Session Description
Session Description
Transformation
Saturday, September 12, 2009 - 1:30 PM
Musical encounters can be transformative. An attentive listener sometimes emerges from the concert hall seeing the world in a different light. How can a work of art – particularly a non-representational work of art – bring about such a transformation? Drawing on earlier presentations in the conference, I will argue that music exemplifies, and thereby makes manifest, patterns, feelings and forms that are difficult to discern in everyday life. Some are purely musical – melodies, harmonies, and tones. Others are more abstract. Symmetries heard in Bach are mathematical properties. Yet others involve emotions. A musical work may express and evoke emotions, highlighting previously unnoticed nuances, juxtapositions, and combinations, and thereby making the listener aware of them. The transformation, I will suggest, increases sensitivity. The transformed listener can draw finer, more significant distinctions, and discern patterns and regularities that she had previously overlooked. She can notice and appreciate the significance of previously ignored aspects of her own experience – subtle feelings, intimations, perceptions and thoughts. The payoff is cognitive. The transformed listener gains a richer, more textured understanding of the work, the world, and herself.
Catherine Elgin will be presenting Transformation at 1:30 PM in Rooms 307 and 309 of the Texas Tech University Main Library.