Slow listening - tasting music
If there is one expression that best sums up the characteristics of modern life, it is perhaps "multitasking", that is to say, carrying out several activities at the same time. It might seem a positive sign of progress, which facilitates and speeds up our activities, but this life-style turns out to be scarcely compatible with our brain, which isn't designed to handle superimposed activities. The negative effects of multitasking on our health have emerged in a recent study by the neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin, director of the Laboratory for Music, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University and author of the book “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.”
In synthesis, the constant overlapping of different kinds of information that we are subjected to today runs the risk of weakening our capacity for attention and concentration. It is also said to trigger a hormonal process that causes addiction, “rewarding” the brain when it becomes distracted and passes from one piece of information to another. Addiction to Facebook or messaging is, in fact, a growing phenomenon, which could condition the serenity and health of future generations.
A simple remedy is to become a “taster” of classical music: knowing how to listen to and savor a piece of music implies developing one's personal sensitivity and can often represent the first step in a path to rediscovering the beauty of places, landscapes and tastes, which could be summed up by the concept of slow listening. Just like slow food, slow listening involves the absence of any type of hurry, and gives priority to the quality of the listening message, as opposed to the quantity. Classical music is quintessentially slow, and this doesn't mean that it is lacking in energy or passion, but, on the contrary, that precisely on account of the greater variety of nuances and degrees of expression, it affords a more intense and gratifying listening experience.
Roberto Prosseda
