# Listening to Music Technically



## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

I've always had a wish that maybe one day I could listen to a piece and know exactly where it modulates to, what exact key it's always in, keep track of the meter consciously, be able to hear all the voices, etc. In short, to be able to take a piece of work as an absolute whole with conscious awareness of the past, present and future in a piece of work, as I feel any piece of art needs. 


Does anyone also have this wish, or is this a delusion of a teenager with an pseudo-intellectual complex? Is anyone able to listen to a piece and knows almost intuitively where the piece is key-wise, the intervals of a given melodic line, or any of these qualities separately? I think all my musical studying is in constant aspiration to this goal, so I could appreciate a work of art at it's whole rather than just a sum of it's parts.


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## Toddlertoddy (Sep 17, 2011)

SottoVoce said:


> I've always had a wish that maybe one day I could listen to a piece and know exactly where it modulates to, what exact key it's always in, keep track of the meter consciously, be able to hear all the voices, etc. In short, to be able to take a piece of work as an absolute whole with conscious awareness of the past, present and future in a piece of work, as I feel any piece of art needs.
> 
> Does anyone also have this wish, or is this a delusion of a teenager with an pseudo-intellectual complex? Is anyone able to listen to a piece and knows almost intuitively where the piece is key-wise, the intervals of a given melodic line, or any of these qualities separately? I think all my musical studying is in constant aspiration to this goal, so I could appreciate a work of art at it's whole rather than just a sum of it's parts.


The easiest to approach this is to play all the parts and get to know the parts. And perfect pitch always helps as well.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

The longer I study music, the closer I get to being able to do this, and sometimes it's very satisfying. It's not how I listen all the time, but I often enjoy listening for form, the development of themes, harmonic shifts, the interplay of voices in a fugue, etc. and I can hear a lot more of this than I used to be able to. I can't tell exactly what key the music is in most of the time, but I'm pretty good at recognizing modulations to the dominant (because they are so common) and third-relation modulations (because I spend to much time with Beethoven).


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

You can take an ear training class that'll help a lot. I have absolutely no natural ability in this area, but I learned quite a bit in various music classes. The one that most helped me was music theory.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I used to think like that when I was more compulsively analytical and my perfectionism had to manifest itself in short-term reassurances. For some reason, I have less of a need to figure things out right away these days. I think I feel it pretty thoroughly, I'm zoned in on what I like and can work with and that's all that matters to me for now.

But I do advise you to listen to all periods of music. Ever since I've been exploring music of the Elizabethan Rennaisance, my understanding of voices and the music of Bach has improved greatly.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I don't desire this ability. I used to get the scores to music I enjoyed and play through them to study them. In all cases this reduced my appreciation of the music. It's like knowing the secret to a magic trick, you want to know it, but you really don't. An exhaustive understanding of a piece also exhausts the emotion it's able to produce inside you.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

Couchie said:


> I don't desire this ability. I used to get the scores to music I enjoyed and play through them to study them. In all cases this reduced my appreciation of the music. It's like knowing the secret to a magic trick, you want to know it, but you really don't. An exhaustive understanding of a piece also exhausts the emotion it's able to produce inside you.


This doesn't really happen to me. _Listening_ to a piece too many times in a short span of time exhausts its potential to provoke emotion in me, but studying it doesn't usually. I often find that the more I understand about the structure of a piece, the more miraculous it seems to me. It's not that I think that mystery should be stripped away from everything, but I often find that I'm _more_ in awe of a piece after I've analyzed it. Unless it turns out to be a mediocre piece and I don't find much when I look too closely. But with a lot of pieces, closer examination reveals layers of beauty and craftsmanship that I miss when that intellectual element is not present in my listening, and this often _leads_ to a more intensely appreciative emotional response than my more passive "Oh, this is pretty!"


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

People separate intellectual and emotional listening (and intellectual and emotional other stuff too) a lot, which I think is too bad. They can enhance each other. You don't have pick one.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Meaghan said:


> This doesn't really happen to me. _Listening_ to a piece too many times in a short span of time exhausts its potential to provoke emotion in me, but studying it doesn't usually. I often find that the more I understand about the structure of a piece, the more miraculous it seems to me. It's not that I think that mystery should be stripped away from everything, but I often find that I'm _more_ in awe of a piece after I've analyzed it. Unless it turns out to be a mediocre piece and I don't find much when I look too closely. But with a lot of pieces, closer examination reveals layers of beauty and craftsmanship that I miss when that intellectual element is not present in my listening, and this often _leads_ to a more intensely appreciative emotional response than my more passive "Oh, this is pretty!"


You're lucky then. I bought both the full score and a piano reduction to the Rite of Spring. After studying every polyrhythm and polytonality in the piece (which was very enjoyable and insightful, while I was doing it) the piece has simply lost all of its magic. I really cannot bear to hear it anymore. I own some Wagner scores but I don't study them for this reason. I just like to own them.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

Couchie said:


> You're lucky then. I bought both the full score and a piano reduction to the Rite of Spring. After studying every polyrhythm and polytonality in the piece (which was very enjoyable and insightful, while I was doing it) the piece has simply lost all of its magic. I really cannot bear to hear it anymore. I own some Wagner scores but I don't study them for this reason. I just like to own them.


Well, I think part of the reason I like knowing every facet of my favorite pieces is that it makes me feel like I own them. Maybe I'm just acquisitive!


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

A lot of pieces I have learnt to like a lot I have done so since buying the score, or at least borrowing it and reading it once while listening to the piece.

In answer to the original thread, I can do that a lot more than I could, but it would be nice to be able to understand more from a technical point of view when listening to it. However, I can now find that I can hear thematic relations, and if I don't know exactly that the music has modulated to the mediant, then at least I know it is in a reasonably unrelated key - which is after all the main point. But this is really mostly in Classical era pieces (my favourite era) because I have listened a lot to the works, and I have read about it - I really have no clue if I listen to Wagner.

Despite this I would say that I prefer to listen to the emotional side of the music, though the two approaches compliment each other.


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