ABSTRACT
We come now to what seems to me the central aspect of the interpretive process. How do we interact with the track? Although it is quite possible, and quite acceptable, to be barely aware of what we are listening to, if we choose to interact with it, we give it our attention. What does it give in return? The situation is expressed very well, I think, by the novelist Michael Frayn. He is talking of the experience of reading stories, and playing games, but his comments apply equally to listening to songs: In hearing a story, he says:
What I suspend is not disbelief but something more like any propensity I might have to divide the world into the believable and the unbelievable. What I accept, provisionally, is an alternative world … . The storyteller, in other words, creates by fiat, or web of fiats, an alternative world that I agree to inhabit for a while … . It’s like a social relationship: a story entertains you – you entertain the story. You invite it in, pour it a drink, and let it talk to you without interrupting. 1
And how does the track make itself known to us? Through the identity of the singer. With but few exceptions, it seems to me that when we listen to a track, our attention is focused particularly on the identity of the singer. It is, indeed, to the singer that we give our attention. I have raised the analogy with conversation before. In conversing, we are primarily interested in the person we are conversing with; what else may be going on becomes secondary. And we get to know that person through the interaction. I think something similar is going on in listening to songs: the principal gain is one of feeling that we better understand the ‘personality’ to whom we are listening, and we do this through bearing in mind the questions upon which this book is based, and which we pose to the singer.