Imaginative Listening to Music

Theodore Gracyk takes issue with the claim that imaginative engagement is a prerequisite for the appreciation of music; that the experience of expressiveness in music derives from an imaginative enrichment that allows music to be heard as a sequence of motion and gestures in sound or that the expressive interpretation of music is guided by imaginative description. While not completely rejecting an imaginative response to music, Gracyk instead opts for an imaginative engagement with music described as “hearing-in.” While not all music demands such engagement, hearing-in is not a trigger for imaginative imagery but rather a musical prop that invites the listener to attend to music’s animation, for example, in the form of musical causality and anticipation.