How to Play Music Vol. 2 - Listening

Today’s post details this first and most critical step in the musical journey along with two exercises for practice.

Step 1 - Listening

EXERCISE 1 - Listen

Stop.

Stop whatever you’re doing and listen.

Don’t just hear- hearing and listening are totally different actions.

When you listen you are seeking something- information, understanding, experience.

Listen to your environment.

Acknowledge every sound you notice, take each sound for its pure sonic and aesthetic value.

Listen for the closest and furthest sound you can hear, the loudest and softest.

Consider the effect of the sounds, consider how you feel, is something being communicated?  

Now, Try to identify the source of each sound you hear.  

Repeat as often as possible, daily at minimum.     

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Listening is a method of gaining useful information.  Listening is the #1 most important key tool for any musician.  You can listen to real sounds and imagined sounds.  When you learn to truly listen, every lesson of music becomes apparent, because the information is already there in the sound.  Every bit of information you need in order to understand, reproduce, appreciate, or utilize a sound is inherent to the vibration itself.  The sound is the ultimate teacher- good human teachers teach other humans how to listen.  

Listening and hearing are related, but extremely different concepts. Hearing is the sensory process by which we pick up sounds in the environment, listening is the psychological/spiritual process of paying attention to the things we can hear. Hearing generally only garners surface level information, while listening can reveal profoundly moving or useful information. Take some time to ponder the distinction between the two actions and consider when you merely hear vs. when you actually listen. We will be working to build the habit of listening all the time. A big part of listening is having the humility to quiet yourself and your own thoughts and instead really just pay attention to a sound for what it is.

With practice and improvement, your listening skills will render you able to hear things that you could never hear before. The sounds you will discover were always there, but you could not hear them without properly listening. You will be delighted to find that you can record, measure, and manipulate these sounds once you notice them- after all, they are very real. Good musicians literally hear a broader pallet of sounds compared to the average person because of the time they have spent practicing listening. This can be likened to a visual artists enhanced awareness of color, a skier’s ability to spot a good line in sloped terrain, or an investors ability to see patterns and predict profits when looking at a trading chart.

Listening to Music

When a musician listens to music, they are usually trying to gain information that will be useful for them in terms of being able to perform that song or generally improve their practice.  A good musician can learn something from listening to any song, even the most simple.  Songs are databases of musical information.  They contain trials of certain combinations of tones and rhythms.  Most songs rely heavily on tried and true combinations, but may offer a unique instrumentation or presentation style.  Every song has some little thing about it that is totally unique, and this is the ultimate lesson to be learned from the song if a musician wants to develop strong vocabulary, style, and musical empathy.

Musical empathy is the ability to understand what the music is saying rather than forcing any certain interpretation onto it.  Songs are made of sound- the sounds are made by people, but a sound is not a person.  It’s more universal and less specific than any person.  Sound will speak directly to your soul when you allow yourself to listen to it.  Sound usually communicates with fantastic clarity when you remove your own assumptions and interpretations.  Understanding sounds will greatly improve your ability to communicate and conversate musically with those sounds.  

EXERCISE 2 - Listen like a Musician

Put on a song or go find a live musical performance.  Any song will do, it can be a song you love, a song you hate, a song you’ve never heard.

Listen to the whole song the same way you listened to your environment.  Take it in for its raw and direct value before you start thinking.  LISTEN.

Start the song over, or listen to the next song if you’re at a show.

This time, think and ask questions:

-Is the music fast or slow?

-What is the emotional vibe?

-How many different parts are there; what are they?

-What changes and what stays the same?

-Which parts lead and which support?

-How are sound and space both used?

-Do parts repeat?  Are there recurring statements or motifs?

-When is the climax?

-What is my favorite moment or part in the song?

-What is the weakest moment or part in the song?

-Are there any sounds I could not identify?

-How would I copy these sounds with the materials available to me?

When you can answer these questions and come up with more of your own, you are listening effectively and efficiently to improve your musicianship.