The music that is performed, and the music our brains are experiencing

Since I started listening to the music of Wandelweiser composers intensively in the last year, I realized that I have been experiencing some interesting changes in my way of listening to music. Since I started to listen to music actively rather than passively, I came to think that it could be possible for a listener to experience the music in a complex context that consists of not only the performer's sounds, but also the other factors as well (e.g., the sounds remained in my memory, the environmental sounds). Just to avoid any confusion, I would like to emphasize that this is just my personal perspective (and interest) about the way of listening to music I found recently, and not something I suggest as a way of listening to music in general.

I wonder if the music which our brains experience may consist of many different factors that we are not aware of - like the environmental sounds we could hear from outside of the window, the memory of the sounds we just heard a little while ago, or some other sounds that we could expect to happen, besides the actual performer's sounds. We may not pay so much attention to these factors outside the music usually. But sometimes, I realize that one single tone performed by a musician and my memory of some other sound (most likely a sound I heard a little while ago) seem to resonate and form a harmony during a concert or listening to a CD, and occasionally, some more environmental sounds joined the harmony to form an even more complex music. Or on some other occasion when I am not listening to any music, if I hear some environmental sounds (e.g., muffled noise of a car passing by from a distance) and if I recognize a similar wavelength in the sounds to the music I was just listening to a few hours ago, the environmental sounds I am hearing now may resonate with the sounds from the music in my memory and crossover in my brain, then I may experience a false illusion as if I were listening to the same music.

For example, a few hours after I finished listening to Jürg Frey's 320 minutes long piece 'Weites Land, Tiefe Zeit' the other day, I heard a quiet, low muffled sound of a car passing by somewhere far in the middle of the quiet night. It was a similar tone to the low frequencies of the Jürg Frey piece. Meanwhile, the Frey piece I had been listening to for 320 minutes had perhaps subconsciously taken deep root in my memory, too. And in the moment when my memory of the music and the wavelength of the sounds of a car overlapped, the sounds of a car changed to music in my brain. The actual sound was just coming from somewhere far as environmental sounds, but my brain experienced it as music. Meanwhile, there might have been a car sound outside my room when I was listening to the Frey piece (even if I was not aware), and my memory of the car sound might have been imprinted in my subconscious mind with the music as a part of the musical experience, which might be one of the reasons why this chemical reaction (between the car sounds and the music) happened instantly. These phenomena happened when the actual sounds and the imaginary sounds in my memory overlapped and resonated as one.

If the act of listening to (experiencing) music can contain these complex factors, I think that it should be possible to listen to sounds or music even within a silence. The sound I may hear in the silence could be a memory of the sound I just heard, or a memory of the sound that is evoked from the wavelength or the tone of some similar environmental sound. In a normal situation of listening to music, a listener is required to listen to only the performed sounds as precisely as possible, and is not supposed to listen to other sounds (as false illusion) besides the performance. Of course there are some other factors that may affect the listener’s experience of the music in such a normal situation, like his/her memory of some other music or some sounds he/she has heard in the past may affect the way he/she listens now. But in a normal situation, those factors are rather incidental factors for a listener, which were not expected to be a part of the music from the beginning when it was composed. However, if the music is composed and performed with a consideration for the listener’s opportunity to have an open space for experiencing the music, the music could consist of not only the actual performed sounds but also the other sound factors that the listener may listen with the help of his memory or imagination in his brain or the environmental sounds, and then, the potential of the music that human beings can experience seems to be unlimited.

Music could be born from this mysterious reaction between the actual sounds that the composer and the performer are presenting, and the imaginary sounds that the listener is (actively or subconsciously) listening to in his/her brain. In this way of listening, it can be said that the listener is also a part of the creator of the music in a way, as well as the composer and the performer. I think that some Wandelweiser composers can create this situation, giving an open space for a listener so he/she can experience the music actively and freely. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I feel I can see a new potential of listening to the music in some of their compositions.

■ 演奏される音楽、脳が聴いている音楽

Wandelweiserの音楽（特にこの１年間に聴き込んできたマイケル・ピサロやアントワン・ボイガーの音楽）を聴くようになってから、自分の中で興味深い変化が起きていることに、ある時気づいた。音楽を受け身の姿勢で聴くのではなく、能動的に聴くようになってから、音楽というのは演奏される音で構成されるだけでなく、その他の要因（記憶の中の音や環境音）も加わった複雑な構成で聴くことが可能なのだということを知った。

脳で聴いている音楽とは、実際に演奏されている音と、音楽の外から聴こえる環境音、さらには実際には聴いていない音（記憶に残る少し前に聴いた音の残響音）など、演奏される音以外の要素から成ることもありうるのではないと思う。極端にいえば、演奏される一つの音と、記憶に残る音とが共鳴し合って和音を形成したり、そこに環境音が加わって、より複雑な音楽として聴こえることもありうる。あるいは、少し前に聴いていた音楽の記憶が、今聴いている環境音（たとえば、遠くから聴こえる、車が通りすぎる時のくぐもった音）の波長と似ている場合には、脳の中に記憶として残っている音楽と重なり、環境音がその音楽のように聴こえる…といった錯覚を起こすことがある。

たとえば、ユルク・フレイの「Weites Land, Tiefe Zeit」を聴き終えてから数時間後、しんとした夜中に遠くで車が通りすぎる時に聴こえるくぐもった静かな低音は、フレイの音楽の低周波の波長とどこか似ている。320分間聴き続けたフレイの音楽は、無意識のうちに記憶の中に深く根を下ろしている。その記憶が車の音の波長と重なった瞬間、車の音は音楽へと変わる。実際に聴こえている音は、ただの車の音なのに、自分の脳はそれを音楽として体験しているのだ。フレイの音楽を聴いていた時に同時に聴こえていた環境音（車の音もそこに含まれていたかもしれない）も、その時の音楽体験の一部として、もしかしたら意識せずとも記憶に刷り込まれていたのかもしれない。そしてそれも、この連鎖反応（車の音と音楽の結びつき）を起きやすくした要因の一つなのかもしれない。すべては脳の中で、記憶の音と実際の音がオーバーラップすることによって起きている現象だ。

「音楽を聴く」という行為に、こうした複雑な要因も含まれうるのだとしたら、沈黙の中に音や音楽を聴き取る…ということも、決して不可能ではないことに気づく。そこで聴こえる音は、記憶の中の音であったり、環境音の波長と連鎖する何かの音の記憶であるかもしれない。通常の音楽の場合、その音楽の中で「演奏される音」をできるだけ正確に聴き取ることが要求されるため、そこで演奏されていない音を（錯覚として）聴き取って鑑賞する…ということは考慮されていない。しかし、外部（演奏者）から受信する音だけでなく、自分の脳の中で記憶や想像力の働きを借りて聴いている音も、音楽を構成する要素になりうるのだとしたら、人間が聴くことのできる音楽の可能性（あるいはそれを考慮した作曲や演奏の可能性）は、無限に広がるのではないだろうか。

作曲家や演奏者が送り手として提供する音と、聴き手が脳の中で自主的に（演奏音以外の要素も絡めて）聴いている音が、反応し合って構成する音楽。作曲家や演奏者だけでなく、聴き手自身も同時に音楽の創造者になりうる音楽。こうした「聴き手が自主的に音を聴くことができる状況」を作り出してくれるのが、Wandelweiser派の音楽なのではないかと思う。彼らの作曲に、新しい音楽の聴き方への可能性を感じられるのは、そのためかもしれない。