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This summer I’m going to give a class in mushroom
identification at the New School for Social Research.
Actually, it’s five field trips, not really a class
at all. However, when I proposed it to Dean Clara
Mayer, though she was delighted with the idea, she
said, “I’ll have to let you know later whether or not
we’ll give it.” So she spoke to the president who
couldn’t see why there should be a class in mushrooms
at the New School. Next she spoke to Professor MacIvor
who lives in Piermont. She said, “What do you think
about our having a mushroom class at the New School?”
He said, “Fine idea. Nothing more than mushroom
identification develops the powers of observation.”
This remark was relayed both to the president and to
me. It served to get the class into the catalogue and
to verbalize for me my present attitude toward music:
it isn’t useful, music isn’t, unless it develops our
powers of audition. But most musicians can’t hear a
single sound, they listen only to the relationship
between two or more sounds. Music for them has nothing
to do with their powers of audition, but only to do
with their powers of observing relationships. In
order to do this, they have to ignore all the crying
babies, fire engines, telephone bells, coughs, that
happen to occur during their auditions. Actually, if
you run into people who are really interested in
hearing sounds, you’re apt to find them fascinated by
the quiet ones. “Did you hear that?” they will say. |