Attending to music : traversing the experience of listening through the physical into the ineffable

Abstract

In order to traverse the experience of listening to music from the physical into the ineffable, I shall first explore the immediate experience of listening with reference to the physical elements of its perception. I shall then consider the subtler level of this experience by evidencing the virtuality of the experiencing agent, identified as ego, in light of the self that witnesses the experience, and is unchanging. Lastly, I shall explore how the experience of attending to music is ultimately inarticulate and therefore ineffable since in the process of listening, one recognises the stillness that underlies the experience. Silence is thus identified as the cause for the happening of musical experience.