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How to listen...

JTC

PFM Villager...
Without getting all nerdy about it, have any of you ever spent any time thinking about the best way to approach listening to music? Maybe this sounds a little bit like 'musical appreciation' at school but nonetheless I think it's worth giving some thought to.

Maybe we all listen in different ways, I'm intrigued by what parts of the music that you 'zoom in' on, or perhaps you try to swallow the musical 'whole' without concentrating on any individual musical themes and let it wash over you?

For my own part, I always seem to pick up on the bass and drums first, and the texture and timbre of the instruments secondly. It's odd, but on vocal music I rarely pay attention to what the words are saying, mostly prefering to perceive them kind of like another kind of instrument. In sonic terms, I like the contrast between music and space, and always seem to take more readily to songs which show a little 'light' between the sound. I also seem to gravitate toward music which is formed around less normal chords, but still find difficulty with atonal or free tonal music, as I don't think my 'pitch' is sophisticated enough to reconstruct weird chord sequences and modal 'out there' excursions into something resembling an enjoyable ditty.

Maybe I'm odd. However, I would be interested to hear how others listen - and anyone's thoughts on whether spending effort into developing one's listening abilities should be a conscious or subconscious thing (i.e. should be try to train ourselves to be better listeners and how should we go about it, or should we try to develop our listening abilities by a sort of osmotic effect, by just exposing ourselves to more and more music?).

Apologies for philosophical muso navel gazing, it is, after all, Thursday.

jtc
 
I don't really listen to words either. Self conscious story telling is a distraction. Lyrics are there to give the song extra instrumental texture and generate convey a certain emotional atmosphere. Real clangers can still shatter the mood of a song, but you can get away with all sorts of rubbish if you can just convey a certain sort of feeling.

To echo something Roger Ebert said about films, don't look to music for ideas. The place for ideas is in a book. Music is about emotions.

Something I think Nick Hornby pointed out in 31 Songs is that words have a very fixed meaning, whilst music is somehow swirling and nebulous. It sounds a little different every time you listen.

I've never cottoned on to hiphop, or music with rigid looped beats. It's like being given the same lecture over and over again.
 
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is this a serious question?
As serious as you want it to be. Fact is, I reckon we might be able to get a lot more from music by approaching it in the right way. A suspicion, a hunch if you like, but it does seem to be a pretty crucial step in the musical appreciation process.

Take the piss if you like, I don't mind, but it'd be daft not to at least look at how we listen to see if we're doing it right. Open mindedness is a useful skill, Mr or Mrs Batter...

jtc
 
I agree with Kit Taylor and JTC about the unimportance of text (I detest the word 'lyrics' here) in music. Listening to the words just distracts me from what's happening in the music.

When I was a teenager here in Sweden in the 1970:s the comunists controlled the pop radio (we had only government controlled radio and TV in those days, so ther was no option). All day long they preached that it was important that pop was sung in Swedish, that it had a (political) message and that ABBA was bad (because they where succesful). Doesn't exactly help with my dissinterest in music's text.

JohanR
 
Fact is, I reckon we might be able to get a lot more from music by approaching it in the right way.

Fair point, I think. I remember being told that "if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got", so the idea of attempting to listen to things in a 'different' way doesn't seem such a stupid idea to me.

I'm not saying I think how I listen to music now(or indeed how I do anything else for that matter) is wrong, not being a believer in the idea of rights and wrongs when it comes to such a subjective experience as listening to music, but I am willing to try new things to see what they offer.

How many of us here, for example, have changed a component/cable in an attempt to diffuse an overbright/bass-light system and been astounded to hear details of the music being replayed that we've never heard before, and how many of these musical revelations could be due to us now paying attention to a particular (previously irritating)frequency in order to ascertain whether the change we've made was worthwhile? Could some of these revelations simply be caused by us paying more attention to the actual music than we were before, rather than the cable/component change itself?
 
Actually, I can relate to what you say about vocals, generally speaking, they've never been that important to me. Although there are definitely lyrics that I find very affecting- Knocking on heavens door- Dylan, One-U2, Happy when it rains-JAMC, Kelly watch the stars-Air, Two little boys- Rolf, overall, what matters to me is the way something is sung, rather than what. It's the same thing with playing an instrument.
With a lot of stuff I can't understand the words anyway, but this never detracts from my enjoyment and I've always enjoyed instrumental music. So, yeah, vocals to me are just part of whats going on, part of the whole, and let's face it, most lyricists ain't very good!
 
For me it depends on the music - trying to ignore the words in a Johnny Cash or Woody Guthrie or Billy Bragg songwould be difficult.
 
Lyrics do matter and you can't pretend to ignore them. They're not the most important thing, but if they're bad enough they can wreck a good song.

Examples:

Much mainstream Hip-hop. No matter how good the groove, misogynist, homophobic, self-important lyrics makes large swaths of this unlistenable.

Similarly with some emo rock; too much self-pity and self-indulgence has ruined many a good song; and some bands.

Some of Dylan's 70's stuff is actually o.k. musically, but who want's to listen to the preachy I-know-better-than-you Jesus crap?

Springsteen's Born in the USA makes me want to puke -- not because of the song itself, but because of the Nationalistic lyrics.

Lynrd Skynrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" is a flatly racist song and unlistenable because of it ("In Birmingham they love the Govnuh. Now we all did what we could do." and so forth -- the Birmingham reference is to the failed attempt to keep blacks out of universities in Alabama.)

Converesly, great lyrics can make a good album great.

Examples:
Gang-of-Four's Entertainment is the great album it is in part, at least, because of terrific lyrics. ("See the model on TV in a bikini. She doesn't think so but she's dressed for the H-bomb." etc.)

The Soft Boys Underwater Moonlight is the great album it is thanks in part to its quirky, funny lyrics.

Zappa's albums are heavily lyric-dependent. So too lots of punk -- too many examples to list, but let's just say I doubt anyone who like "Plastic Surgery Disasters", e.g., ignores the lyrics.

I wish I could ignore the lyrics with a lot of music, but I find it impossible. Don't see how anyone can, really.

Eric
 
Lyrics are about context, too. How does someone who doesn't speak English approach Bob Dylan? I doubt John Lennon's French language skills were anything to write home about, but he was well into George Brassens, who was very partial word games.
There seem to be people who want to sit back and be enveloped by the music, and those who want to get closer, deeper into it. Neither is right or wrong, but they are quite different approaches. Much like the "you are there" vs "they are here" argument in hifi.
 
Words and music are processed by different parts of the brain; words by the left side of the brain, music by the right side, so it's not surprising that some people focus on the music, whilst others focus on the words. I'm mostly word-focused, and find listening to classical or jazz music a tad frustrating as I'm always waiting for the lyrics to kick in .. but they don't.
 
Originally posted by Joe Hutch
Words and music are processed by different parts of the brain; words by the left side of the brain, music by the right side, so it's not surprising that some people focus on the music, whilst others focus on the words.
I believe recent research has shown this L/R divide to be somewhat fallacious. Apparently various parts of the brain are used for linguistic / cognitive tasks. It's even more complex up there than previously thought, by all accounts.
They've probably returned to L/R/Hippocampus by now...
 
Originally posted by Eric L
Springsteen's Born in the USA makes me want to puke -- not because of the song itself, but because of the Nationalistic lyrics.

Eric

Eric,

my hearing of Born in the USA is that it's about a grunt that came home from Vietnam and can't readjust to society. Unfortunately the music is so bombastic that it is often interpreted as a nationalistic anthem and has been used by various US politicians in this way. An interesting example of the music giving a different message to the words with the musical message being the one that's taken on board.
 
Duncan - yes ISTR Bruce S saying the intent of this song was lost when released in the 80's. Its interesting to compare the version released on the album of the same name with versions recorded later - markedly different musical presentation which perhaps better conveys his original intent with this song. Definately a good example of the music framing/defining the text.

I've never been much of a lyrics person, however have been listening to the words a bit more of late. This change in my concious approach to listening has enabled me to appreciate some pieces in a different (neither better nor worse) way to previously.

This leads me to conclude that there is no right or wrong way to listen to music - but there is more than one way. Changing your approach to listening may allow you to appreciate different aspects of the music that you may not have otherwise noticed.

Stuart.
 
Originally posted by Kit Taylor
I've never cottoned on to hiphop, or music with rigid looped beats. It's like being given the same lecture over and over again.

Hmm - I know what you mean, although with more "intelligent" dance music like some of the psy-trance stuff, I love the way tracks build and crash, even if they're repetitive (less so than normal chart dance cr** though).

I go straight for the bass and drums too, though if I can't understand lyrics it really winds me up, as I can't ignore what someone's singing (I'm a born talker/communicator, so I can't stop doing that!). Then, I focus on the general feel - the darker and creepier the better, especially with psy-trance. Some of the lyrics Kate Bush or Tori Amos comes out with are well worth hearing though, just for the weirdness; ditto something like Floyd's Arnold Lane (sp?)
 
Originally posted by Fanny Batter
Although there are definitely lyrics that I find very affecting............ Two little boys- Rolf,

I suspect that you have just made my girlfriends day by mentioning Mr Harris on Pink.
The lyrics certainly affect me, especially when my girlfriend sings along.

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