To experience music as it is exactly is a great thing, but a difficult thing. Being an audience to a piece of music does not ensure such experience, and in fact the performers of music themselves can experience music. Bystanders and composers also experience music in unique ways. All of these people who experience music have parts of their experience in common. The music affects each and every person, and each and every person then recovers the music in a particular way. To recover music is to be able to respond to music as well as simply to listen to it. When you respond to music, "you make your mark on it, casting it in your terms. But the [music] makes its mark on you as well, teaching you not only about a subject but about a way of seeing and understanding a subject" (Bartholomae and Petrosky 4). You will be able to "see through someone else's powerful language" (Bartholomae and Petrosky 4).
[...] In music experienced this purely, recovery will take on an entirely new level, but be every bit as meaningful as the recovery of the musician himself or the bystander. Barring such perfect circumstances, recovery can still occur. Let us have a couple who attends a performance of Franz Schubert's vocal music. They are part of an audience, albeit an imperfect one. Some noisy children, coughing sick people, terrible acoustics, or even a noisy ventilation system may make hearing less than ideal. [...]
[...] Another example of recovery is the experience of a musician preparing to give his work to the public. The performance will cause for the musician certain struggles, which, in overcoming, will help him to recover the music. The first struggle is the preparation for the performance. The musician must go through the painstaking process of practice and perfection. It may take him months to feel ready, countless hours to feel confident with his technique and sound. Come the performance, this struggle increases tenfold, as the musician must deal with the anxiety of a public appearance. [...]
[...] The average listener will recover music best listening to pieces that are a common part of the culture of his time. If he hears one of these pieces while in the right mood, he is ready. He need not go “against the grain” he can bring the music to his own level and accept it and be one with it. This recovery may even happen by accident. Our original bystander came into contact with the music completely accidentally. He may not have attended any musical concert nor performed anything. [...]
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