# What does it mean to "get" music?



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

We use this word a lot: I don't get that piece. At first I didn't get it, but one day it clicked and now I do. You don't like this piece? You must not get it. And so on.

What does it really mean? Is it understanding, technically, how a piece is put together? Receiving some kind of message from it? Having an emotional response to it? Understanding what the composer intended?

I'm interested to hear thoughts.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

To understand and be able to identify in the music the ideas that both the composer and a community of informed listeners say are in the work. One may include there the emotions as well, but that may not be strictly necessary.

I don't think it has something to do with liking it. Liking it is, well... to like it.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

To get a piece for me means to follow what I think it is saying, which means getting into the composer's mind, or following what it does in terms of music


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I don't get it...so I probably don't understand it


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I'll stick to the flowing scale of love/like/neutral/dislike/hate, "get" doesn't mean a thing to me when I listen to music.


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

When I listen to a piece of music for the first time, it's just a load of random notes strung together. It's only when I've heard it several times that something coherent emerges. I may then decide I like it or I don't, and that's when I "get it".


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

For years, for instance, when I didn't "get' the slow movement of the Hammerklavier sonata, it was just a seemingly endless string of very slow notes that did nothing for me except hope that it would end. Then suddenly it turned beautiful and searching and I wished it would never end. I call that finally "getting" it because it now did for me what it apparently did for Beethoven, and thousands of other listeners who either didn't have my problem, or had already surmounted it. Similarly for the Arietta of Beethoven's Opus 111 sonata.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I like a lot of definitions people have so far. Sometimes getting it is hard to put into words. When a work is very complex and involves thematic transformation of various ideas, the way they interact with each other and become something new can be hard to explain, and yet you still get it. You see how idea A turned into A' and then blended with B, even though you don't know how. The fact that you hear the difference between A, A' and AB is the first step, and then the comprehension of what it means to the composer to do that. Perhaps some sort of progression of thought, or synthesis.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Like????????????????


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

In regard to music, I think the idea of "getting" it is that the listener feels a personal connection, emotionally, aesthetically and/or intellectually. Too often, it is used in the sense of "understanding" the music, but I think it is better expressed as I have just stated. On some level, it implies an appreciation of the music, which I interpret as a personal response, and probably necessarily a favorable one (to some degree).


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Usually I consider "getting" a piece when I finally figure out what all the hoopla is about. Like the Berg Violin Concerto; it was random notes and a Bach chorale until one day all the various listenings came together, and it made sense.

On the other hand, some pieces just click with me on first hearing, and I don't bother to figure out why, like Grisey's Les espaces acoustiques.


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## Steve Mc (Jun 14, 2018)

For me, at least, "getting" a piece is distinct from "liking" it. To "get" a piece is to understand it in an abstract sense, to have an awareness of what the composer is trying to convey, to have an awareness of what exactly the piece is doing. 
Often, when this happens, I'll begin to like a piece I did not like before. But not always. 
Then, there are pieces I liked right away, which continuously uncover new layers of meaning to me. I get it one one level, and then it shows me a whole new one. I love these kinds of pieces.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

When you establish a personal connection to the music regardless of any external factors, when you know what's going on and where the music is going based on nothing but your ability to listen, your memory and experience with other music.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

JAS said:


> In regard to music, I think the idea of "getting" it is that the listener feels a personal connection, emotionally, aesthetically and/or intellectually. Too often, it is used in the sense of "understanding" the music, but I think it is better expressed as I have just stated. On some level, it implies an appreciation of the music, which I interpret as a personal response, and probably necessarily a favorable one (to some degree).


This is close to my opinion. When I don't get a piece of music it doesn't do anything for me.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

For me it means I like it. I don't always get what a composer is trying to say. For instance Berlioz Symphony Fantastique, all of that drug induced evil witches thing is lost in me. I don't hear it in the music, so I guess I don't get that piece even though I like it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I've never used that expression and I don't know know what other people have in mind when they use it. On the other hand I know when a piece of music "gets" me. Maybe that's the same thing.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

To ”get” music is when the listener’s understanding finally catches up to the composer’s. It can happen instantaneously or take a lifetime depending upon one’s curiosity. But it’s usually worth it when it finally happens, and the mind loves it.


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

I would give an example to illustrate my thinking.

If you take an ultra-modern piece that doesn't have traditional "melodies" like Brian Ferneyhough, I just don't "get it". In this case me getting it really comes before liking and disliking. 

In contrast, with Elliott Carter, I really didn't know where he was going with his music but it was close enough to other music that I have listened to that after several listening, I felt I got it and I like it. Sometimes I could "get" a piece and not like it.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

for me, it simply means being able to enjoy the music. When I first started with classical music, I did not get Brahms. I listened to his symphonies and they borded me, I had difficulty keeping attention etc. And then, after several months of trying, Brahms suddenly clicked in my brain, and I saw, what great music it is and could start enjoying his music.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It is a word I might use to describe a personal affirmative experience - "after years I finally got X's sonata" - but try to avoid when questioning the experience of others (because it rarely resolves anything) even when it seems very obvious - from their descriptions of how they find it - that they don't get the music.

Getting is not the same as liking. There is *music I think I get *well enough and 
- find ugly - this is usually schmaltzy music, music that seems to "lack fibre" or music I find crass in some other way - or boring (most conceptual music).
- that I also enjoy.

And there is music that I feel *I don't currently get *
- and that I don't like listening to (currently quite a lot of Messiaen fits this category)
- but that I do enjoy listening to (trying to get it - quite a lot of very contemporary music fits, here, and music like Carter's and Boulez was here for me until a couple of years ago).

There is also music that even after trying quite hard I am still *not sure *if I am getting it or not but that, anyway, I am finding boring or uninvolving (I would place Holmboe's music in this category and would once have placed quite a lot of Schoenberg).

Eventually I suppose I would like to feel I get all music and therefore can say either that I like it or that I don't.


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

Can anyone give an example of what it means "To understand and be able to identify in the music the ideas that both the composer and a community of informed listeners say are in the work"? Does that mean that if you lack the adequate theoretical understanding and vocabulary to talk about the piece, you cannot understand it? Or is this understanding more like having a feel of the composition, identifying with it, "moving" with it so to speak?

Say, someone who is musically illiterate loves and is deeply moved by Fuer Elise or the Moonlight Sonata or the Turkish March. They cannot explain what the piece is about, they just cannot put it into words, maybe the best they could do is express how it makes them feel and use very vague and abstract and metaphorical language to describe the movement of the musical ideas. Can they be in any sense said to understand the piece?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

To "get" music means through repetition, the brain absorbs the musical patterns, makes sense of it, remembers it when it hears it again and leaves it up to you to make a value judgment as to its worth.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Interesting responses so far!

I'm pretty comfortable saying that it does _not_ mean:

-Extracting some kind of extramusical meaning from the piece - being able to explain in words what it's "about"

-Understanding, technically, how it works (e.g., recognizing every manipulation of the subject in a Bach fugue, or of the tone row in a Schoenberg piece)

-Liking or enjoying - you can enjoy something on first hearing even if you don't really get it yet, and you can dislike something that you do get

This leads me to think that to "get" a piece, or whatever other language you might want to use (for it to make sense, click, etc) might be a kind of connection with the music that is impossible to put into words. The music makes sense in some kind of psychological, rather than logical, way.


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## Templeton (Dec 20, 2014)

For me, it is simply when it gains a more significant meaning than just passively enjoying it as background noise. I don't necessarily have to love or even like it but somehow it has to have additional meaning/significance.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Boychev said:


> Can anyone give an example of what it means "To understand and be able to identify in the music the ideas that both the composer and a community of informed listeners say are in the work"? Does that mean that if you lack the adequate theoretical understanding and vocabulary to talk about the piece, you cannot understand it? Or is this understanding more like having a feel of the composition, identifying with it, "moving" with it so to speak?
> 
> Say, someone who is musically illiterate loves and is deeply moved by Fuer Elise or the Moonlight Sonata or the Turkish March. They cannot explain what the piece is about, they just cannot put it into words, maybe the best they could do is express how it makes them feel and use very vague and abstract and metaphorical language to describe the movement of the musical ideas. Can they be in any sense said to understand the piece?


The latter in both cases seem closer to my understanding of what it means to get a piece of music. It is certainly not (to me) about vocabulary or musical education. Mind you, I don't feel much affinity with the quote sentence that you started with. I think getting music is quite a personal thing - the music talks to you - rather than agreeing with others, and I am not wedded to the idea that the composer will necessarily know what it is that s/he "meant". The composer's ideas are presumably musical ideas. S/he may have other ideas as well - mourning, religious, or what have you - but to write them in music will often mean to say things that cannot be said in words. But what happens - or fails to happen - when those musical ideas come together in our brains is not easily described or defined.


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

^Yes! This is one of the things that so much frustrates me about music. With language, a writer or speaker starts with an idea, uses language, a tool that is specifically designed for communication, to express that idea, and the reader or listener receives the original message via language again. If both the author and the recipient have a similar understanding of language, the idea gets across, but more importantly, the recipient can in turn try to explain the idea in their own words and, in case of misunderstanding, mistakes could be clarified using nothing more than language. Even if we presume that a musical composer sits down with the intention of conveying an idea, there is already the problem that musical instruments and theories of composition are first and foremost designed to sound good and/or interesting relative to the culture in which they function, not to convey ideas. A minor diminished seventh arpeggio does not by itself carry any idea, it can appear in drastically different contexts and be used to acheive wildly differing effects. The second problem is the very act of listening - aside from the aforementioned problem that a major chord does not translate to any specific idea, following where a melody is going is hard enough, and then there are harmony and counterpoint, and various different timbres playing at the same time, which is like trying to follow multiple people speaking to you at the same time. It's maddening.

I wholeheartedly beleive that I have understanding only of that which I can explain in words. Music seems to be great at conveying movements of abstract shapes and that's what understanding music means to me. I think it's an artform that is both superior to artforms like literature and film (in that it conveys completely free movement, bound only by whatever rules one's imagination chooses to follow, the narratives of music are narratives of pure thought), and inferior to them in that a lot of the time it just amounts to an inexplicable emotional experience that is kind of self-indulgent, that you can do nothing with, that you can't carry with you as knowledge, that doesn't really do anything or help you understand anything.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

It means you can either understand the composer's intentions or understand what the music is trying to convey to you. It also applies to players; some "get" it better than others -- some play the music while others play the notes.

I could never understand Mahler's 3rd symphony until I heard John Barbirolli's recording. Then I understood it was three things in one: a symphony surrounding a cantata which includes a child's view of heaven. Barbirolli seemed to "explain" both the contents of the music and the phrasing inside the score better than other recordings I'd heard which made it a bunch of unconnected parts.

In solo music, some performers are better able to phrase the music so it speaks better to me.

Other times it is simply a matter of continued, persistent exposure to get a better idea of what music is about. I think this is true for anyone coming new to music that isn't particularly straightforward. It was true for me in Mahler, Shostakovich and Elgar, among others.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Identifying the patterns to the point of recognition. It's a very satisfying experience. We can advance our appreciation of music simply by listening, without having to learn about it technically. It's a kind of blissful ignorance that feels smart. 

Some of my favorite live performers are those who make their audience feel smart about the music, not by being lectured to, but by musical demonstration. It's a rather rare skill worth having.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Boychev said:


> Can anyone give an example of what it means "To understand and be able to identify in the music the ideas that both the composer and a community of informed listeners say are in the work"? Does that mean that if you lack the adequate theoretical understanding and vocabulary to talk about the piece, you cannot understand it? Or is this understanding more like having a feel of the composition, identifying with it, "moving" with it so to speak?


No, you don't have to have a thorough, absolute understanding of the actual theoretical procedures the composer used to 'get' the music. But if you have some general guidelines, it can really help. Like a "Classical Music for Dummies" sort of thing.

They should make a "Serialism for Dummies" book. This would help if you were listening to Elliott Carter's music. For example:
Elliott Carter is not really a hard-core serialist, but he does use "set theory" in his compositions.
Carter was interested in certain kinds of tone sets. He made his own "index" of the possible sets, on his own, independently.
Carter's music is chromatic, and has a chromatic aesthetic. In other words, his music uses all twelve notes as much as possible. That's just the way he sees things, and how he wants his music to be.
Etc, etc.



> Say, someone who is musically illiterate loves and is deeply moved by Fuer Elise or the Moonlight Sonata or the Turkish March. They cannot explain what the piece is about, they just cannot put it into words, maybe the best they could do is express how it makes them feel and use very vague and abstract and metaphorical language to describe the movement of the musical ideas. Can they be in any sense said to understand the piece?


Yes, definitely. If the music moves them, it must be comprehensible to them in ways that they are unable to articulate. Even cats can enjoy music.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: Take away my credit card and I will no longer "get" classical music...or anything else, for that matter.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Boychev said:


> *I wholeheartedly beleive that I have understanding only of that which I can explain in words.* Music seems to be great at conveying movements of abstract shapes and that's what understanding music means to me. I think it's an artform that is both superior to artforms like literature and film (in that it conveys completely free movement, bound only by whatever rules one's imagination chooses to follow, the narratives of music are narratives of pure thought), and inferior to them in that a lot of the time it just amounts to an inexplicable emotional experience that is kind of self-indulgent, that you can do nothing with, that you can't carry with you as knowledge, that *doesn't really do anything or help you understand anything.*


If this is the case it is unlikely you will get anything out of classical music. Musical thoughts don't translate into or reduce to words. What they "help you understand" is music. If that doesn't interest you for its own sake, your time might be better spent with literature.


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

^What do they translate into then? How do you comprehend them?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Originally Posted by *Boychev* 
_*I wholeheartedly believe that I have understanding only of that which I can explain in words.*_


EdwardBast said:


> If this is the case it is unlikely you will get anything out of classical music. Musical thoughts don't translate into or reduce to words. What they "help you understand" is music. If that doesn't interest you for its own sake, your time might be better spent with literature.


That's true in some literal sense, in some instances, but words can explain music's context, the artist's concerns and intentions, what the music was intended for, and other things. That's why I read about music and music history.

Of course, some music doesn't need any explaining. This is the familiar music within one's paradigm, which is easily assimilated, and accepted without any thought being necessary.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Boychev said:


> ^What do they translate into then? How do you comprehend them?


Some music is expressive and one can react to in the same way one might react to "human expressive behavior, including gesture posture and utterance," to quote (paraphrase?) philosopher Peter Kivy. Some music is structured as a kind of abstract drama that can be interpreted as having humanistic significance. But such forms of understanding are far from translation. In general, one comprehends music musically - which probably won't be a very helpful statement.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Some musical ideas translate into words, but it is usually a very limited application. Some music may sound sad, or happy, light-hearted, silly, etc. but by no means all music, and even for such music there almost certainly are other ideas which are purely musical, most notably the theme or themes, and the interplay of various parts of the score. (You might also be able to describe some portions by recognized forms, such as a waltz, a march, a dirge, or a polka. And there are musical terms that generally indicate volume, tempo or limited stylistic considerations.) It might be possible to describe these themes and the interplay somewhat, but it would likely be very clumsy (or at least highly technical) and perhaps even self-defeating. There is a very funny bit by Peter Schickele, of PDQ Bach fame, in which he comments on a performance as if it were a sporting event. If you want to listen to someone talk about a score/performance, there are several CDs by Benjamin Zander which feature a performance accompanied by his analysis.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If the composer has done his job, and the performers & conductors tune in to this, then music can evoke very complex feelings. When these are indefinable in words, or even as simple emotions, I call it "states of being" which are evoked. This might bring back entire chunks of your life experience, and resonate in some deeper way.
I get this effect from Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra. It might be similar to the way a soundtrack works, only your memories and feelings are the "movie."


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Art Rock said:


> I'll stick to the flowing scale of love/like/neutral/dislike/hate, "get" doesn't mean a thing to me when I listen to music.


so it never happened to you that you didn't understand at first a piece and after more listening you are able to like it or understand the musical ideas that at first were hard to decipher as it was another language?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

norman bates said:


> so it never happened to you that you didn't understand at first a piece and after more listening you are able to like it or understand the musical ideas that at first were hard to decipher as it was another language?


No, that implies that it might be modern or serial, especially the "another language" part.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Boychev said:


> *This is one of the things that so much frustrates me about music. With language, a writer or speaker starts with an idea, uses language, a tool that is specifically designed for communication, to express that idea, and the reader or listener receives the original message via language again.* If both the author and the recipient have a similar understanding of language, the idea gets across, but more importantly, the recipient can in turn try to explain the idea in their own words and, in case of misunderstanding, mistakes could be clarified using nothing more than language. *A major chord does not translate to any specific idea,* following where a melody is going is hard enough, and then there are harmony and counterpoint, and various different timbres playing at the same time, which is like trying to follow multiple people speaking to you at the same time. It's maddening.
> 
> *I wholeheartedly beleive that I have understanding only of that which I can explain in words.* *Music... just amounts to an inexplicable emotional experience that is kind of self-indulgent, that you can do nothing with, that you can't carry with you as knowledge, that doesn't really do anything or help you understand anything.*


It isn't the purpose of music to "help you understand" things - i.e. to communicate conceptual, propositional knowledge and concrete facts. It can certainly inspire thought, but it doesn't tell you what to think about. Its purpose is to give pleasure: emotional, physical, and cognitive pleasure. I've never in my life heard anyone complain about experiencing pleasure! Would you complain similarly about a good meal, an afternoon at the beach, a dazzling sunset, a game of tennis or chess, or sex?

If you're so attached to verbal meanings, consider that much of the function of verbal communication isn't "helping us understand things" either. Much of our talk is a means to the simple end of enjoying the company of others for the emotional satisfaction it affords, and most of us don't judge the success of an afternoon walking and talking with friends solely according to how much new knowledge we take away from it.

You're right that "a major chord does not translate to any specific idea," although I would replace "specific" with "single and fixed." That's precisely one of the things that makes music wonderful. The significance of any single chord depends on a virtually limitless number of variables, variables present in the music itself and in the circumstances of our hearing it. Music seems to have the capacity to reflect and evoke feelings of the subtlest kind, and feelings are determined by the context of the situation that gives rise to them. Like all manifestations of life, feelings are always moving, always changing. Unlike words, they refuse to be fixed. That's a key to music's power.

Speaking for myself, I've received from music a good deal of knowledge, knowledge of ways of feeling previously unknown to me which perhaps only art, and music in particular, can evoke. By enabling me to experience subjective states I would not otherwise experience, music enlarges my understanding of both myself and of human life in general. Words are rather poor at this, and in exploring the inner life music can take over where words fail.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> It isn't the purpose of music to "help you understand" things.


. . . only itself.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

When you have got a piece of music, you are able to understand, what it expresses - or what you think it expresses. But it is hard to put in words. Even the composers are most often unable to do this.


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## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

For me, "getting" a piece means you've reached a point where you can recognize the themes and you can follow the music from beginning to end with a general understanding of how the music develops over time. Oftentimes, the first time I hear a piece, it's hard for me to remember or even recognize the themes - I might like the general sound/texture of the music, but once I can actually anticipate what will happen, I think it brings more pleasure and I can say that I finally "get" a piece.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

For me 'getting' music is experiencing a sense of enjoyment and enrichment when you hear it. If you don't then there is no point in listening to it, unless repeated listening brings appreciation. By the time you get to my age you tend to know what you 'get' and don't 'get'.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> No, that implies that it might be modern or serial, especially the "another language" part.


to me it happens a lot, both with modern and old music. 
With old music maybe you have to struggle with your own prejudices, and at first when one is listening a piece can get the harmony and the melody but it's more difficult to have an impression to the piece as a whole and of its structure. If it's not "another language", maybe it's like experiencing a building starting at the door and seeing rooms one after another, without having at first the possibility to see it from the distance and as a whole.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

norman bates said:


> so it never happened to you that you didn't understand at first a piece and after more listening you are able to like it or understand the musical ideas that at first were hard to decipher as it was another language?


Nope. Of course, I know zilch about composition theory and all that, so I don't bother looking for what the composer is trying to do (and how), but just listen and judge whether I like it or not. I've not had a quantum leap in appreciation after the umpteenth listening for decades now - only when I started exploring classical music and hit a wall with the rite of spring - which took me a few spins to appreciate, but there was no "getting what the composer meant" involved.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I go to Baroque music for quite different things to what I find in Romantic music. OK, both have tunes that I can hum later or sing along with, but other than that getting one is not the same as getting the other and, I suppose, a liking of one does not automatically mean a liking for the other. When we get to less than tonal music and fairly contemporary music I get something different again and only some of what I had "learned" in getting Baroque or Romantic music was of use in helping me to get this newer music. And, OK, I can't usually sing along but I certainly do have the sounds and themes echoing around in my head after listening. Different types of music play different roles in the ecology of my psyche!


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Art Rock said:


> Nope. Of course, I know zilch about composition theory and all that, so I don't bother looking for what the composer is trying to do (and how), but just listen and judge whether I like it or not. I've not had a quantum leap in appreciation after the umpteenth listening for decades now - only when I started exploring classical music and hit a wall with the rite of spring - which took me a few spins to appreciate, but there was no "getting what the composer meant" involved.


Then it's hard to explain. I know that to me it happens a lot, and I've learned to appreciate musicians, compositions or even genres with a lot of listening. Actually many of my very favorite musicians didn't impress me a lot at first. If I had to choose my favorite discography in all music I would go with Andrew Hill. At first it left me unimpressed.
Or in certain cases I didn't even like them. In classical music I could say that for very different composers like Delius or Webern.
I hope one day I will be able to get Mozart, my ultimate monster. But recently I was at a concert and Roman Simovic played the violin sonata K.301 and I really liked it.


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

I think in a lot of cases we owe it to ourselves to do some light exploration of the music we listen to, like the context of the composition and motives of the composers. For me, as a still active musician, that comes easy a lot of the time because I'd say most of my conductors throughout my many experiences have given context behind our rep before and as we rehearse - that really becomes necessary when actually playing the music in front of you, but I'd say listening carries a similar importance. Not even importance as much as we're missing out if we don't at least try to get a full picture.

It really enhances the picture to know that Tchaikovsky wrote his 5th symphony as a kind of triumphant emergence from a creativity block that he perceived in himself, answering the question of 'can I keep making good original work?' with a huge 'yes'... then, to know that a similar question arose in the 6th symphony, backed by a good heap of guilt and anxiety rising from some choices he made in his personal life, and some things totally out of his control. That's important in understanding what makes the 6th so compelling and, well, sad. Because that understanding branches out to new questions, in places that are not so obviously 'sad' as the 4th or as 'triumphant' as the 3rd movement - you can look at the 2nd movement, and wonder, 'hey, maybe this nice waltz is actually an extremely dark and macabre symbol of death, that ironically puts forth an image of ease and happiness.' Such a question might not have crossed your mind if you weren't actually aware of all the death undertones running rampant in that piece, and the complexity behind the undertones - it's not as simple as hopelessness or death. On the contrary, Tchaik wrote to his nephew as he completed the piece and said something along the lines of "I think I shall live a long time." Both due to and despite his death nine or ten days after the 6th's premiere, there's still a lot of questions we can't really answer, and it's safe to leave a lot of the death stuff up to metaphors for hopelessness and fear. Point being, none of this super key stuff is explicitly present in the music itself, but I find that it enhances listening a lot.

I feel very sorry for the person who goes into a listening of 'Symphonie Fantastique' without any program notes - keep in mind how big YouTube exposure is now, especially for the younger generations. We don't buy CDs anymore, and rarely records. We do a YouTube search, or even better, we find what we're looking for on Spotify, Apple Music, Napster. Back to Youtube: Not every video caption provides program notes, though many are generous enough to do so. I think we on this site forget that if we strip the music of all of the context we have - and most of us have a good deal, for the keystone pieces - if we strip context, take away the Berlioz, the heroin trip, the lusting after the actress . . . people are out there discovering this piece just as it is. And there's something to be said for that too, but for me, to understand that that pretty motif in the clarinet represents this woman he's crazy in love with is really important. Because when we hear it in the fourth movement, it's just before a big chord that literally is supposed to represent the guillotine falling and severing Berlioz' head. And the two double bass notes right after are meant to represent no less than the head bouncing down the gallows. I don't really know how to express that I am glad I have these little bits of knowledge, because they add up to what I can describe as even more hair-raising experience. They make the listening that much more compelling, moving, and personal. And scary, in this case. 

We have to start recognizing how the idea of classical 'audience' is always changing with the youngest generations, and that those generations are perhaps the most fragile link in keeping viewership alive and well. Call us the 'Nouveau Audience,' because a lot of learning is taking place in rows of YouTube playlists rather than rows of the Mezzanine, and that makes it important to use that same technology to supplement listening. On the Internet, learning is basically as easy as finding, it just takes the recognition in the potential of learning, and I wish there was an easier way to stress that to people just starting out.. I recognize TC is really the opposite of that target audience, but this is just how I feel on the issue.

That changing audience dynamic is why I find exploration to be one of the important aspects of "getting" music. By no means do I think it's necessary, and to each their own. But that's just my two cents.


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## Guillet81 (Jul 4, 2016)

I suppose that "to get" could be substituted by "to understand"? If so, sure, the idea can make sense: "To get" a work of music is to have something of an intellectual appreciation for what the composer did in order to make the piece what it is, as opposed to simply having liked or disliked it. That said, enjoying listening to the music is still of primary importance.


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## lsorbe (Nov 14, 2016)

For me, being able to sing parts of it back to myself is a pretty good sign that I've at least processed it on a subconscious level. Even for new music or stuff I didn't like on first listen, once I get to this point after a period of listening to it, I know that I've at least accepted it. Good music usually has the power to get better with repeated listening. What is mannered or trite usually doesn't stand up to that kind of scrutiny.

Program notes can go both ways. Sometimes, it's helpful and gives you a guide as to how to think about the piece. Symphony Fantastique is a good example- what you imagine is a lot more vivid when you know he's chasing an opium dream. However, sometimes it's better to just experience it before you read. Sometimes, music (especially new music) uses expansive program notes as a kind of crutch because the piece itself isn't so great.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

If you recognise a composer's "voice" in the piece then the chances are you get their music. If you don't then you probably haven't got beyond some sort of theory about the period it was written in.


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> It isn't the purpose of music to "help you understand" things - i.e. to communicate conceptual, propositional knowledge and concrete facts. It can certainly inspire thought, but it doesn't tell you what to think about. Its purpose is to give pleasure: emotional, physical, and cognitive pleasure. *I've never in my life heard anyone complain about experiencing pleasure!* Would you complain similarly about a good meal, an afternoon at the beach, a dazzling sunset, a game of tennis or chess, or sex?


Anything can give you pleasure though, so there must be some other, more important reason, bigger than my pleasure as to why I choose to listen to music or play chess or whatever. Otherwise... it's just something to pass the time.



> If you're so attached to verbal meanings, consider that much of the function of verbal communication isn't "helping us understand things" either. Much of our talk is a means to the simple end of enjoying the company of others for the emotional satisfaction it affords, and most of us don't judge the success of an afternoon walking and talking with friends solely according to how much new knowledge we take away from it.


Spending time with people is different, people must not be a means to an end. And at any rate, what I meant was that I can't imagine what this understanding could be that can't be communicated, not that all communication has to be deep and meaningful.



> You're right that "a major chord does not translate to any specific idea," although I would replace "specific" with "single and fixed." That's precisely one of the things that makes music wonderful. The significance of any single chord depends on a virtually limitless number of variables, variables present in the music itself and in the circumstances of our hearing it. Music seems to have the capacity to reflect and evoke feelings of the subtlest kind, and feelings are determined by the context of the situation that gives rise to them. Like all manifestations of life, feelings are always moving, always changing. Unlike words, they refuse to be fixed. That's a key to music's power.


Right! But that's also what's so difficult about it - that so much of musical understanding is subjective and there is no way to prove your understanding is right and justify it, other than merely pointing at the music. There's no clear way to justify why a piece makes you feel the way it does or evokes certain images and feelings, other than providing a metaphorical explanation which is like explaining a metaphor through another metaphor.



> Speaking for myself, I've received from music a good deal of knowledge, knowledge of ways of feeling previously unknown to me which perhaps only art, and music in particular, can evoke. By enabling me to experience subjective states I would not otherwise experience, music enlarges my understanding of both myself and of human life in general. Words are rather poor at this, and in exploring the inner life music can take over where words fail.


This makes a lot of sense. Would you say then that music is part of an emotional education of sorts? Like encountering and learning about different points of view and emotional states and, as someone put it earlier, "ways of being"? And further - of a process where you refine your own emotions and delve deeper into them to understand them better? That seems like a very reasonable goal of listening to music.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Boychev said:


> Spending time with people is different, people must not be a means to an end.


I think this is the key. Why can't music - like spending time with other people - be an end in itself?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> I think this is the key. Why can't music - like spending time with other people - be an end in itself?


Absolutely. Actually for most of us music is an end in itself. That end is enjoyment.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Absolutely. Actually for most of us music is an end in itself. That end is enjoyment.


And with any luck, there is no end to that enjoyment.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Boychev said:


> Anything can give you pleasure though, so there must be some other, more important reason, bigger than my pleasure as to why I choose to listen to music or play chess or whatever. Otherwise... it's just something to pass the time.
> 
> Would you say then that music is part of an emotional education of sorts? Like encountering and learning about different points of view and emotional states and, as someone put it earlier, "ways of being"? And further - of a process where you refine your own emotions and delve deeper into them to understand them better? That seems like a very reasonable goal of listening to music.


A friend of mine said that the novels of George Eliot "educate the feelings." I think that's a good description of the arts in general. As others have said, the point of listening to music is pleasure, but it's a particular kind of pleasure which can go beyond pleasing the palate momentarily to imprint the mind and subtly change us. It isn't as if we set out to be changed, though. We want to feel something, to be moved or thrilled, or compelled to sing or dance. Call it a higher hedonism!


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

I think "getting it" is distinct from liking it, as was previously stated, and perhaps can be distinct from understanding it. Getting it is appreciating why the piece is important, why it is still listened to, why so many people won't let it just disappear like most music does. It might be an understanding in a music theory history of music sense, it might be an aesthetic appreciation, its just too beautiful. 

If you cannot "get it", cannot figure out why this and not another has not been lost in time, then perhaps you are justified in suspecting there is "nothing there to get". That may be the case, and anyway you can always change your mind.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ I don't think that is entirely right. It is not how I use the expression, anyway. It is true that getting and liking are not the same thing. There is a lot of music that I know is important and why but still feel that I don't yet "understand". Aside from early (pre-Baroque) music, Messiaen is an example for me: I know he is important and I can hear his influence on others but most of his music hasn't "talked to me" yet even though I have tried quite hard. It doesn't help that of the pieces I do get - Turangalila and the Quartet for the End of Time - I only like one of them (the Quartet) and dislike the other as horribly brash. Neither has proved to be a gateway into his music for me.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I view it this way, in the Arts if we like something when we are first exposed to it, or are intrigued by it enough to keep coming back to it, we gain deeper and deeper appreciation of it. 

I don't like the term "getting it" and much prefer the term and concept of Art Appreciation. I also like the idea of being able to intellectualize about Art and discussing the reasons of why or why you don't like something.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

isorhythm said:


> We use this word a lot: I don't get that piece. At first I didn't get it, but one day it clicked and now I do. You don't like this piece? You must not get it. And so on.
> 
> What does it really mean? Is it understanding, technically, how a piece is put together? Receiving some kind of message from it? Having an emotional response to it? Understanding what the composer intended?
> 
> I'm interested to hear thoughts.


Personally, a mix of things beginning with repeated exposure, then reading about the piece. If I like something I will make an effort to appreciate it at a deeper level. If I don't, my understanding is unlikely to go beyond a cursory acquaintance with it.

Its easier for me as a listener but for someone who makes a living from music its totally different. Its their job to understand music at a deep level within whatever their specialisation is. Its those people who we rely on as listeners to give deeper insights into the music, whether it be from their interpretations of the actual music or writing about it.


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