Sounding Reversal of the Evolution of the Musical Process of Knowing
The Listener Loses the Musical Cognitive Energies
Breaking
Off
the Cognitive Process in Music
In such a case, however, the musical gaining knowledge finds a sudden end here, because the process of cognizant conden-sation, which is indispensable for gaining true musical knowl-edge, is abruptly abandoned.
This fact corresponds to the case of a man who wants to make up his mind about something and sits down to think it over in all quiet – but then immediately switches on the TV only to watch the next best programme being broadcast.
In
all probability one can rule out that, by this approach, he is able of pursuing
his personal problem with the necessary attention.
In an analogous manner, all quest for a deeper meaning in music is brushed
aside in the performance by simple tonal patterns, or by the structuring of
simple tonal patterns respectively – as, for example, periodical vibrations
or periodically structured rhythm – because through the use of periodical
tone patterns the attention of the listener is forcibly shifted to his physiology.
This means, that the listener's entire cognitive process is forced into outer fields of lower musical density and of correspondingly inferior musical order, and that the cognitive energies of the listener are therefore driven into the fields of lower substantiality of musical truth where they exhaust themselves and weaken him almost systematically.
© AAR EDITION INTERNATIONAL 1982