What does listening to music mean? There are many ways one can listen to music and everyone has their own way. Some listen just to enjoy the melodies and sounds music presents to them, while others consider the specific rhythms and patterns it is constructed with and analyze them to deem the piece good or bad. There is no right way to listen to music, nor is one superior of the other. People have different minds that work in different ways, so therefore everyone should listen in a way that feels right to them. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Aaron Copland, elaborates on three different “planes” people listen to music in his essay How We Listen. Copland starts off wonderfully with a paragraph that gave me chills as I read it:
“You may be …show more content…
The average person, as Copland comments, is likely to note on the melody of a song they hear and decide whether they like the sound of it or not. They might also go further to talk about the rhythm if it is exciting enough to catch their attention. But to adequately look at these things, a person needs to know the basics of music theory and how everything comes together logically. This is where I agree with Copland’s statements completely because this is the only plane of listening of the three he talks about that actually requires a musical background. He observes that “The intelligent listener” must become more conscious of the melodies, rhythms, and harmonies in a piece of music. I will comment here that he is still implying that people who do not know many things about music are unintelligent listeners, which in many cases is untrue. I have a friend who knows next to nothing about the inner workings of music, but is one of the most intelligent people I know and can still analyze and critique music to some degree of
“You may be …show more content…
The average person, as Copland comments, is likely to note on the melody of a song they hear and decide whether they like the sound of it or not. They might also go further to talk about the rhythm if it is exciting enough to catch their attention. But to adequately look at these things, a person needs to know the basics of music theory and how everything comes together logically. This is where I agree with Copland’s statements completely because this is the only plane of listening of the three he talks about that actually requires a musical background. He observes that “The intelligent listener” must become more conscious of the melodies, rhythms, and harmonies in a piece of music. I will comment here that he is still implying that people who do not know many things about music are unintelligent listeners, which in many cases is untrue. I have a friend who knows next to nothing about the inner workings of music, but is one of the most intelligent people I know and can still analyze and critique music to some degree of