Probably the most important pillar when it comes to understanding, practicing and enjoying musical works and songs is listening. I am referring to hearing itself, to what happens in our heads when a group of sounds enters our ears, when a musical composition enters our brain.
Music is listening
When we think about music, many elements come to mind: instruments, singing, playing, sound, … but there is one essential that is present in all the others and is essential for music to be: listening. Not even the sound itself is more important than listening. I can hear music in my head without a single sound being produced, for example. In a certain sense, listening comes before musical sounds. Listening is what can turn any sound into music. Why, for example, is the best band or orchestra in the world playing for a single person who is thinking about something else, actually producing music? For that person, certainly not. Listening is activating certain capacities in our brain and also in our body. Listening, which we completely relate to hearing, is actually an integral experience that human beings experience. Of course, the main organ is the ear, but the range of sound frequencies affects and can also be felt with other parts of our body. Think about percussion, instruments like the double bass, or the sub-bass sounds of many modern musical styles. Not to mention the physical activity that music can and does cause in our bodies when listening to it. This is not something we can simply ignore.
The hearing
In any case, and focusing on the ear as a specialist in this field of hearing, our specialist, listening is or should be something active. Listening in general, of course, but listening to music and songs, in particular, cannot simply consist of acting like a plant or a wall, of remaining passive and practically unchanged when the music happens around us. Whether we refer to listening to different musical styles, or different performers, without any need to consider ourselves music lovers, or if we think about recognizing the elements that make up music and songs, listening is or should be the basis, not only of enjoyment of music, but also of its study. Listening is how we will give meaning to those works that often do not have meaning or can have many different readings. By listening we will find the answers to the unknowns that a melody or the lyrics of a song may contain. By listening, in short, we will complete that act of communication that is music and songs.
Listening as self-learning
And not only that. Art, and music specifically, is an extraordinary terrain for knowing ourselves. Yes, you heard right. We can come to consider it a therapy, an investigation into ourselves, a stone thrown into our inner well. The music we like or the perception we have individually of songs or musical works will say almost more about ourselves than about the music itself. These choices will speak clearly about who we are, what matters to us and what doesn't, what distinguishes us and makes us similar to others.
Sing
To sing, for example, in addition to not having any related pathology, you only need one essential requirement. Yes, you guessed it: listen. How are we going to know what we are singing and in what way if we do not listen carefully, if we do not relate the sounds that our voice produces with our physical sensations, with our body, which is, after all, the instrument that makes them possible? Listening is the way to sing better and, most importantly, recognize ourselves in our singing.
touch and listen
And what about playing an instrument? Well the same. You have to listen. Playing or singing with others and other music is something very very special. The type of communication that music and songs allow is something unique, it does not usually have as many conditions as verbal discourse, with its ideas, its assumptions and its interests. But to play alone or with other people, yes, you have to listen. The more attention, the more information and the more possibilities of playing interesting things, coherent with the sound set in question, and the more possibilities of playing better.
Listen and create
But, having reached this point, we already realize the power we are accumulating, the possibilities that are presented to us to use that knowledge, those sensations and that criterion for our own objectives. The creative moment gradually becomes something lush, with a lot to choose from, with a true abundance of resources at our disposal. The consequences of active listening in our heads are incredible. You can not only recognize and understand many musical details but, when composing, for example, the brain becomes a true orchestra, a fountain of ideas, a flow that is sometimes even difficult to channel. At any time, anywhere we can be plotting music, songs, developing ideas with nothing more than our mental resources, than the inventory of accumulated listens, that kind of Persian market where you can find practically anything, any sound or combination whether familiar. or surprising. If you talk to someone with a certain musical culture, who has listened carefully for a while, it will not be strange to hear them say expressions such as creative trance, obsession, automatism, flow and others similar. These are usually descriptions of the very intense activity that usually occurs in the heads of those people who have accumulated enough musical references and sound experiences in their minds. Without a musical instrument, without a score or other means or supports, music can be created and is effectively created with just that cerebral pantry, in what sometimes seems like an act of pure magic.
Ear education
But it's not magic. Neither white, nor black, nor red. It is attention and practice. From an academic point of view, everything related to learning to listen better, to recognize sounds and musical structures just by hearing them are usually brought together in subjects called ear education, auditory development or similar. In them, an attempt is made to establish the perception of rhythm, intervals, chords and so on through more or less guided musical listening, dictations and other exercises aimed at acquiring a relatively good ear. Relative hearing, as opposed to the absolute hearing that some people have or acquire at an early age, consists of, from a given note, for example, being able to recognize the rest of the harmonic components of musical pieces. This is a very useful and valuable issue for anyone interested in music beyond the hobby of listening to songs or dancing to them, for example.
Conclusions
Listening is the way, in many ways. It is a path that can take us to many extraordinary places. It is a path that rewards us just by walking it and that is as long and lush as we want it to be. Listening is the door to understanding in all its forms. In conversations, in speeches, in learning, in empathy and it is also the source of our expression, of our ability to communicate from the wild and chaotic interior of the gut, the blood and the heart with other humans and the more or less civilized world. And, musically, listening is everything: it is the beginning, the path and the end. There is no moment, not even in silence, when we can allow ourselves not to listen, to sleep awake, to close our ears or to get lost in our thoughts. Every second musical not heard is a second musical lost forever, an opportunity to feel, enjoy and learn that will never return. I don't want to be too emphatic, nor heavy, nor exaggerated, but it is difficult to be discreet and restrained on such an essential and valuable topic. Listening, singing or whistling a melody relaxed is as important as eating, resting or breathing. If we want to live a full human life, if we value this time we have been given for what it is, something extraordinary, something that not every living being has the opportunity to experience. If we also want music to be an important part of our lives, then there is no other option than to activate our hearing as much as possible. We have to take care of it, pay attention and reflection to what we perceive from it, guide it to what is essential and valuable and protect it from noise, falsehood, confusion. What we give will return to us as a multiplied reward, as a sunken and rescued treasure, as a handful of seeds ready to germinate into more and better music. I don't get involved anymore. To listen or not to listen, that is the question. #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_column_with_background { padding: 10px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_column:not(:first-child) { margin-left: 20px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_paragraph { line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_segment_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_text_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_textarea_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_select_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_radio_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_checkbox_label, 3 .mailpoet_list_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_label { display: block; font-weight: normal; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_text, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_textarea, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_select, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_month, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_day, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_year, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date { display :block; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_text, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_textarea { width: 200px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_checkbox { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_submit { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_divider { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_message { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_loading { width: 30px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_loading > span { width: 5px; height: 5px; background-color: #5b5b5b; }#mailpoet_form_3{border: 1px solid #fcb900;border-radius: 40px;text-align: center;}#mailpoet_form_3 form.mailpoet_form {padding: 20px;}#mailpoet_form_3{width: 70%;}#mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_message {margin : 0; padding: 0 20px;}#mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_paragraph.last {margin-bottom: 0} @media (max-width: 500px) {#mailpoet_form_3 {background-image: none;}} @media (min-width: 500px) { #mailpoet_form_3 .last .mailpoet_paragraph:last-child {margin-bottom: 0}} @media (max-width: 500px) {#mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_column:last-child .mailpoet_paragraph:last-child {margin-bottom: 0}} Please leave this field emptyDo you write songs or would you like to?
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