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Philip Glass

 Reem Zedan 7711552

Prof. Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath

The Future of [American] Music

02 February 2022

 

Philip Glass

I should be used to listening to weird music by now, especially for and because of this seminar, but I am not. Listening to “Einstein on the Beach” by  Philip Glass was a very unpleasant experience for me and my poor partner. The weird sort of pitchy sound of the keyboard, the repetitive aspect of the composition, and the weird vocals felt like I had ants running through my brain, my ears started hurting and I genuinely wondered if the credits of this class are worth the torture. Safe to say, I did not complete the full twenty minutes and I am shocked to report that my ears are ringing as I am writing this report (are there bonus points for powering through this?). I have been trying to keep an open mind in this adventure of avangarde, unique music and I think I have been quite successful with that until I heard  Philip Glass’s music.

Listening to Glass’s “Part 10 of Music in Twelve Parts” was less gruesome but still undoubtedly headache- inducing. It is the repetitive sounds that drove me crazy. Interestingly, while some (me) can find the repetitiveness annoying, others (my partner) can find them relaxing and fall asleep to them. When I asked how this kind of music could be relaxing their answer was because of habituation, where the brain stops responding to repetitive stimuli. This makes me believe that Glass’s music could be used for hypnosis and that the music could definitely garantie the listener a unique experience if the person is under the influence ( I wish I was).

This may be a harsh listening report but today was the day I learnt that music could lead to actual, physical pain. I was also confronted by how subjective human perception generally is and how tastes - in music among other things- definitely vary. While I was suffering in the midst of listening to “Einstein on the Beach” I scrolled to the comments only to find incredible praise and support. One fan even commented that it is only part one of a five hour opera that he attended. To say I was shocked would be an understatement; I was flabbergasted.
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