A Listener’s Guide to New Music

After a hectic couple of months for our LOCC creators, which featured their works on "Beethoven's Pastoral" and Music Without Borders, we're entering a relatively quiet period, at least in terms of public events. Behind the scenes, Anthony and Chelsea are working very hard on new works that we'll premiere in March: Chelsea is writing a short work for our MakingMUSIC series for orchestra and video exploring cross-modal perception (more from her about this soon!), and Anthony is composing a viola concerto for Evan Vicic, our Associate Principal violist, which we'll premiere on our next Music Without Borders series. As soon as they finish those, they'll begin work on their large-scale works, which we'll premiere in April (never say our composers don't work hard). So while you may not hear any new music from Anthony and Chelsea until after the new year, be prepared for a burst of new works from them starting in the Spring. 

Having worked in contemporary music and with composers throughout my adult life, I've often been asked by audience members, students, and even musicians, "How do I listen to this music?" or "What are these sounds?" or even, "I'm not smart enough to understand this!" That last one is especially heartbreaking for me—though many composers have PhDs, a listener certainly doesn't need one to engage with their music! Like their ancestors, today's composers both preserve and challenge musical traditions, each in their own unique way and to varying degrees. These questions from listeners come up because keeping traditions often goes unnoticed, but when an artist questions basic assumptions or suggests alternatives, many listeners can feel lost or uncomfortable. This is especially true in "classical music," where for many, its role is to uphold the past and the "known" rather than serve as a space for experimentation (though the LO has notably challenged this since our very beginnings!). 

So if you're listening to a new work by our LOCC composers or anyone else and aren't sure how to navigate the experience, these steps are for you!

• Do some research beforehand. Not required, but if you can, read about the composer and the piece's program notes in our digital program. Program notes for new works can be incredibly helpful—sometimes written by the composers themselves—providing context, overview, and inspiration for the piece. Just as the oboe "tunes" the orchestra, I like to think that program notes "tune" the listener for what they're about to hear. Also, if you have the time, visit the composer's website. They almost always have info and recordings of their works, giving you a sense of their artistic interests and musical voice.

• Take stock of what you're hearing. As you listen to the piece, try to catalog the sounds and make some basic observations. Are these sounds what I expected from orchestral instruments, or are they unconventional? What do they remind me of? Are they loud, quiet, sparse, dense, fast, slow? Is there a discernible melody or beat? If not, what is there instead? What is the overall vibe and mood? Which element(s) are capturing my attention the most? These questions will help orient you in the "landscape" of the piece. The tricky part - and where many people get stuck - is to try to do this without judgment. Don't think too hard (yet) about whether you like it or not! Just relax, observe, and soak it all in.

• Find a through-line. Once you become familiar with the work's basic sonic vocabulary, try to understand the piece's journey by tracking how it changes over time. Identify 1-2 elements that interest you the most, and "follow" how they evolve. Pay attention to sudden and dramatic shifts as well as small and gradual changes. Do new and unexpected elements surface? Can you recognize any sounds, themes, or material from earlier in the piece? All the while, aim to hold on to the features that stay relatively constant: this is the "ground" of the piece.

• Take stock of what you're experiencing. As if you didn't have enough to do already, now you can try to understand your reactions to the experience. Can you describe how the music makes you feel? What does it make you think about? What other music does it remind you of that you can associate with it? What expectations did the music adhere to, and what did it challenge? If you read the program notes, how did your experience connect with the composer's ideas or intentions?

• Talk about it afterward. There's a lot to process when engaging with something new! One of my favorite live music traditions is the "post-concert hang," where I can download everything I experienced and discuss it with friends and fellow audience members. That always helps me clarify my own thoughts and gain additional perspectives. And the great thing about our LOCC composers is that you can chat directly with them about how you engaged with their work (trust me, composers live for this). And it's a great reminder that, as unfamiliar as a new artwork can be, a member of your own community created it.

One of the biggest challenges with contemporary music is that there is no unified style, set of practices, or artistic viewpoint. Each composer's music creates its own unique (though not isolated!) world, and it's up to the listener to explore its terrain. You won't necessarily like every new piece you encounter (I certainly don't), and that's ok! You actually don't have to like every piece you hear by Beethoven, either (don't tell him I said that). The richest way to experience new music is to treat it like an adventure: let the music take you to places you've never been, and let that journey make your musical world at least a tiny bit bigger.

-Jacob Gotlib, Senior Creators Corps Program Manager