Skip to main content

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.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...
Post a Comment
Read more