# Listening VS playing music



## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

I split my time between playing the piano, And expanding my repertoire to listening to symphonies, Operas and chamber music with my headphones.
As I am a music student and I want to develop my musical intelligence, Is playing really much more rewarding than listening to music?
When you play you are active, You create the music. I want to use my time to develop.
I am afraid that maybe I should play symphonies instead of listening to them.
What do you think? Can one learn a lot about music from listening only? Learn more about harmony, Form etc.?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I wouldn't say that one necessarily _creates_ the music that they play by playing it unless they are improvising. One can certainly create an _interpretation_ but the real creator is the composer.

I don't think simply playing music will allow for greater understanding of the music itself than just listening to it, you have to go deeper than that and analyse the music, understand the style of composition and how theory is related to the final result in the performance.

There are some people who learn an instrument and just play the music without knowing anything about it, but there are also some people who aren't necessarily great musicians but have a great understanding of how music (composition and theory) works.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

It's certainly more magical when almost anyone else plays than when I try my hand at it.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Solo music maybe but most of the time ensemble music is more enjoyable when listened to.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm going to say that listening can teach us a great deal about music, but that performing intensifies our awareness of certain features by requiring that we interpret them - i.e., articulate them in a meaningful way. As we learn and play or sing a work we notice gestures, progressions, relationships, balances, and sonorities in a more intense and complete way. I'd compare it to the difference between riding in the passenger seat of a car and driving it: by driving we become more fully conscious of where we are and of the qualities of our surroundings. I've also found that by heightening my awareness of its content and meaning, performing a work has increased my enjoyment when I've gone back to merely hearing it.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

For me YES.

It is also more fun to listen to a piece that I have performed.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Listening , practicing and performing are all important . It's vital to experience the interpretations of great musicians on recordings to develop your own musicianship and interpretive approach .
If you're an aspiring pianist, you have got to hear the recordings of great pianists of the past such as Horowitz, Rubinstein, Arrau,, Serkin , Schnabel, Bacjhaus, Kempff , Cortot and others . You can learn so much from them . 
Don't imitate them blindly, just absorb their performances and make you own choices when it comes to interpretation .
And don't limit yourself to piano music . If you are working on the Beethoven piano sonatas and other keyboard works of his, it's very important to know his symphonies, string quartets , violin and cello sonatas and other works for example.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

You can learn about harmony just by listening if you can tell what the harmonies are just by listening.....I think playing and being aware of the harmonic motion of what you are playing can expand that ability, though nothing expands it like actually composing. But it takes a lot of time, or it has for me, anyway.


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## calvinpv (Apr 20, 2015)

Listening to recordings, analyzing the scores, learning music theory and history, etc. expose you to the interpretive decisions of the past. This exposure is not only informative in that you become aware of the established canon of musical/theoretical/performative styles. It also reveals to you the possible limitations of these traditions and how they should be addressed. 

Subconsciously or not, you are addressing these limitations whenever you play music, specifically the limitations of performative styles. When you play a musical passage a certain way, you are making an interpretive decision, which implies you are also denying the validity of other possible interpretations of said passage. Now, your decision may be an affirmation of a preexisting canonical performance style; or it may not. Either way, these decisions are certainly beyond the realm of "developing your musical intelligence" because they force you to stake out your own position on debatable matters and defend that position.


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## Guest (Sep 26, 2015)

I'm still over here in the corner struggling with that "vs" thing. In all caps as well.

Far as I can see, there's no versus about it.

Listening to music and performing music are quite remarkably different activities. And so any of the fallout from doing either will be concomitantly different as well, eh? Best to do a bit of both all the time as much as you can.

As a music student, you are quite naturally caught up in learning about things. Of course. Just don't lose sight of the things and their natural qualities in your pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge is all well and good. Wisdom is better.


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## k1hodgman (Sep 8, 2015)

"Is playing really much more rewarding than listening to music?"

I believe it, if that's what you're geared to.

I played Oboe for 6 years, Cello for two months, and _just _started to play Piano. I don't care for any of them, but I _live_ to sing. Music is the most important thing in my Life, but only if I can listen to it, or sing it. Otherwise, I don't care.

[I'll admit however, playing Piano does something for me the Cello and Oboe did not.]

"Can one learn a lot about music from listening only? Learn more about harmony, Form etc.?"

_Absolutely. _ If you know how much you can listen for.

Dissonance, consonance, polyrythm, monophony, etc.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I think that listening is the most important thing of all for any musician.


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