A Breakdown on What I Suggest for Better Listening…for Learning
Get more from your listening by listening longer to each example (Kind of less is more thinking).
My Ultimate Challenge to others is to listen to one piece of music for 6 hours—not in the background, not while you do other tasks, but focused listening. I would never ask you to do something that I haven't tried myself. The opportunity arose and I took it. This experience allowed me to be in the music, not outside of it.
My analogy is if you're doing physical exercise, say like running, and you get to the point where you feel you can't go another step and then BOOM! A second level of energy emerges and you're off on your way once again. This is what happened. After that experience I didn't have to listen to six hours to get into that space where I was in the music. I could get to that space much quicker, more clearly. AND that carried over into listening when playing. I was able to much more effectively be IN the music. Maybe it won't take you six hours to achieve it. You have to try to see… or hear.
You can use the following questions to guide your listening. Apply them to whatever you're working on — a recording you admire, a style you're trying to understand, or a piece that's been sitting in your collection waiting for a deeper listen.
1. What's the flow?
What's the subdivision of the quarter note? What is the main subdivision?
Eighths? Triplets? Sixteenths? Quintuplets? Sixteenth-note triplets?
2. What is the time signature?
Does it stay constant in that meter, or are there measures of different lengths within the piece? What's the subdivision of those time signatures? Are they divided into groups of twos and threes? How so?
For example, if the time is 5/4, is it being divided "one-two, one-two-three" or "one-two-three, one-two"? Are there any metric modulations? Are there different meters?
3. What is the tempo?
Can it be quantified by a metronome?
4. Where do you feel the music?
In your head... your chest... your feet... your heart?
5. How does it make you feel?
Sad? Anxious? Impressed? Bored? Fearful? Relaxed? Enlightened?
These are five of the ten listening questions I use to go deeper into any piece of music.
In the full May newsletter, I share the complete list of ten questions — plus specific listening examples with artist recommendations showing exactly how to apply them, including an odd-time piece, a metric modulation example, and a classical work that will challenge everything you think you know about pulse.