What I find unsatisfying about the “imaginative” notion is that it doesn’t seem to account for the fact that these “surprising” things are still enjoyable, and arguably more so, after we learn to expect them. I do think (introspectively) that the notion has a good bit of merit, but I’d be more inclined to describe these events as clever subversions of the model/context/grammar they’re embedded in, rather than succeeding by actually “surprising” the listener.
I’d love to hear whether and how the examples above tackle this issue. And I cast my vote for “interested” in general.
I think that’s exactly right. My sense is that we retain a certain ability to hear “surprising” events as “surprising with respect to general musical syntax” even once we’ve learned to hear them as “not surprising in the specific context of a piece of music we’ve heard many times.” The repeatability of musical experience pretty much demands that this be the case.
Thanks for your interest, I’ll be glad to post a synopsis of Huron’s book as soon as I can find the time.
What I find unsatisfying about the “imaginative” notion is that it doesn’t seem to account for the fact that these “surprising” things are still enjoyable, and arguably more so, after we learn to expect them. I do think (introspectively) that the notion has a good bit of merit, but I’d be more inclined to describe these events as clever subversions of the model/context/grammar they’re embedded in, rather than succeeding by actually “surprising” the listener.
I’d love to hear whether and how the examples above tackle this issue. And I cast my vote for “interested” in general.
I think that’s exactly right. My sense is that we retain a certain ability to hear “surprising” events as “surprising with respect to general musical syntax” even once we’ve learned to hear them as “not surprising in the specific context of a piece of music we’ve heard many times.” The repeatability of musical experience pretty much demands that this be the case.
Thanks for your interest, I’ll be glad to post a synopsis of Huron’s book as soon as I can find the time.