What is it?

The same as the usual “polling” sociology for statistics.

Only the topic is different: What appears before the mental eye of the listener of a certain piece of music?

Let’s say we take a certain reliable set of randomly selected people and let them listen to some piece of music WITHOUT lyrics (if it is some kind of vocal piece accompanied by words – a song, aria, etc.), without a pre–specified name, and then we ask the listeners to tell us about those visual images, feelings and ideas that caused them an essay for them. Of course, it is advisable to conduct some selection of listeners BEFORE the SURVEY. There are people who are completely INSENSITIVE to music. They have no “sense of music” at all. It makes no sense for such people to participate in opinion polls, because they “DON’T HEAR OR IMAGINE ANYTHING”!

For them, music (informatively and emotionally) is even less than the sound of raindrops on a window or the noise of a passing train, the howling of the wind or the sounds of a toilet sink sucking up the last remnants of water in it.

Musically sensitive children are best suited for such a mission, because their reactions to everything are the most “honest and natural.” They have not mastered the completely adult cannibalistic hypocrisy and the corresponding false demagogy.

In addition, children, due to their young age, are not burdened with rich musical erudition. (Except, of course, musical prodigies!)

Take, for example, Leporello’s aria (“Madamina…”) from Mozart’s opera “Don Juan”.

WHAT will a listener who knows nothing about it hear in it, performed purely instrumentally? According to the rhythm, as if something were running fast and rhythmically: Like a horse-drawn car, omnibus, tram, train? After all, the rhythmic sound of running wheels, horn blasts, stops, and then deceleration, then acceleration can be heard in the accompaniment. In general, a rather funny picture will arise when the composer’s idea is not heard and perceived by a mass of listeners who are SENSITIVE TO MUSIC WITHOUT WORDS, and the impression, STATISTICALLY RELIABLE, will be completely different, unrelated to the main idea of the work!

I remember that when I played Don Juan’s cavatina on the clavichord, I had the feeling of a horn playing, transmitting certain signals, and not a playful song by a professional womanizer.

Or the children’s chorus from Bizet’s opera “Carmen”, which I also played. Well, not a march, but rather a kind of dance or something similar, with claps and swaps.

And in the first, slow movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, dedicated by him to his mistress Countess Julia Guichardi, I was struck by the fact that I had to play the main melody with my right little finger, because both the left and right hand’s fingers created only an accompaniment.

To summarize: It would be interesting to introduce ANONYMOUS sociological surveys into music as well. The meaning of the word “ANONYMOUS” means that the object of listening would remain anonymous to listeners, that is, WITHOUT any preset name, content, context or words.

UNPREDICTABILITY OF PERCEPTION!

31 III 2025