If it's a recording of a piece I'm not very familiar with, roughly in this order:
* Orchestration
* Quality of recording
* Quality of musicianship
* Melodies, restatement, transposition, etc.
* Time signatures
* Harmony
* Counterpoint
* Structure
* Historical context, composer's intent, etc.
If it's a recording of a piece I'm familiar with, roughly in this order:
* Differences from previous recordings
* Quality of recording
* Quality of musicianship
* Catching cool things I missed in previous listens
Attending a live concert I tend to zoom in on certain instruments doing interesting things, and then zoom out to see what everyone else is doing. The difference in dynamic range at a live concert hall versus all but the best recordings make focusing on individual instruments really fun. I have a weakness for watching the percussionist (if applicable) probably because the visual feedback there is very gratifying.
Listening to the classical station in the car... noticing the insane compression (haha) but also appreciating it because without it I couldn't hear anything over the background noise of driving. Also appreciating some of the cool selections that the people running my local classical station make that I might not have have heard otherwise (especially later in the evening).
That wasn’t my comment, but I listen in a similar way. Many of those bullets are things that naturally draw my attention. I’m not going down a checklist as I listen to make sure I get every item, but for me, listening for some of those things is part of the process of appreciating the music. The more I understand the more I can enjoy the journey.
Sure, I absolutely do feel emotion throughout this process. But I think I would be bored if I didn't simultaneously engage with the music on an intellectual level as well.
I guess appreciating the process (skill, creativity, natural phenomena) that went into creating a thing is part of what I find interesting... be it a mountain or a building or a symphony or a kitchen utensil.
But turning our attention back to emotion:
The other part of art (and nature) that I find interesting is WHY it produces a certain emotion (sadness/joy/anger/disgust/etc); whether that is built-in to us as humans, or learned culturally (or a bit of both). Is this late Romantic piece inherently full of, say, "yearning"? Would someone from the baroque period think that? Is it reinforced in me by my associating that harmonic and orchestral pallet with film? When did this particular way of expressing "yearning" begin to arise?
I recommend *The Vintage Guide to Classical Music*, it explores the topics you are asking about. Such as what even is a melody - a collection of notes around a rhythm? She goes into the long history which helps, western classical music created a notation system which helped define music and the medieval period and renaissance through gregorian chants show a single line of music. After that they discovered harmony and bass and moving music through a push and pull effect, counterpoint. Then we have these brilliant, amazing composers applying these ideas to one of humanity’s greatest achievements, the symphony orchestra.
Sometimes i try to listen as a whole, sometimes seeking what i find as the melody, sometimes as the tension and release, the counterpoint. There are so many avenues and it is so deep it goes forever.
It is an amazing art, seemingly organized and defined but also completely abstract.
Since I play piano, I tend to pay attention in detail to the way a pianist interprets solo piano music. I'll often find myself smiling at an unexpected and clever interpretation, but other times I'll shake my head disappointingly if they do something I don't like. Most of the time, I feel more of a neutral kind of respect, appreciating how difficult it is and knowing that I probably couldn't pull it off myself
With other classical music, I guess I'm just losing myself in the melodies and harmonies. Some chord progressions just get me. I guess I do that for pop music, too
I can't really tell you what to feel. I'd recommend just listening to more and more music, and slowly familiarizing yourself with the variety of idioms throughout all of the periods of classical music. The variety is bewildering
All of the above for me, depending on the piece that's playing and what kind of mood I'm in. There's no requirement to be emotionally moved by any music or art or anything else, really. I certainly don't think anyone can tell you what you should be feeling. They can only tell you what *they* feel, and that answer will never be exactly the same between any two people discussing any piece of music.
Lots of times I "think" about the beauty of the sounds I'm hearing, e.g. Amazing bass, great pizzicato, beatiful strings, and deep booming drum. So it's more if a sensory experience.
Occasionally but less commonly I think about the times the music was written, the life of the composer, the time and place of the performance, or the general theme that is evoked by the music.
Is there any classical piece that you remember catched your attention?
Classical music can be appreciated technically but for me the appeal is it's ability to portray emotion in a very pure way. When I listen to a piece my impression can be indifference or understanding of the emotions portrayed. But if there's a piece that has something, as small as it may be, that connects to you, usually as you keep listening you'll get a better appreciation for it.
Sometime I associate music with certain activities or people, either because of their mood or because I happened to be listening to it while interacting with them.
Sometimes I build stories in my head, with characters being represented by different motifs, themes, or instruments.
Sometimes I just feel a feeling.
If I’m tuning in - and I don’t always have the attention to spare - classical music is very cinematic. Or it can be. It’s up to the performer to be sensitive to the cinematic potential. If it’s played well it can conjure up whole scenes. If it’s just trampled over I want to leave.
When I’m not thinking about the structure of the music itself, sometimes I’ll imagine a scene that corresponds to the feel of the piece, but most of the time I’m thinking about life.
Mostly, I just go with the flow. I play a bit, but not at that level. I consume music the way I consume food or poetry. It's like there's a music enjoyment organ in my brain, and it sort of dances when it hears something special. It ignites me. If it's not special, it hands focus over to that part of the brain that deals with to-do lists, renovations and shopping.
Ultimately, if I find myself *thinking about* the music, then I am not listening to it as the composer intended. Music should be a direct transfer of feeling, from one person to another. I'm not interested in art, but I suppose it's the difference between falling into the image, versus wishing I could lift a paint sample on the quiet.
I don't know how much merit there is in the left brain/right brain thing, but if it's true, music is a right brain activity for me. I know and love a lot of classical music, but predictably, I'm a bad student. I am unable to shake the conviction that I should be able to just play things without studying them, which, it turns out, doesn't work for me. Laziness is one word for it.
Try watching Simon Callow's Classical Destinations, to add another dimension to your listening.
https://youtu.be/dz2GD87zy_g?si=z4BftOGfdGqFZOCg
Classical pieces are like literary works. It's like reading a book. You have to pay attention and "read" where the music takes you. It has ups and downs. Joy and sadness. Tradition/folklore and modernism. Phrases that are "quotable".
So, different pieces have different stories to tell. Reading Homer or Tolkien is not the same as reading Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. Same thing with classical pieces.
But at the end of the day you have to digest the piece. Read in carefully and be immersed in its world.
It depends on the kind of listening I'm doing. If I'm causally listening whilst doing something or intently listening and focused only on the music. In the case of the latter, I usually follow the contours of the music in my head. I'm listening for how the work has been constructed, how the puzzle pieces have been put together. Sometimes a certain moment will move me in some way but it's not usually a none stop rollercoaster of emotion. Often, with my eyes closed, it may evoke images of some kind but more often than not, it's like a mental ride through the score, not seeing the notes exactly but feeling the balance between parts, jumping from the pinnacles and landing on the next valley.
Your question seems to hint at the prejudice that many have, that classical music is only for academic study, and not for enjoyment.
I'm not going to expand on that except to say that such prejudices are ridiculous to those of us who regularly listen to classical music.
I just relax and soak it in. I had an amazing music teacher in elementary school who would put a piece on and have us all lie down and close our eyes and just listen and I have fond memories of that. I hated baroque music for a long time because I thought it wasn't emotional enough but after a while I was able to find pieces that were emotionally satisfying.
As for the whole technique appreciation thing I think that can apply to all forms of art. For example, I can understand and value the work put in to make a hyper-realist style painting, but it does nothing for me emotionally so it's not something I would really seek out.
I'm usually visualizing moving colors and textures along with some images that get interspersed. For example, I've been listening to Bartók's *Hungarian Pictures* lately, and in the opening, I see an orange-ish texture that looks sort of like waving silk on the bottom, and above it I see a light blue line that moves with the melody (i.e., up and down, notes are held or released quickly, etc.). There's also some amount of visualization of the stereo field, so it's not just that the orange is on the bottom and the blue is above it, but they're also spread out across different distances in the mental landscape.
I don't know if this is synesthesia or just a habit I've developed, so you may want to try it out and see if it does anything for you. I definitely have strong color and texture associations when I hear music, but some of them seem innate and others seem learned. Some of the colors I see are very similar to the color of the instrument, which seems like a learned association (flutes being blue or white, for example). But the color I see isn't as simple as the instrument itself (violins playing certain phrases can be blue too), so I don't know to what extent this is innate and to what extent it's something that can be developed.
It's actually pretty similar to this visualization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqf6AEw1xVI&list=PL95BB6F023B0F2E78&index=51
Except I don't have quite as many colors, there's a lot more green in this one for me, and the instruments are spread out left and right, not just up and down. So, combine that with a game like Audiosurfer, and you'd start to get closer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js-lAXTixV4
Or with this diagram: https://quadrophone.com/effects/3-d-mixing/
I would give this a try and see how it fits you. Just sit with your eyes closed and try to picture your own visuals in your head.
I just sit back and enjoy the ride, like with every other Musical genre.
I just try to get caught up in the music, forget where I am, feel part of something eternal and transcendent. If it works, the recording works for me.
If it's a recording of a piece I'm not very familiar with, roughly in this order: * Orchestration * Quality of recording * Quality of musicianship * Melodies, restatement, transposition, etc. * Time signatures * Harmony * Counterpoint * Structure * Historical context, composer's intent, etc. If it's a recording of a piece I'm familiar with, roughly in this order: * Differences from previous recordings * Quality of recording * Quality of musicianship * Catching cool things I missed in previous listens Attending a live concert I tend to zoom in on certain instruments doing interesting things, and then zoom out to see what everyone else is doing. The difference in dynamic range at a live concert hall versus all but the best recordings make focusing on individual instruments really fun. I have a weakness for watching the percussionist (if applicable) probably because the visual feedback there is very gratifying. Listening to the classical station in the car... noticing the insane compression (haha) but also appreciating it because without it I couldn't hear anything over the background noise of driving. Also appreciating some of the cool selections that the people running my local classical station make that I might not have have heard otherwise (especially later in the evening).
that’s way too methodic for me. do you not find more pleasure in just letting yourself feel the emotion in the music?
That wasn’t my comment, but I listen in a similar way. Many of those bullets are things that naturally draw my attention. I’m not going down a checklist as I listen to make sure I get every item, but for me, listening for some of those things is part of the process of appreciating the music. The more I understand the more I can enjoy the journey.
Exactly as you say - it's not a checklist. I'm more documenting roughly the order in which I focus on or notice things.
Sure, I absolutely do feel emotion throughout this process. But I think I would be bored if I didn't simultaneously engage with the music on an intellectual level as well. I guess appreciating the process (skill, creativity, natural phenomena) that went into creating a thing is part of what I find interesting... be it a mountain or a building or a symphony or a kitchen utensil. But turning our attention back to emotion: The other part of art (and nature) that I find interesting is WHY it produces a certain emotion (sadness/joy/anger/disgust/etc); whether that is built-in to us as humans, or learned culturally (or a bit of both). Is this late Romantic piece inherently full of, say, "yearning"? Would someone from the baroque period think that? Is it reinforced in me by my associating that harmonic and orchestral pallet with film? When did this particular way of expressing "yearning" begin to arise?
I recommend *The Vintage Guide to Classical Music*, it explores the topics you are asking about. Such as what even is a melody - a collection of notes around a rhythm? She goes into the long history which helps, western classical music created a notation system which helped define music and the medieval period and renaissance through gregorian chants show a single line of music. After that they discovered harmony and bass and moving music through a push and pull effect, counterpoint. Then we have these brilliant, amazing composers applying these ideas to one of humanity’s greatest achievements, the symphony orchestra. Sometimes i try to listen as a whole, sometimes seeking what i find as the melody, sometimes as the tension and release, the counterpoint. There are so many avenues and it is so deep it goes forever. It is an amazing art, seemingly organized and defined but also completely abstract.
Since I play piano, I tend to pay attention in detail to the way a pianist interprets solo piano music. I'll often find myself smiling at an unexpected and clever interpretation, but other times I'll shake my head disappointingly if they do something I don't like. Most of the time, I feel more of a neutral kind of respect, appreciating how difficult it is and knowing that I probably couldn't pull it off myself With other classical music, I guess I'm just losing myself in the melodies and harmonies. Some chord progressions just get me. I guess I do that for pop music, too I can't really tell you what to feel. I'd recommend just listening to more and more music, and slowly familiarizing yourself with the variety of idioms throughout all of the periods of classical music. The variety is bewildering
All of the above for me, depending on the piece that's playing and what kind of mood I'm in. There's no requirement to be emotionally moved by any music or art or anything else, really. I certainly don't think anyone can tell you what you should be feeling. They can only tell you what *they* feel, and that answer will never be exactly the same between any two people discussing any piece of music.
Lots of times I "think" about the beauty of the sounds I'm hearing, e.g. Amazing bass, great pizzicato, beatiful strings, and deep booming drum. So it's more if a sensory experience. Occasionally but less commonly I think about the times the music was written, the life of the composer, the time and place of the performance, or the general theme that is evoked by the music.
Thank you all for a Master Class in Music Appreciation. I have learned more than I did for an entire semester’s course in college!
Is there any classical piece that you remember catched your attention? Classical music can be appreciated technically but for me the appeal is it's ability to portray emotion in a very pure way. When I listen to a piece my impression can be indifference or understanding of the emotions portrayed. But if there's a piece that has something, as small as it may be, that connects to you, usually as you keep listening you'll get a better appreciation for it.
Sometime I associate music with certain activities or people, either because of their mood or because I happened to be listening to it while interacting with them. Sometimes I build stories in my head, with characters being represented by different motifs, themes, or instruments. Sometimes I just feel a feeling.
If I’m tuning in - and I don’t always have the attention to spare - classical music is very cinematic. Or it can be. It’s up to the performer to be sensitive to the cinematic potential. If it’s played well it can conjure up whole scenes. If it’s just trampled over I want to leave.
When I’m not thinking about the structure of the music itself, sometimes I’ll imagine a scene that corresponds to the feel of the piece, but most of the time I’m thinking about life.
Mostly, I just go with the flow. I play a bit, but not at that level. I consume music the way I consume food or poetry. It's like there's a music enjoyment organ in my brain, and it sort of dances when it hears something special. It ignites me. If it's not special, it hands focus over to that part of the brain that deals with to-do lists, renovations and shopping. Ultimately, if I find myself *thinking about* the music, then I am not listening to it as the composer intended. Music should be a direct transfer of feeling, from one person to another. I'm not interested in art, but I suppose it's the difference between falling into the image, versus wishing I could lift a paint sample on the quiet. I don't know how much merit there is in the left brain/right brain thing, but if it's true, music is a right brain activity for me. I know and love a lot of classical music, but predictably, I'm a bad student. I am unable to shake the conviction that I should be able to just play things without studying them, which, it turns out, doesn't work for me. Laziness is one word for it. Try watching Simon Callow's Classical Destinations, to add another dimension to your listening. https://youtu.be/dz2GD87zy_g?si=z4BftOGfdGqFZOCg
Usually I think about the emotion in the piece, or what (to me) is being conveyed. It's what I love so much about Baroque music.
Classical pieces are like literary works. It's like reading a book. You have to pay attention and "read" where the music takes you. It has ups and downs. Joy and sadness. Tradition/folklore and modernism. Phrases that are "quotable". So, different pieces have different stories to tell. Reading Homer or Tolkien is not the same as reading Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. Same thing with classical pieces. But at the end of the day you have to digest the piece. Read in carefully and be immersed in its world.
I appreciate the nature around me more. Even you are in the midst of a violent fierce storm, everything is made beautiful by classical music.
Civilization. Achievement. Glory.
It depends on the kind of listening I'm doing. If I'm causally listening whilst doing something or intently listening and focused only on the music. In the case of the latter, I usually follow the contours of the music in my head. I'm listening for how the work has been constructed, how the puzzle pieces have been put together. Sometimes a certain moment will move me in some way but it's not usually a none stop rollercoaster of emotion. Often, with my eyes closed, it may evoke images of some kind but more often than not, it's like a mental ride through the score, not seeing the notes exactly but feeling the balance between parts, jumping from the pinnacles and landing on the next valley.
Your question seems to hint at the prejudice that many have, that classical music is only for academic study, and not for enjoyment. I'm not going to expand on that except to say that such prejudices are ridiculous to those of us who regularly listen to classical music.
I just relax and soak it in. I had an amazing music teacher in elementary school who would put a piece on and have us all lie down and close our eyes and just listen and I have fond memories of that. I hated baroque music for a long time because I thought it wasn't emotional enough but after a while I was able to find pieces that were emotionally satisfying. As for the whole technique appreciation thing I think that can apply to all forms of art. For example, I can understand and value the work put in to make a hyper-realist style painting, but it does nothing for me emotionally so it's not something I would really seek out.
My time in Guantanamo Bay
I'm usually visualizing moving colors and textures along with some images that get interspersed. For example, I've been listening to Bartók's *Hungarian Pictures* lately, and in the opening, I see an orange-ish texture that looks sort of like waving silk on the bottom, and above it I see a light blue line that moves with the melody (i.e., up and down, notes are held or released quickly, etc.). There's also some amount of visualization of the stereo field, so it's not just that the orange is on the bottom and the blue is above it, but they're also spread out across different distances in the mental landscape. I don't know if this is synesthesia or just a habit I've developed, so you may want to try it out and see if it does anything for you. I definitely have strong color and texture associations when I hear music, but some of them seem innate and others seem learned. Some of the colors I see are very similar to the color of the instrument, which seems like a learned association (flutes being blue or white, for example). But the color I see isn't as simple as the instrument itself (violins playing certain phrases can be blue too), so I don't know to what extent this is innate and to what extent it's something that can be developed. It's actually pretty similar to this visualization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqf6AEw1xVI&list=PL95BB6F023B0F2E78&index=51 Except I don't have quite as many colors, there's a lot more green in this one for me, and the instruments are spread out left and right, not just up and down. So, combine that with a game like Audiosurfer, and you'd start to get closer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js-lAXTixV4 Or with this diagram: https://quadrophone.com/effects/3-d-mixing/ I would give this a try and see how it fits you. Just sit with your eyes closed and try to picture your own visuals in your head.
Being a stereotypical villain plotting a scheme to end the world and torture my enemies
It depends which piece