Listen Closely

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As a musician, I wonder if I’m supposed to have a clearer, more intimate understanding of what it means to listen. Depending on how and where you grew up, your life experiences, your occupation, your relationships, and so on… listening can mean so many different things to a person.  There is the added complication of what it means to listen with intention and purpose - to listen closely.

When I was growing up and learning the cello, I played in youth orchestras and chamber music programs.  Our teachers and conductors were constantly asking us to listen to each other.  In other words, it wasn’t enough for each person to simply perform their individual part according to the sheet music.  For a musical group to play well together, each musician needs to play their specific part while listening carefully and being aware of how that part interacts with what others are playing.  Musicians respond and react to each other - the same as actors, the same as dancers.

To hear more than one musical part overlapping with a separate and distinct part is a skill, and to hear more than two parts simultaneously is an advancement of that skill. As a musician, you’ll constantly be practicing this skill without ever perfecting it.  The same demand is asked of a 9 year old learning to play classical music as a 25 year old learning pop music production in graduate school.  Can you hear multiple parts at the same time?

If you’ve ever seen a musical score, think about hearing - really hearing - each of those parts being played at the same time.  This is a little like staring at a forest and being able to see each and every individual tree at the same time. Everything at once, and everything individually at once.

When I was 13 years old, I remember feeling bewildered, surprised, and then exhilarated when I picked out a bass line in a pop song for the first time.  Yes, the bass line had always been there, like one tree in a stand of trees. But to hear each bass note being played in succession and to hear those bass notes within the organized chaos of the remaining instruments was something new. It was spectacular.

Until that moment, I’m not sure I was ever really hearing multiple parts at the same time.  It was like staring at one of those magic eye posters and suddenly seeing the 3D image.  My music listening experience had changed forever.  The excitement was addictive and caused me to pay attention at a deeper level.  I felt closer to the music and closer to the intentions of the music makers.  I think we call this feeling music appreciation.

As a music maker myself, naturally I want as many people as possible to have such an enjoyable and satisfying music listening experience. I’m interested in what non-musicians hear when they listen casually rather than with purpose and intention. Intentional listening - that is, mindful listening - means doing one thing: the single, focused task of listening to the music. And these days, people rarely do anything with that kind of single, focused attention, let alone music listening.

So while “listening” can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, I think the act of listening closely really narrows down the meaning.  To listen closely means to pay attention.  And to pay attention is to devote oneself.  Mary Oliver, a poet and human famous for paying attention, once wrote “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

In a world that is increasingly distracted, where we are constantly being frenzied and ungrounded by our technologies, social media, and the news - we need to pay attention more.  And one way to practice paying attention is to listen closely.

Recommended reading:

  • Deep Work by Cal Newport

  • Tune In by Richard Wolf

  • Devotions and Upstream by Mary Oliver

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