As I continue to formulate and organize ideas for what will become a paper on this topic of listening to “Vexations,” I find myself rather obligated to not leave this blog hanging. So, first of all, here is the final entry in my listening journal, taken after the music was finally turned off.

1:16-2:00AM- I must decompress. I can’t even sleep yet. The silence, as expected, is quite intense. The piece really did become my environment for the day. My ears are relaxing at the moment. My hope is that I don’t dream about it, though I feel I likely will.

The good news: I didn’t. My dreams were happy, as I recall…

Second, here is a preview of just some of the things I’ll be exploring in the final writeup.

Modes of Listening

Form, tonal grounding (not the focus of this project)

Pure sonic characteristics

Striving for variety- Environment, Medium, Perception

Listening for utility, just to be done with it

Noise Concepts

Dissonance within the musical material (not the focus of this paper)

Noise within the music/recording

Outside noise against the music

Outside noise with the music

Music as silence

Music as noise (frustration)

Silence as noise

Frustration in Music

Initial expectations within music

Via perception

From inevitability

Time

As form

As perceived/transformed/lost

As directionality

If this means nothing to you, don’t worry about it. If it does, and it’s still very vague, then you may be interested to read the final paper. I’ll post it once it’s complete.

Thanks again, everyone! It’s been fun!

-Jujohns