How to listen to music

People often listen to music or play music during events, but what can we actually listen for in music? There’s a great book by the composer Aaron Copland titled What to Listen for in Music that you can check out. It has lots of musical examples, though you’ll have to find them yourself as it doesn’t come with a CD.

Let’s talk about why we might want to do this.

To quote Aaron Copland’s book

“Listening to music is a skill that is acquired through experience and learning. Knowledge enhances enjoyment.”

I definitely agree. The more I learn about music and the more music I listen to, the more I enjoy listening to music, regardless of genre. The more I learn about music, the more I enjoy it. This may not be you, and that’s fine. But then this post isn’t for you. Here are some of my other posts you might enjoy.

So what are some things we can think about while listening?

A few things we can listen for are the four main aspects of music. These would be melody, rhythm, harmony, and timbre. I’ve got other blog posts on all of these things so definitely take a look at those.

We can also ask ourselves a few questions.

These are taken from Aaron Copland’s book.

“Are you hearing everything that is going on?”

“Are you really being sensitive to it?”

He then puts it another way.

“Are you missing anything as far as the notes themselves are concerned?”

“Is your reaction a confused one, or are you quite clarified as to your emotional response?”

The way I think about these questions is similar. So let’s take each question separately.

The first question.

“Are you hearing everything that is going on?”

Can you hear all of the different instruments and sounds in the music? And can you hear what they are doing individually?

Is it hard to pay attention to just the bass? Or just the drumbeat?

This one is mainly just about noticing the different parts of the music. This can be quite difficult if you’ve never tried. Picking apart a song and hearing each different instrument can be a weird thing to do.

One way to practice this is by going from top to bottom or bottom to top. Try to hear the highest pitched instruments first. What’s all there? Then once you can do that try to hear the instruments immediately lower than those. Then the instruments playing immediately lower. Then listen to the lowest instruments. Finally, listen to the drums and percussion instruments.

Depending on what type of music you’re listening to this can be more complicated. For example, hearing all the different instruments in a rock band is likely easier than hearing all of the different instruments in an orchestra. The main reason this would be the case is that there are many more instruments in an orchestra than in a rock band.

This can also be more complicated with electronic music because there is such a large variety of possible sounds.

But the main idea stays the same. Can you hear each different instrument or piece that’s being played?

The second question.

“Are you really being sensitive to it?”

Something I like to do to start answering this question is to ask yourself “do I like it and why or why not?” That way you’re deciding for yourself if you like the piece of music, and then figuring out what in the music do you like or dislike.

Something else to ask yourself is, do you know what your reaction is to them? What does it add to the music? How does it change the emotion being conveyed?

Another thing you can do with this one is relate the current musical material back to anything that was played before it. Is it repeating something that was already played? Or is it completely new?

This can get complicated pretty quickly because musical material can be related to other musical material in so many different ways, but the main idea is the same.

We’ll get into retrograde, inversion, and retrograde inversion at some point, but not right now. Look those terms up if you’re curious.

But try to listen for any musical repetitions. Most music has some type of repetition, and that’s something to be aware of when you’re listening.

It could be something simple like listening for the same guitar riff. Or it can be more complicated like trying to hear a variation of that guitar riff.

If you listen to classical music or jazz music, those composers often repeat ideas, but in different ways. Jazz musicians often use the same language to solo, and classical composers often vary one or two melodies or themes throughout the song. Same thing with film music. There are themes that are repeated in different ways and varied to keep them interesting throughout the soundtrack.

Those are some things you can listen to and listen for. Hopefully, it adds to your enjoyment of music as it does for me.

ISJ