Page 98 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

Orchestrating different forms of knowledge 87

action. It should be seen as a “concurrent thinking” and a “fully attentive
being-immersed” (Böhle & Porschen 2011: 60; see also Schön 1983: 49ff.).
This state is also known as flow and is distinct both from self-conscious per-
ception (“I perceive that I am thinking”) and from the non-aware state of
doing something casually, without focal awareness (see also Böhle & Porschen
2011: 60).
4
At what point(s) is the composer’s sense of hearing particularly crucial?
Marko Ciciliani believes that “basically, my sense of hearing is important
in the phase where the concept starts to sort of stabilise”. Christof Dienz
points to a differentkindofsituation: “The biggest difficulty are the bal-
ances, in other words the dynamic that’s writtendownthere [inthe
score].” This is why the composer’s presence at rehearsals is vital for clar-
ifying fine details in situ. For Joanna Wozny, hearing becomes essential
when she composes for instruments that she does not play herself. She
explores their sound possibilities not “in books about playing techniques,
but in […] other pieces. Then I know how instruments sound in certain
contexts and use that to compose.” For Katharina Klement, hearing is an
empathetic, intuitive and feeling approach to the city of Belgrade, of
which she has been composing an “acoustic city portrait”, as she notes in
her diary:

Again and again the dogs bark down in the park. At noon, the wonderful
sounds of the bells from the Church of Saint Sava – pentatonic. Again
and again car alarms start up and emergency vehicles make their sounds.
[…] There’s a soft/gentle feel to everything, despite the noise – e.g. when
people introduce themselves with their name, they do it with a gentle
handshake and voice. Even the sound of the bells has something soft
about it.

As these examples illustrate, the answer to our question – at what point(s)
hearing is especially important – cannot be reduced to a formula. The sig-
nificance of sounds derives from each composer’s sense of hearing and therefore
cannot be formalised.

3.1.3 The body as a knowing unity
The composer’s sense of hearing is part of a whole that is ever present and
active during composing: the composer’s body. His or her body
accomplishes much: it is a synaesthetic, knowing, sentient and engaged
living organism; it is the foundation of existential certainty; it creates
conceptions of space and time (see Shusterman’s concept of somaesthetics,
Shusterman 2000: 137ff.; 2008). In fact, it is almost impossible to provide
afulllist. The body’s multi-functionality is often viewed as “embodied
intelligence”. However, this view has implications for the widespread
understanding of knowledge as an immaterial, purely intellectual