GG: Listeners and keys

[Mary Jo Watts <mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu>]

	The text of the _Well-Tempered Listener_ is indeed documented
in _Glenn Gould Variations: GG by Himself and His Friends_ pp.275-294
In it you get another variation of the vacuum cleaner story, GG on
quad sound, Muzak, Bach, Marshall Whats-his-face, film sound, etc.
It's a very good interview.

	As far as the f_minor thing goes-- I imagine a tinge of humor
to the statement but also one of those sparkling... as T. Slutz might
say..."nuances." In "On the 20th Century" GG sides with "Rimsky all
the way" over Scriabin on the color of C major in such a deadpan that
I can't help but crack up and take him seriously at the same time.
It's a moment like that lovely bit about retrograde inversion being
"much like a fly walking on the ceiling...backwards."  Talk about
vivid imagery!

	And for something completely different... I was reading this
remarkable book called _Thinking in Pictures_ by Temple Grandin and
in it she says: 
		Recent research by Dr. Pascual-Leone at the NIH
	indicates that exercizing a visual skill can make the brain's
	motor cap expand.  Research with musicians indicates that real
	practice on the piano and imagining playing the piano have the same
	effect on motor caps, as measured by brain scans.  The motor caps
	expand during both real piano playing and mental imagery; random
	pushing of keys has no effect....

Well, I guess GG *did* play the piano by thinking in quite a literal sense.

I wonder if the same is true for listening.  As I transcribe the Trilogy,
I find that I train myself to hear GG's aural structure-- I can
actually hear bits that were inaudible to me before and now the
counterpoint barely distracts me at all.  


-MJ