However, they also all need silence to give them meaning. Silence in music allows us as musicians to distinguish between different periods of sound, and gives more meaning to rhythms, dynamics, melodies, and just music in general. The researchers estimated expectations by building a statistical model that was fed with a huge variety of Western music. This model enabled the researchers to assess how well their participants’ brains were predicting the notes they heard or imagined. Their analysis showed that, regardless of whether music was actually audible, their volunteers’ brains predicted it in a very similar way.

DeWoskin, Kenneth J. – A Song for One or Two, Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1982 (139) A conductor is one of classical music’s most recognisable but misunderstood figures, attracting so many questions:

Fellow Tangram member Alex Ho wrote, “Narratives that assume Cage as the centre who implicitly conquered an East Asian philosophy, that itself is millennia-old, are frequent and misleading. Although not necessarily through Cage's own active shaping, this aligns with western classical music's long history of marginalising and misrepresenting East Asian cultures and identities.” (16) A conductor is one of classical music’s most recognizable figures. Many people who have never actually been to an orchestral concert have an image of what one looks like. But rarely does such a well-known profession attract so many questions: ‘Surely orchestras can play perfectly well without you? Do you really make any difference to the performance?’ A healthy mix of authenticity, tradition, and spontaneity is better than being a slave to any one of them. It is just as foolish to think that something is good because it is old as it is to think that because something is new it is better.

Silence” has no direct translation in Chinese, but the concept of what Adrian Tien calls “non-sound” (7) has been discussed throughout Chinese history, alongside concepts of absence relating to other art forms and disciplines (as well as in other East Asian cultures such as Japan and Korea). In Chinese thought, silent discourse can be found in its three major belief systems – Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. In the latter way of thinking, simplicity in music was superior to all other virtues. In the Book of Rites, Confucius speaks of the “Three Withouts” - “music without sound, rites without embodiment, and mourning without garb” - as representing true mastery of each discipline. (8) Some composers have discussed the significance of silence or a silent composition without ever composing such a work. In his 1907 manifesto, Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, Ferruccio Busoni described its significance: [1]

However, full score rests, in which the entire orchestra or band rests and does not play, are rare. Marion G, Liberto GMD, Shamma SA. The Music of Silence. Part I: Responses to Musical Imagery Encode Melodic Expectations and Acoustics. J. Neurosci. 2021;49. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0183-21.2021 This book is not intended to be an instruction manual for conductors, nor is it a history of conducting. It is for all who wonder what conductors actually do. Exploring the relationships with the musicians and music they conduct, and the public and personal responsibilities they face, Mark Wigglesworth writes with engaging honesty about the role for any music lover curious to know whether or not the profession really matters. Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man (1897) by Alphonse Allais, a French writer and humorist (1854–1905); published in his Album primo-avrilesque

Of the legends attributed to Tao Yuanming, the Six Dynasties poet who gave up his role as a government official to live as a recluse, there is one that concerns the qin. Tao was said to have kept a qin, the seven-stringed zither which is today called the guqin , without strings on his wall. In a famous couplet, he wrote: DeWoskin, Kenneth J. – A Song for One or Two, Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1982 (p. 117) He knows what a conductor is and does and has eloquently penned with contagious honesty what this wonderful profession is all about. An illuminating account of what it means to be [a conductor], how it feels, what’s required and why it’s a misunderstood job that has the potential to enrich and terrify in equal measure. The most fascinating sections are those in which Wigglesworth discusses the relationship between conductor and orchestra, one that can be fraught with struggle and blessed with joys. Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony, the work we are performing this week, uses only a small number of musicians to express a vast range of emotions – an ideal combination for the specific limitations and needs of our time. Written in isolation while in hospital during a flu epidemic, the work expresses the pain of being alone, the importance of trying to live life to the full even amid a maelstrom of struggles and fears, and the value of art as a source of truth and cohesion in society. It is both realistic and uplifting.This is a dynamic list of songs and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries. The latter technique is called musical imagery and has been studied in detail previously. Marion and DiLiberto wanted to look specifically at how brain activity during audible music varied from that produced by imagined music and whether the predictions our brain makes about a heard melody are preserved when there is no melody to hear. Deep Listening® is written here with the symbol to denote that it is a registered trademark, in part to separate it from other forms of deep listening, such as relating to meditation or mediation. I have used it twice in the text, but it applies to all mentions throughout. We all have our own views as to what is essential. But humans are fundamentally social animals and only through cooperation have we been able to meet the many challenges these last couple of hundred thousand years. The very concept of social distance is anathema to who we are as a species. The economic benefits of the arts are obvious to anyone without a preconditioned agenda, but it is the human value of shared creative experiences that needs to be equally proclaimed and protected. Musicians are key workers in more ways than one. Everyone is searching for their own way through this maze of uncertainty and although the world may be unified by a single crisis, we are separated by the uniqueness of our own particular circumstances. And with antisocial media raising the power of the individual over that of the group and giving mainstream platforms to extreme minority views, it can be hard to separate what is individual from what is communal. The danger is that with so much noise coming out of our fractured society, sometimes the only way to hear ourselves think is to stop listening altogether. Yet we do that at our peril. What is the sequel to the dystopian nightmare of Edvard Munch’s The Scream? By listening less might we lose the capacity to listen at all? Live music forces us to listen. It encourages us to listen better. And maintaining this ability, desiring it even, is essential to the survival of the human race. Live music is a celebration of listening, and a celebration of togetherness. We need to do all we can to encourage its full return.

A conductor is one of classical music's most recognisable but misunderstood figures, attracting so many questions:Still, I find a great deal of potential when we examine these concepts. DeWoskin writes that, in “Chinese cosmogenic theory, sound in its primal state was inaudible.” (29) Heard music was simply the echo of that silent, original sound. Taking into account the idea that “all sounds are music”, what we hear when we sit in present stillness are the echoes of the original sound. Cage’s influences in Eastern mysticism are well-discussed, if often overlooked in appraisals of 4’33’’ cultural impact. His solo piano piece Music of Changes was composed using the I Ching, and his work is accepted to have been transformed after a visit to Japan arranged by Yoko Ono, who had noted the influence of Zen Buddhism in his music.(15) A Lot of Nothing" by Coheed and Cambria (Split into 11 sections ranging from 5–15 seconds in length)