# Is listening to classical music an art?



## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

One thing that has increased since my teens 50 years ago is the number of times I hear or read, "That music doesn't do anything for me." Rather than criticize this expression, or promote its opposite, I'd like to ask whether people understand listening to classical music as an art, or as a spontaneous experience.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

I think a lot of the time the listener has to do work on their end to appreciate the art in question. Sometimes there's music that has an immediate allure and appeal and hooks you instantly, and then other times you get a nut that's tough to crack - but once you do it's incredibly rewarding. I never really understood Bruckner for a long time and never 'got' his music, but I had this drive to really do get to the bottom of it and invested time into getting to know him, and he's long been one of my favorite composers now.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

It can be but it doesn't have to be.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Roger Knox said:


> One thing that has increased since my teens 50 years ago is the number of times I hear or read, "That music doesn't do anything for me." Rather than criticize this expression, or promote its opposite, I'd like to ask whether people understand listening to classical music as an art, or as a spontaneous experience.


It's neither an art nor a spontaneous experience. It's a state of readiness. I think that listening to music requires a submission, a willingness to let the musicians lead you. It's like making love, it's about being willing and able to permit the music to ravish you. I'm not a Christian, but it may be like Mary's submission before the Holy Spirit.

I'm sure I said this before on another thread here.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

I don’t think this idea is limited to classical music as the comment about “music not doing anything for me” can equally be applied to any music. 
Appreciation of any sensory experience, be that music, painting, sculpture etc needs some level of thinking/looking/listening otherwise it is surely just background ‘noise’


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I'd like to ask whether people understand listening to classical music as an art, or as a spontaneous experience._

I'd say it is much closer to science than art. I think interpreting music is probably art but not listening.

Being a a singer I know reading music is science and not art. Even if you are only an amateur you follow a music score like a road map.

We know from the "Mozart makes you smart" thing that listening to music -- any kind of music -- sets off synapses that create excitement, involvement and experience. There is no art to this; it is purely a response to stimulus.

We also know from research that music creates new kinds of problem-solving skills for listeners. I know from reading music that does same.

Over my life I've found listening to classical music is an approximate art: it changes over time. If you listen to something new and are bowled over you probably listen again and again until the bowling lessens. Yet if you set that aside and listen to it 10 years later it may not sound the same to you or elicit the same feelings.

Yet some music I learned from I started 50 years ago sounds the same today as then even though I may have heard hundreds of alternative versions.

This I believe is the musical imprint. That is certainly science, not art.

I don't know any research about imagination, however, and how that is linked to stimulus like music. We know most dreams relate to things that either just happened in our lives or are about to happen but not about imagination -- what it is, how it is set off, and if we have artistic control of it.

With that one possible exception I don't believe there is much if any art in listening to classical music.

The idea that certain music "does nothing for me" is to me no different than saying blue shirts or fast cars do nothing for me. That is an issue of choice and selection which could conceivably be art. We don't have very good science about how we come to make choices either.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

We have some very different kinds of listeners at this forum with greatly varying degrees of musical knowledge. But what we have in common is a great passion for music and active listening. I can't approach and listen to an opera with the knowledge of Woodduck, or analyze a string quartet like Ed Bast, but I just try to listen as closely as I can because I love the activity of concentrated listening and the enjoyment and edification it imparts to the interested individual.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

There is an art in the listening, in the enjoyment, and in the discussing of music; just as there is an art in enjoying great art, paintings, and literature. Apart from learning "How to Listen", i.e. Music _Appreciation_, is Music _Enjoyment_. While the former guides to understanding the craftsmanship, and the context; the latter brings us to a place that is more inward where we are able to see the beauty in something that did not touch us right away. Then we learn that finding what is beautiful can be something that renews us, that gives us some hope in a weary world. Like religion, and philosophy, teaching, writing, and living itself, so that the "art" to it is in a way that is undefinable, nuanced, calculated, but also intuitive.

Case in point, when I got married over twenty years ago, I became a husband and a father all in one day. My wife had four kids from her former marriage and the father of the children chose not to be in their lives. All my friends and family thought I had lost my mind taking on the responsibility but I was determined to make it work and prior to getting married and eventually adopting the children, I read many books on being a successful step-parent. The books were full of great techniques and insights, but what the books didn't say is that there is an "art" to parenting that requires patience, practice, and an understanding of pacing, timing, tone, and dynamics (just like when Leonard Bernstein conducts the orchestra!).

So years later after my wife and I adopted another child together, and the first four children were already grown up, I took my youngest son and grandson on vacation with my sister and her two daughters. So as my sister was struggling and chasing after my nieces and trying to manage their stubborn moods, she asked me how I could so easily manage my son and grandson. I told her that she's only seeing my SECOND run with the younger children; and that my FIRST run with the older children wasn't smooth at all! After a lot of practice, patience, perseverance, and some heart-ache, I had the timing, pacing, tone, and dynamics of parenting, not down to a "science", but down to an "art".

There was an old episode of _Tales from the Darkside_, a 1980s TV show that aired at odd hours and was somewhat of a knockoff of the _Twilight Zone_. Some episodes of _Darkside_ were really weak, but others were pretty good, and a few were exceptional. One episode I love is the one where the guy makes a deal with the Devil so he can have a musical instrument that contacts the souls of the great composers and sucks out their life energy, so he create music like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Stravinsky; but his lust to be rich and famous gets the best of him and he nearly loses his young daughter in the process as the instrument starts to suck out his daughter's life energy. So he ends up having to take back his deal with the Devil. Then he turns to his daughter and says, "For now on you will be my music."


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

May I frame your post? Anyway, Music Enjoyment in a deep sense strikes me as a wonderful idea, and your examples are convincing indeed.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Listening to falling snow is an art!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Listening to falling snow is an art!


I'll attempt a bit of that tomorrow as we've got a storm on the way.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Listening to falling snow is an art!


...especially if you live in Norway!


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

It's best to see and and hear it live!


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Sneaking into the balcony of the concert hall at the beginning of the second movement is artful cleverness .


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Roger Knox said:


> One thing that has increased since my teens 50 years ago is the number of times I hear or read, "That music doesn't do anything for me." Rather than criticize this expression, or promote its opposite, I'd like to ask whether people understand listening to classical music as an art, or as a spontaneous experience.


It is especially an "art" when it comes to listening to avant-garde music.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Coach G said:


> There is an art in the listening, in the enjoyment, and in the discussing of music; just as there is an art in enjoying great art, paintings, and literature. Apart from learning "How to Listen", i.e. Music _Appreciation_, is Music _Enjoyment_. ...


I'm not sold on the issue that there is an art to appreciating art. But I'll admit I have never really considered this particular issue, in all my ponderings of art, and thus can't take a finalized stance. But I do suspect I need not be tasty in order to enjoy good food.

In some sense, art is a "creation" spurred by the human imagination (and/or physical technical abilities). I would think that if one _creates_ a sense of appreciation for a work of art, one might be artistic in doing so, but that might also suggest a distortion of what reaction the art actually provokes.

Rather, we remain true to ourselves by encountering a work of art and reacting naturally towards it. The reaction may be one of pleasure, or disgust, or of "I don't care" neutrality, and of all shades in between those reactions. But it is likely not a creative response.

I do suspect that we are all artists in some sense or another. Some simply get more recognition and their art is more celebrated. But one can have such an outlook on life that allows one to see an art in sandwich making, or clothes ironing, or budget preparation, or horse-shoeing ....

One of the goals of art is to reach out to our higher sensibilities, to provoke us, to enlighten us, to enrich us in some manner new and special and important to our lives as humans. Animals neither create art nor appreciate it. There is something about being human that necessitates art and an appreciation of art.

I still won't say that there is an art to appreciating art, but that would likely lead to the remark that there is an art in being human. And perhaps there is. But I'm still not sure. If we are born this way ....

[I will read the posts in this thread with interest.]


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Listening to falling snow is an art!


Like clapping with one hand?


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

DK if it is or isnt but it definitely ENRICHES me, makes me more concentrated and imaginative.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

In my opinion listening to classical music can be compared to reading literature, looking at a sculpture, watching a film, but whether "art" is the right word for any of those activities I'm not sure. It's the best I can do for now.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I think you can be more or less conscious about your listening, so it has to do with your attention. I often fall asleep to classical music, not so "arty"


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## Ad Astra (Aug 10, 2020)

One can certainly improve their listening experience with some knowledge and expertise that can come from study or just repeated listening.

There are two types of listening modes in my opinion. The first is your "Casual" listening practiced by the majority of listeners even "experts" will use this mode the majority of the time and is primarily for enjoyment. The second is an "Analytical" mode I'd say this is done by the "hardcore" listeners and music students; The type of people that would sign up to Talk Classical for example. This mode can be for enjoyment but typically one is listening more intently, truely studying the music.

Neither of which I'd classify as an art although the second mode would definitely be the practice of studying an art. I may be wrong but I believe this is the crux of the OP's question. *Is activity of listening to classical something one must practice in order to truly understand and appreciate the art of classical music? If that is closer to the OP's question then the answer is yes.*


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Ad Astra said:


> *Is activity of listening to classical something one must practice in order to truly understand and appreciate the art of classical music? If that is closer to the OP's question then the answer is yes.*


Thank you for your question. There is practice involved, but I hope that it does not spoil the enjoyment of classical music. That happens if you push yourself too hard with a work that seems forbidding or incomprehensible. My experience is that with understanding and appreciation, the art and the enjoyment of listening to music can merge. How could the artistry of the composer and performer appeal and delight if there isn't something of an artist in the listener -- who has sensitivities, recognizes analogies, responds imaginatively? Many posts on TC demonstrate these qualities -- they are not "musts" or requirements of any sort, but rather added contributions.


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## Doctor Fuse (Feb 3, 2021)

it's an "activity", at any rate!

Passivity won't get you far, in classical music.


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