Recently I had a dis­cus­sion with some­one at a con­cert, about whether or not it was good to fall asleep dur­ing a per­for­mance. She said that, although she enjoyed the piece that had just been played, she was dis­ap­pointed that it had been pro­grammed so late in the con­cert, because it made her feel sleepy. So I asked her why that was a bad thing. She was adamant that the piece would be a bet­ter expe­ri­ence if she were able to con­cen­trate all the way through, but I dis­agree. Pay­ing atten­tion is over-rated, at least in the “seri­ous” music community.

Lots of music is great if you don’t pay atten­tion, or can’t pay atten­tion. Some­times music helps me work, because I’m not lis­ten­ing to it actively but it blocks out other dis­trac­tions. Some­times I def­i­nitely enjoy the feel­ing of being lulled to sleep in a con­cert; of just barely being able to make out what’s going on, but catch­ing glimpses of the expe­ri­ence through the fog of your dreams. It’s bet­ter, in any case, to the cold clear real­iza­tion of, “Oh, this con­cert is pretty mediocre after all.”

So per­haps “I slept through your con­cert” shouldn’t be con­sid­ered an insult. Per­haps it should be con­sid­ered a good thing. They could have said, “I was bored dur­ing your con­cert and count­ing the sec­onds go by.” That would be worse. But falling asleep means that the music had a lulling effect. That’s a pretty pow­er­ful effect. And peo­ple gen­er­ally like to sleep… so maybe “I slept through your con­cert” should be pro­moted to the ranks of “I really enjoyed your con­cert” or “Your con­cert made me think a lot” or sim­i­lar musi­cal com­pli­ments that have to do with affect.

What bet­ter com­pli­ment than, “Your music puts me out like a light; bet­ter than sleep­ing pills”? If you’ve done some­thing with sound that is stronger than med­ical sci­ence, then why not be happy about it?