LISTENING TO MUSIC

Seems quite a straightforward thing to do. However, it's an interesting phenomenon.
It's quite difficult to list each and every way there is to listen to a piece of music, or to a sound etc.

However, let's give a few example.

 

 

THREE WAYS TO LISTEN 1. "It's a guitar" or "it's the noise of the sea" In this case, one describes the origin of the sound. (causal listening / écoute causale) 2. "It makes me sad" or "it makes me feel like I want to dance" In this case, one describes what this sound evokes (semantic listening / écoute sémantique) 3. "It's an upwards scale" or "it's grainy" In this case, one describes the actual morphology of the sound (reduced listening / écoute réduite)

 

REDUCED LISTENING The last category, reduced listening, is probably the more difficult to deal with. Many sub categories can exist within this one, whether it addresses a particular sound within the music piece, or the whole piece. For instance, in relation to those stereo image criteria : - the stereo image is transparent - this particular sound in on the right - the room acoustics is some kind of a large hall with a lot of predelay etc etc etc Other example in relation to groove issues : - the snare is on the afterbeat - the crash cymbal is on the last 16th note before the first beat of the next bar - the kick's got an echo on it, length 16th note, that enhances the "mechanical" aspect of the groove (this last aspect being probably part of semantic listening as well)

 

REDUCED LISTENING : COMPARISON WITH VISION This reduced listening is some kind of "specialized" listening. It may seem to most people that it's a way to listen which is reserved to specialists. This is not true. Let's make a comparison with paintings. When one looks at a painting, one has no trouble switching to "reduced looking" without effort : - this pattern is blue/red etc. - the perspective goes very far back - the grain is very fine etc etc This is quite natural : man is a visual animal. With a bit of training though, it's quite easy to switch to reduced listening, and quite useful : imagine looking at a picture without knowing what's red and what's blue... wouldn't be much fun   Back to main index