I’m sure I have a completely discernible profile in a faraway database so companies the world over can manipulate my purchasing behavior, not least because I publicize almost everything. Also, I have a phone that listens to everything I say (it’s “smart” enough to gather data about me for corporations but not smart enough to turn off automatically during performances). So YouTube, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Instagram all have a vague set of keys to vie for my attention.
But they aren’t human, and their guesses about what I’ll pay attention to are a little off. “Will you click on this Vogue interview with Emma Stone? You did, after all, re-watch the mediocre dance scene from La La Land. How about this beauty-for-the-aging tutorial, given your recent search for vitamin D topical treatment?” YouTube, in its algorithmic wisdom, tossed a playlist at me recently that completely perplexed me: “Classical Music for Reading.” “For reading what?” I said, and then obediently clicked on the playlist. There are a lot of generic favorites in this list: Debussy’s “Claire de Lune,” more than a couple of Chopin’s nocturnes, all the slow movements of Mozart’s piano concertos.
It struck me that I can’t imagine actually reading while listening to any of this. First of all, how many things can you do at once? I definitely cannot listen to Mozart and read a book at the same time. Is this not a problem for everyone? The video has 36.5 million hits, which means at least 36.5 million times, somebody (or likely somebodies) had no problem with this. The comments are all variations on “classical music brings you serenity and comfort.” So maybe folks aren’t doing all that much reading. They’re just really comforted and serene, I guess.
Our attention is such a funny, fickle thing. All these social media algorithms are architected to optimize “engagement.” What a strange kind of engagement we’ve all agreed to settle for! Doesn’t the word “engagement” suggest a kind of active attention? Most engagement on YouTube is centered on, frankly, outrage and fear. And cats. It’s maybe something marvelous that “classical music for reading” is lobbing such a high volley. But doesn’t this feel like a low bar?
So maybe I’m not “reading to classical music” (because this is like painting while playing tennis), but do I agree partially with all the comments about how “soothing” it is? I understand that pianists have been cashing in on the relaxing aspect of lyrical piano works for, oh, decades. The first piece of classical music my husband listened to was Pachelbel’s "Canon in D" on a CD called Stress Busters. Track 10, he says.
A fellow pianist once lamented to me, “An audience member thought she was complimenting me by saying she was so soothed, she fell asleep.” Can you imagine any other artform in which someone would think it a compliment to fall asleep? I’ve been very tired in a museum before, but I have never napped on the benches, nor would I consider it a testament to the fineness of the artwork that I was so relaxed I just went right to sleep in a public place. (Take this with a grain of salt: I have trouble sleeping at home.) Imagine someone’s assessment of the Louvre being, “I’ve taken some of my very finest naps there.”
Actually, I would probably be friends with someone who said that. E-mail me if you’ve napped at the Louvre.
I’m not emotionally deaf to the aspects of "Clair de Lune" that might be meditative. I understand the prayerful nature of music, and I’m a kinder and more patient person if I get to practice every day (pro tip: if you marry a pianist, get her a high-quality keyboard and headphones for practicing at night so she isn’t CRAZY). But I think attention is a vexed thing in the land of the Internet.
And I miss the tangible, disruptive, aggressive, attentive, responsive ecstasy of playing music with other musicians.
Do you remember live music? I forgot about it. I forgot about sound without Zoom settings. I forgot about the little intimacies of noise in a space, the peculiarities of acoustics in a different room. I forgot about the chemistry of bodies. The little cues of someone’s posture. But Sancho met me at the church a couple weeks ago for a run-through, like days of old. I haven’t made eye contact with anyone outside my immediate family in months and months. I’m so accustomed to the strange aversion of eyes in Zoom conferences that unmediated eyes felt violating, like maybe I should have sprinted back to my car until I’m properly socialized again. But then sitting in a room together, I was immediately and totally intoxicated by all the particulars of chamber music. And it is an inimitable kind of intimacy. There you sit with your magic script on the page, a lot of ink and, in my case, dust on a neglected Beethoven, and somehow, you’re making something together. And Sancho is just a wonderful violinist. He is entrancing. I’m here to tell you there is no better seat in the house than the piano bench.
And this is “engagement.” Or, rather, engagement, without the quotes. Our most radical aliveness happens in this space of engagement. Bumbling around in an accompaniment part I only kind of knew, my whole self was there, corporeal and emotional. The keys of the Kawai at the church were cold and slick. I sat on hymnals and shivered. I breathed into my hands to warm them every time we stopped and promptly realized I was wearing a mask. But it didn’t matter. All the textures of the space felt alive and responsive. I could see the tiny expressions in Sancho’s face and hear all those little rough sounds of bow placement that get filtered out in “conferences.” I could smell his cologne, and the turn of pages echoed over the altar. Sleeper, awake!
And Sancho did what he always does: he introduced me to new music, reminisced about chaconnes, and paid attention to the subtle swing of time. Sancho doesn’t do anything without striving for its most beautiful form. He writes beautiful “thank you” letters (a few of you have seen them!). He has leather bags that look suitable for a quest. He uses really nice pencils. I always feel inspired after our rehearsals to find some ordinary thing to cherish. Because I’m not always paying attention. Sometimes instead of being engaged, I’m just “engaged.” Classical music is one of the things in my life that demands attention, and my friend, the violinist, pays attention.
In Jenny Odell’s book How to Do Nothing, she writes “My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.” Do I want to be written by the guesses of algorithms designed to offer up distractions for hours at a time? Do I want Netflix to be the curator of my inner world? I think maybe the busyness of life has made us all hungry for rest, for lullabies. But instead of intentional life, we’re letting algorithms churn across our screens. Confinement in the concert hall audience is the only time we can sleep. I want the exhausted audience member who needs a nap to feel like they can set down their weary heads and close their eyes and be without the incessant, dull hum of machinery. Heck, I want to be still long enough for transcendent music to wash over me and quieten the unremitting to-do lists with sleep. But even more, I want to be able to really listen, to be beguiled, transfixed, wakened from the torpor of frenetic productivity. I’d like to be still, do nothing, go very slow, and be radically awake.
So I want to propose an exercise for you, dear readers. First, some prep: it’s “molto adagio.” Very slow. I recommend headphones. Find a way to access good audio. Do you have about 20 minutes? Take them. And, second, some history: the piece of music below is among “the late quartets” of Beethoven, his last compositions, all written during his complete deafness. This was not the movement Beethoven had planned to write. Earlier sketches suggest he had intended a different structure but was interrupted by debilitating illness. At the peak of the illness, he believed he would die. Upon his recovery, he wrote what he called “A Convalescent's Holy Song of Thanksgiving to the Deity, in the Lydian Mode,” which is this somewhat bewildering centerpiece to the 15th string quartet. It is chorale and also counterpoint with a couple of splashy virtuosic interludes.
Now, do you have those headphones? If you want, you can take 20 minutes to attend to this. Give yourself to Beethoven (in the very capable hands of—who else?—the Danish String Quartet), and let him shape your mind. Let your life be infused with this strange piece of music that doesn’t attract algorithms. It is, perhaps, "comforting" and "serene." I think if you really listen, though, it aches. It is something divine pervading earth-bound, inattentive man when he takes a moment to look up and attend to the miracle of being.
And may I suggest you put aside any reading?
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