Concentration Blues 

Franz Schubert was accused, in his sonata ans symphonies, of “heavenly length”. When Wagner wrote his lengthy operas, civil servants and theatre devotees, clutching their subscriptions, pulled down the blinds and left work at 5 as soon as the big gun went off on the castle wall to tell them to get to their seats.

Not any more!

Now we have “things that go viral in the night”; 20 second videos tik tok-ing away; tweets scrolling and “funny” Gifs constantly flying past our consciousness’ window…

What does this do to our brains? We need time to consider and practice to formulate responses to good ideas, not be a  passive recipient. You want to become  an origin of great ideas, not remain a pawn adding another “Like” to some Influencer!

Thinking about and listening to good music can help with this. Recognising and building connections between the patterns and events in the music and human emotions can only happen with concentration over time. Learning to follow the musical argument in a longer piece with anticipation and appreciation can, I  believe, build and improve our ability to be resilient and emotionally aware.

This is, perhaps,  one reason why contrasting musical forms  – what we call “movements “ in classical music – allows an artist to tell  a musical “story “ from different  points of view.

Don’t  let the streamers “curate” you and bludgeon you with poor recordings of great music.

Choose wisely from up to date interpretations. There are few reviewers out there now: the newspapers can no longer afford them. But lots of record reviews are published in legacy  media and online. Recordings are cheaper to review than concerts!

Go on. Stimulate your neurons! Inside your brain, they are sending their messages across synapses. These messages are “action potentials”.

Music enhances the “action potential “ in all of us. Ask yourself: what is this composer, what is she or he saying to me?

Music is not just there to help us “unwind “. Music is there to LIBERATE us!