An Experiment in Musical Mindfulness

You know that feeling when you’ve spent weeks with a piece of music, and suddenly you start hearing all these little details you missed before? The way a particular harmony shifts, or how two instruments blend in just the right way? As musicians, we get this experience all the time. But what about our audiences? Why is there a perception that audiences consider contemporary classical music to be inaccessible?

This question hit home recently during a concert I organized with the Lawrence University New Music Ensemble (LuNuMu). We were premiering nine new works written for an admittedly unusual combination – flute ensemble and trombone ensemble (more on that later). But instead of just throwing these brand new pieces at our audience, we tried something different, inspired by psychologist Ellen Langer‘s research on the power of “noticing.”

The Problem with New Music (It’s Not What You Think)

Here’s the thing about contemporary classical music: it often gets a bad rap for being “difficult” or “inaccessible.” I know I’m not alone in believing that’s not really the problem at all. Maybe the real issue is that we’re asking audiences to instantly appreciate complex musical works that we, as performers, have spent weeks or months getting to know.

Think about your favorite album. Chances are, you didn’t fall in love with it on the first listen. You noticed new things each time you played it – that subtle bass line, the background vocals, the way the drums drop out in the bridge. But in classical music, especially with premieres, we typically give audiences exactly one shot to “get it.”

Enter: The Noticing Experiment

So we tried something different. Armed with Langer’s research showing that the simple act of noticing increases positive experiences, we turned our audience into active participants. Through a QR code projected during the performance, we invited them to share what they noticed in each piece.

The responses were fascinating. Some people zeroed in on technical elements like microtonality and percussive effects. Others went pure emotion: “thrilling,” they wrote, or “horror-movie-like.” Some noticed the “fluttering” quality of certain passages, while others found moments of mystery.

What’s particularly interesting is how these observations started to create a kind of collective listening experience. While our performers had weeks to discover these pieces’ complexities and subtleties, our audience was discovering them in real time, sharing their observations like a group of musical explorers mapping new territory.

Beyond Just Listening

Here’s what makes this approach so powerful: it transforms the audience from passive listeners into active participants. Instead of just sitting there trying to absorb everything at once, they’re engaged in a process of discovery. It’s like giving them a lens through which to focus their attention, making the unfamiliar more approachable.

And yes, all of this happened during a concert featuring the somewhat unlikely combination of flute and trombone ensembles (a story involving professional collaboration and marriage – but that’s for another blog post). The point is that when we give audiences tools to engage with new music, magical things can happen.

The Bigger Picture

This experiment suggests something important about how we present contemporary music. Maybe instead of worrying about making new music more “accessible,” we should focus on helping audiences develop their own relationship with it. By encouraging active listening and noticing, we’re not just presenting music – we’re creating an environment for discovery.

Think about it: when was the last time you really noticed what you were hearing? Not just listened, but actively noticed? Try it sometime. You might be surprised at what you discover.