In the past couple of months, I have attended two “listening experiences”, intimate social gatherings based around the performance of a select musical recording or playlist. Both were evocative and beautiful. The first one was in New York, when the artist Theaster Gates hosted an LP session at White Cube gallery on the occasion of his exhibition Hold Me, Hold Me, Hold Me. The second was a presentation of the original score of Jim Jarmusch’s 2013 film Only Lovers Left Alive in Berlin at Reethaus, a new performance space on the banks of the Spree.
This Reethaus event took place in the core of the building, where the only window was a ceiling light through which you could watch the evening slowly take over the sky. Several lighted candles were placed around the room and flat cushions laid on the floor. The audience entered and everyone found a spot; the room naturally fell quiet without instruction. For the next 45 minutes a 360-degree sound system poured out a site-specific arrangement of the score of Only Lovers Left Alive.
Both events, attended by probably fewer than 60 people, have stayed with me and kept me thinking about the power of music and the underestimated value of intentional listening to music, both as a solitary activity and communally in small gatherings.
Between 1919 and 1921, Georgia O’Keeffe created the oil painting “Blue and Green Music”. An upside-down triangle begins from a point just off-centre at the bottom of the canvas, and branches outwards and upwards. The sides of the triangle are divided into sections of navy and lime green. In the centre of the image, O’Keeffe painted what could be described as dancing tendrils, in a palette blend of white, green, blue and grey. In the bottom left corner of the canvas, a pattern of green waves seems to flow. It is said that she made this work because she had the idea “that music could be translated into something for the eye.”
I love the contrast of shapes, the straight lines and the waves. They make me think of the various parts of a musical composition: how different sounds can combine to create a beautiful experience. But what strikes me most about this painting is how it evokes a sense of both stillness and movement. It seems to me a visual representation of how music can awaken the body in ways that we’re not always conscious of.
At Reethaus, I initially felt overwhelmed by the rhythms, my body caught off-guard. It wasn’t until I closed my eyes and settled into the space, finding a sense of stillness there, that I could listen deeply and allow the music to fill me as it had the room. Soon I began to feel the sensation of the sound reverberating in my rib cage. Before I knew it, I had tears in my eyes; I was moved not just by the music but by its ability to make me open to emotions about other aspects of my life.
In many ways, our everyday lives are framed by sound, from the alarm that wakes us up in the morning to the hum of traffic and the music we turn on as background noise. Yet I don’t think we give much thought to how music, in particular, can affect us physically and colour our experiences. O’Keeffe’s tones, a blend of cool and warm, evoke for me a sense of meditative calm even as they evoke movement. The listening events I have attended recently have made me think more about how engaging with music directly, can open up necessary spaces for reflection.
The 1883 painting “Listening to Schumann” by Belgian painter Fernand Khnopff speaks to me of the power of music as respite. A woman sits on an armchair in a parlour. One hand rests on her lap, and the other hand rests on her forehead, as if holding up her bent head. At the top left of the painting, we see one half of an upright piano and the right arm and hand of someone playing music, presumably something by German composer Robert Schumann. I would like to imagine it is “Träumerei”, the soft, luring piece from his Kinderszenen opus.
From the woman’s posture it is hard to tell whether she is consoling herself or simply listening with intent. But it seems clear that the music is having a deep effect on her, and that she is giving it her full attention. The painter’s focus on her experience reminds us that music has personal effects on each of us, given its interplay with the stories of our respective lives.
Music is an emotional trigger. How many times have we heard a song and immediately found ourselves transported back to a particular time in our life associated with the song? It makes me wonder how a ritual practice of intentional listening to music might be used as a way of eliciting comfort or healing at certain points in our lives.
During the Reethaus event I bent my own head and let my tears fall freely. There was something liberating about succumbing to the effect the music was having on me. And after a while, I peeked at the audience to find that everyone seemed lost in their own individual experience, although we were still all sharing it collectively. Strangely, it reminded me of being at a church service. And it made me think about the power of music to shape space, in this case, sacred space. How do we use music in our own lives?
The 19th-century American painter William Sidney Mount created the work “The Power of Music” in 1847. Painted 14 years before the American civil war, the image is an interesting reflection on music’s ability to speak across divides and possibly to unite people, if we allow it.
Here we enter a scene where a white violinist plays music for his two white companions inside a barn. All three of them are dressed in tailored clothing. Outside the barn, a Black man dressed in patched overalls and a coat worn at the seams, stands hidden from view against the open door. Given the date of the work, we assume the Black man is an enslaved person working the property, and it’s natural to assume that he was putting himself in danger by seeking to enjoy the music in such proximity to the white men. Yet he does not look afraid. For whatever reason, the lure of the music has overpowered his fear or concern for his own wellbeing. We witness the white men enjoying the music too, and for a split second perhaps we forget the systems of injustice they are probably a part of. What we see instead are glimpses of a shared humanity.
After the listening session in Berlin, we had a small intermission before director Jim Jarmusch held an audience with us, and I found myself processing the experience with the man, a stranger, sitting beside me. We talked about how emotional it was, and we both ended up sharing aspects of our lives that had nothing to do with music because we had made ourselves available and vulnerable in the moment. As we continued to talk, we discovered some similar vocational and professional interests, and more shared values on life in general. So we decided to exchange contact information before leaving, with the intent of staying in touch.
At both listening events, in New York and in Berlin, there was something about the intimacy of the occasion, and the clear intention of coming together to listen to music with our full selves, that seemed to offer ways of connecting with ourselves and with others. I think we need more of these kinds of shared events, whether in our homes or in public spaces. Could more intentional listening to music together deepen our emotional self-awareness and even nourish our communal lives? I think so.
Email Enuma at enuma.okoro@ft.com or follow her on X @EnumaOkoro
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