Although there are certain pieces and/or moods I might be in that will imbue a state of positive unconsciousness in me. The best performance I’ve ever had were very removed from conscious thought in the sense of thinking about what notes I was playing, timing, etc.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Ahhh… that quote does fit in a bit better with the concept of actually playing, rather than just passively (or even actively) listening.
It’s definitely a complicated issue — but I guess if the quote really tried to be accurate it wouldn’t sound quite as snappy :)
April 1st, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I agree! I think music is soothing to the mind and it doesn’t matter what kind of music you’re into, if the beats are right, you will be happy. I became interested in classical music after hearing pianist Ronnie Segev perform a rendition of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 69, and now I am learning more about other composers from sites like this. Keep up the good work!