# How technically do you listen



## Cirpi (Apr 14, 2013)

I have the experience that the more music you've listened to and the more you know about history and theory, the more you try to listen analytically to (new) music. For instance, you will try to determine the intervals in melodies, be consciously alarmed by unexpected harmonies, find the second and third themes in a sonata form movement, name the instruments that you hear.

What are your experiences? Who else sometimes has 'difficulty' listening in an unencumbered, naive way to music, without thinking explicitly about the musical choices the composer made. Is it bothersome or enriching?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I don't know music theory, so I don't actively analyse as someone educated in these matters might, but I do listen attentively to new music and see if I can make sense of a work on my own terms.


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## Joris (Jan 13, 2013)

I do the same with intervals, also triads and their inversions. My guess would be that it's enriching to ask yourself why the composer uses a certain instrument/musical idea, as long as you also ask yourself: does it affect me?


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

Cirpi said:


> What are your experiences? Who else sometimes has 'difficulty' listening in an unencumbered, naive way to music, without thinking explicitly about the musical choices the composer made. Is it bothersome or enriching?


I always have an image of piano's keyboard in my head while listening to music and picture the melody and basic harmony being played. I guess when one has relative/perfect pitch, listening to music (or at least the tonal ones) without subconsciously analyzing it is like trying to listen to a language one knows without understanding it - extremely difficult.

Personally I find it enriching. Analyzing the means through which the music creates certain effects doesn't take away from experiencing the effects themselves. I think it'd actually be very difficult to listen to music in a completely naive way, because awareness of form (even if it's just identifying the A-B-A or verse/chorus of a structure) is an important part of musical enjoyment.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

I've unaccountably become old and stodgy and jaded. So when I hear music (esp. on the radio) that I haven't selected myself and may or may not be new to me, I find myself being amazingly critical of certain types of composing. For instance dreary Baroque slow movements, second-tier Romantic compositions where composers do second rate things for effect (repeating phrases verbatim thinking it adds drama to a passage, purposeless modulations, aimless solo noodling), mawkishness, unintentionally funny passages (performances of Finlandia whose opening section sounds like the soundtrack to a horror movie), interpretive effects that have nothing to do with what the composer expected. A lot of this is apprehended subconsciously, while I'm involved in driving, or reading, or making dinner. But my analytical faculties never seem to turn off.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I can read music, but that's about it. I never really got into theory besides the very basics. Sometimes I think I should know more about it, but most of the time I'm perfectly fine the way it is. 
I do know that when I practice a piano piece, I often discover things about the music that I couldn't have noticed from listening only. Perhaps it's kind of silly of me that I sometimes study fairly advanced piano pieces, while I don't even remember some of the basics of theory. 
I think most of all I want to make sense of it all just by ear, without getting analytical. Being too analytical would take the fun out of it for me.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

The analytical listening adds something, but the emotional listening is more important. I have the idea that some of those who dismiss rock and jazz music don't like those genres exactly because they as listeners are too much concerned about form, without realizing that there's the important aspect of the physical energy and instinct, both things that are dismissed as something with no value. It's like to deny that we have a body too.
Well, they could accept chaos but only if it's presented as something very abstract (john cage?)


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

I've studied music in depth. 
However whenever I am listening for pleasure. I just listen. I might pick up on the basic structure, leitmotifs etc. if they jump out on me. But really I am listening for the emotional impact of the work.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I read music fairly fluently and know most basic music theory (ie. I've read most of the books and took some extra "music" credits when I was at University), but it never let it get in the way of enjoyment, for me knowledge are tools that I can bring out at will, I'm fx. much more analytical listening with a score in front of me. That said, I'm sure that subconsciously there's always some part of my brain that are judging everything I listen to, but I think (rationalize) that I did the same thing before my musical enlightenment! 

/ptr


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Yeh basic structure, melody or motifs, development or contrast of ideas. Basic things like that are enough for me rather than the small technical details. Then you can get the feel of a piece within what the style is. Most important is that you have a rudimentary grasp of the style so you can compare it to other pieces.


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## Guest (Apr 27, 2013)

Listen with head or heart? I do both, from a position of relative ignorance of the technical, but as much experience of the emotional as the next person. I can listen to, say, _La Cathedrale Engloutie_ with emotional ears and with technical ears - but not usually at the same time (you'll have some idea how tricky it is wearing four ears I'm sure).


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> Listen with head or heart? I do both, from a position of relative ignorance of the technical, but as much experience of the emotional as the next person. I can listen to, say, _La Cathedrale Engloutie_ with emotional ears and with technical ears - but not usually at the same time (you'll have some idea how tricky it is wearing four ears I'm sure).


If I may interject at this point. Why do people who wear spectacles get called '4 eyes'
But people with hearing aids don't get called '4 ears'

Ok, as you were!


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

I suppose people can't see hearing aids. But anyway many insults are about focussing on an aspect of somebody and using it to try and belittle them, rather stupidly. Anyway I suppose it's an advantage if you apparently have 4 eyes and is probably something to brag about as you would have better vision.

Anyway back on topic, emotion alone isn't enough for me to judge/enjoy music, the means to getting to that emotion are the main point. Because without that a piece wouldn't have an emotional impact, or certainly not one that has the strength to last repeated listenings.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

I engage with music much as I do a written text; I attempt to follow the narrative or argument. In process of doing so I inevitably anticipate the next musical phrase or utterance - so naturally I am constantly surprised. Do relate my surprises to unexpected modulations or resolutions in musicological terms? Not always, but sometimes...


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

I listen for structural cues. It helps me anticipate the ambitiousness of a work, especially if it's in some variant of sonata form. I love interesting complications, dissolving consequents, attenuated cadences, etc. A particular work, especially in the late 18th century--which has been my chosen period lately--is largely defined by its conformance to, or deviation from standard structural norms. It's a difficult listening style to break, and I often find that it keeps me from appreciating the pure beauty of the work in question. But that's just me.

Later period works, by and large, have increasingly unique structures that often cannot be anticipated. In those cases, my analyzing is lessened--relatively, anyway.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MS first criterion is if the piece has a sheer sensate visceral effect upon me. If it does not, i.e. if I am only engaged 'intellectually,' it is not of much interest to me -- I value 'only intellectual' music at '0.'

Since I've been 'in it' and done a very full study since early childhood, I cannot help but listen critically as well.

Works which are more 'sensate pretty' than anything else also leave me cold. I require both the visceral effect plus what I'd call 'musical intelligence.'

The range of music which 'meets my criteria', is not just classical, not just western, and is from as long ago as from 1000 years ago to the present day, is both vast and abundant.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

When musical knowledge becomes ingrained, you don't have to "analyze" a whole tone scale in Debussy; you just hear it and know what it is. Similarly, when you see the color "green" you don't have to think about it. Perfect knowledge becomes instant and intuitive.
So, the person asking the thread question still experiences the cerebral as somehow separated from listening with the ears.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> When musical knowledge becomes ingrained, you don't have to "analyze" a whole tone scale in Debussy; you just hear it and know what it is. Similarly, when you see the color "green" you don't have to think about it. Perfect knowledge becomes instant and intuitive.
> So, the person asking the thread question still experiences the cerebral as somehow separated from listening with the ears.


More economic than what I'd thought to say but didn't. After a lot of concentrated attention (formal study or other) all the 'technical' does become operative on a near intuitive level (that is / should be,_ the goal_) and that is of which you speak.

I cannot recall the last time I thought consciously about 'an interval' - other than when I was immersed in ear-training


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