This article is part of a series called Good Aural: an Introduction to Listening For Pleasure , which is intended to help you get more out of the music you listen to.
True confession: I’ve been guilty of all of the sins listed below at various times and in different combinations.
I use the following as a routine self-inventory to help keep me sharp and observant, because there’s a lot of (figurative) earwax that can stand between a music fan and their music library. I am no exception. Check it out:
1. Music is Everywhere
In the MP3 age, music is cheap, abundant, and available for instantaneous purchase–long after the local mom-and-pop record store has locked its doors for the night. As if that isn’t enough, music is also woven into films, television, and commercials. It blares from clubs and it pipes into grocery stores. It’s in the background of almost every video game.
If I dropped everything to listen closely and critically to every piece of music I hear in an average day, I wouldn’t get anything done.
We condition ourselves to listen poorly out of self-defense. The habit of half-assed listening can clash with desire for deeper experience later on, so be conscious of this.
2. The 30-Second Attention Span.
Recently I signed up for last.fm to track my listening habits and use it as a tool to break out of my usual listening routines–okay, okay, my rut.
I noticed that their service registers an MP3 or FLAC as “played” after only half of that track’s total length has elapsed. I suspect this is because so many people adopt a channel-surfing methodology to their listening time: they want a verse of this, one or two choruses of that… this is how some people cope with having so much music at their fingertips.
They deal with the problem of “too much music” by trying to hear a little bit of all of it. But do they really experience any of it?
3. Use of Music as Wallpaper.
Many people use music as background noise for their other daily activities. They turn it on to block out other sounds that are less rhythmic, less pleasing, and more distracting. In other words, they want elevator music. And even if they’re listening to a great performance of Mozart, they still experience it as such. It’s like using the complete works of Shakespeare to prop up the short leg of your table: it’s functional, yes, but why not just use a block of wood instead?
People listen to music for lots of differing reasons; this series of articles is intended for those who want to listen, understand, and absorb many different kinds of experience, growing as a person and an artist in the process.
For the record, when I’m working or focusing on something else that requires a lot of my attention, I’ll usually spin something intended for that purpose: something ambient [I like Eno’s Ambient 4] or a disc of some repetitive, monotonous sound that I can blast. One side effect of learning to listen is that music now stimulates me too much to focus on anything else while it’s playing! You have been warned.
4. External Distractions.
Ideally we’d all have a quiet space to go turn on our music, and we’d be free of other demands for attention: no e-mail program making its mail notification sounds, no screaming kids, nothing but music.
While we may not be able to control all environmental factors, we can take small steps: silencing e-mail programs, for example, or closing our eyes–this latter trick is deceptively powerful because, without visual distractions, our powers of observation through hearing improve drastically. When people are looking and listening, they usually suck at both. Laws banning cell phone use in automobiles underscore this point.
5. Internal Distractions
Your brain is more important than your stereo. If said brain is crowded with day-to-day concerns, existential woes, appointments to remember, and so on, you’re probably not going to get the most out of whatever music you’re trying to enjoy. During a dark night of the soul I understand that this isn’t easy, but I suggest that you let go of all other concerns when you sit down to put music in your earholes.
6. “This Music is Irrelevant to Me.”
Sometimes people pre-judge music based on its genre. While I don’t enjoy everything that’s out there, and I have less fun listening to some things than others, I still try to hear everything I can get my hands on, and I give everything a chance. As time allows, that is–there’s a lot of music out there.
If I don’t enjoy the actual style and sounds of a song, I’ll still stick it out to listen for production techniques, song content, instrumental techniques, arrangement, and musical structure.
You can learn something from any listening experience. Don’t miss a single opportunity.
7. The Music Doesn’t Penetrate Your Heart.
A piece of music can be technically impressive, or it can teach a musical concept (this is true sometimes of little melodic examples from music textbooks), or its structure can be groundbreaking… but you still won’t love a piece if the music doesn’t move and engage you emotionally.
8. You Don’t Know the Context of What You’re Hearing.
A common complaint I hear about particular styles of music is “It all sounds the same!” While it’s true that some genres by their nature don’t allow for a very wide range of variations, I can say with confidence that if you think classical “all sounds the same” or jazz “all sounds the same,” you either haven’t sampled enough recordings, or you haven’t really paid attention, or you just decided you don’t like it. Probably all of the above.
Recently, out of curiosity (I swear I wasn’t sermonizing), I asked an acquaintance where she’d heard the classical music that cemented her decision that she “doesn’t like classical.” She cited the local radio station that plays Baroque music almost exclusively, and she was surprised to hear that there’s a whole world of classical music beyond the Baroque. I gave her a modern Kronos Quartet CD and she loved it! Victory!
Something I listen for in music from all styles is how it follows the conventions of its genre, subgenre, and so on… but also how it defies those conventions. Getting cozy with as many genres as possible allows one to better appreciate those separate and varied sound palettes.
It’s also important to note that most pieces of music follow some kind of pattern or structure: a main theme might be alternated with solo sections or with variations, for example. Understanding the blocks of time comprising a piece is a step toward appreciation.
9. Listening too Hard.
Some trained listeners wear themselves out trying to hear the entirety of every instrument in a recording–all at once, on the first listen. This is not a reasonable demand to place on yourself. Take it easy! The recording will always be there.
10. Not Enough Repeat Listens.
Again, this may be a habit born of music’s ubiquitous abundance and availability. Products like the iPod and services like eMusic have helped to initiate a major shift in how people consume music, and the omnipresence of new music–new demands on the ear–is certainly a good thing. However, human beings love a sense of progress, whether it’s turning the pages of a book or checking the clock fourteen times an hour at a dull day job.
Or being able to SAY “Yep, I listened to that album. Task complete.”
You may have technically listened to it, sure. But if you hear the Brandenburg Concerto #6 only once, you still haven’t HEARD it. You’ve just begun to make its acquaintance.
11. Social Conditioning.
This is where the phrase “guilty pleasure” comes from. A guilty pleasure is something that you instinctually like despite your culture’s insistence that you shouldn’t.
When it comes to music, everybody has something to say, and everyone has a highly charged opinion of this or that artist, even this or that style as a whole.
“Rap isn’t music.”
“Experimental music is just noise.”
Sound familiar?
Ignore all that.
Grand, sweeping generalizations are lots of fun to broadcast, but too often we accept the opinions of other people as our own without question. Worse still, we sometimes feel bad about our own tastes because of popular opinion!
When you go home tonight, draw the blinds. Ice the champagne. Dim the lights. It’s just you and the music here. Be honest with yourself and follow your inclinations. No matter how strange you might feel you are, you can probably find 180 internet forums full of fellow fans. If you’ve ever made a poorly worded Google search and caught a glimpse of a fetish website that is high-octane nightmare fuel, you know what I mean, or simply and innocently ended on https://www.nu-bay.com/ or similar sites and seen an act or fetish you have never laid eyes upon before. Those people are comfortable with themselves; you should be, too. Chin up, chest out!
12. Beguiled by Delivery and Appearances.
I asked somebody once what she liked most about her favorite song. Here’s what she said:
“He is such a good musician! Sooooo good-looking. And he has, like, five guitars, and one is sparkly!”
Nothing wrong with sparkly guitars, but don’t let it distract you from the sound. This is another problem that you can solve by closing your eyes.
Conclusion
Alright, so we’ve listed some common causes of bad listening. In the next article in this series we’ll move on to simple things you can do to transform your perception of music and its role in your life. Please bookmark, subscribe, and share this site with a colleague, bandmate, or friend!
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