There is a phrase in new music—the colloquial kind, one of those oral indexes traded among colleagues in post-show chatter and off-hand remarking, a shorthand signifier loosely comprehensible but sparingly specific—that goes: “This is a music that teaches you how to listen to it.” Implied in the phrase, though never said outright, is a patience and an iterativeness, an instance upon material that acclimates and entrains the listener to form’s internal logic of gestation. It is not true of every music, nor is it a necessary mark of quality. (Berio’s music, for instance, doesn’t do this; Feldman’s does.) But it implies a tacit understanding that different works require different forms of attention, that not every listening is made equal or is equally applicable in turn. It also implies that music can teach.
