Anti-piano recital

One of the compelling effects of Stephen Rush’s “anti-piano recital” was to shape the listening patterns of the audience. In this performance, the performer played pieces live in a random order while pre-recorded versions played back at various volumes in different speakers in a different random order. As stated by the program notes, depending on how the live and playback sounds coincided, three major effects were possible:
• Opposition, where two very different types of music collided, in amusing or maybe annoying ways) • Complementarity, where the same or similar pieces play through the speakers)
 • Displacement, where a piece that has already been played through one format (live or playback) plays through the other, offering a sort of flashback

Initially, I found it easiest to identify and engage with moments of complementarity. Perhaps this is because many, though not all, of the pieces were very avant-garde, consisting of free improvisation, twelve-tone music, and other melodic and harmonic techniques that defied the ear as it is. Thus, “collisions” (at least with my musical sensibilities, which are doubtless considerably less developed than Stephen Rush’s or other music faculty and such in the audience) were already inevitable, while moments of “musical agreement” stood out.

Over the course of the concert, however, it became easier to appreciate moments of opposition as well. This was perhaps most apparent when two colliding tonal pieces played together. For example, the two pieces with vocals, “Flower’s Grave” by Waits/Brennan and “If It’s Magic” by Stevie Wonder, would not only be in opposition because they had identifiably different lyrics but also because they were a half step apart in key. Even for pieces like the Xenakis and Stockhausen, I felt I was able to pick out moments where they would especially collide with music on the other form of media. Of course, audience cues helped--I appreciated the moments where the audience laughed quietly, which happened from time to time on account of all three of these effects. Indeed, we do not listen to music (or experience any art, or anything really) in a vacuum, but rather if we experience it collectively this collective experience shapes our individual perception.

 By design, however, the collective experience was not the same for each person. The playback did not play back in all speakers equally, but rather would play back only from certain speakers, moving around the room in no discernible pattern. Furthermore, as the volume would be randomized, sometimes the music coming from the speaker would be rather soft. This means that people on the other side of the room might barely hear the playback at times, even if people sitting close to the speaker might be able to hear it better. This meant that we did not experience all moments equally or at the same time. Sometimes, for example, I would hear people in the audience laugh before I realized what was going on. Often that was because they could simply hear something I could not--and the reverse is true; doubtless I too heard moments that they did not. Thus, one effect of the randomization of the playback was that it brought about differences in our experiences of the concert: we may have had a collective experience, but not a uniform one.