And another thing...<WARNING: WAAAAAY OT BLOVIATING>

I'm no Buddhist, but lately I have been trying to think through a
theory of what would constitute "mindful" listening.  This isn't easy
for me as I have trouble differentiating between "preference" and
"judgment".

When listening to music, I find that I have a hard time giving up
certain personal preferences: I prefer to listen to musical
performances that are contextually "in tune" and performed with good
ensemble (i.e. "together") and with some transparency of texture (i.e
so I can hear all the parts...I'm a "more is more" kind of guy) and
that also possessing of some hard-to-quantify "other" element, which,
for lack of a better term, I'll call "interpretation", and which, for
me, I think is really about "coherency".   My shorthand for this, and a
term seemingly laden with judgment, is a "good" performance.

So, given a "good" performance, isn't it my job, as a
struggling-to-be-mindful listener, to try and strip away all the rest
of my prejudices and expectations so as to bring "fresh ears" to the
performance?

And yet, isn't most western classical music all about the creation,
denial and ultimate fulfillment of expectation?  (E.g. Mozart "works"
for us because he is so clever at setting up multiple layers of "ahas!"
for us.)

To me, this poses something of a paradox.
</BLOVIATING>


-- 
gharris999
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