Listening as a Non-Musician

[PatrickMurtha]

I was already starting to listen to classical music by the time I reached middle school (age 11-12), because I was an incipient culture vulture even then. I bought my first LPs around that time. In my (very intellectual) high school (1972-1976), there were quite a number of serious classical fans, so I was not alone. We even had an elective music appreciation class, imagine! (Art appreciation, too; I think these sorts of things have largely disappeared.)

I have never been a musician (no sense of rhythm, as I learned when I tried taking up the clarinet), so I do miss things on the technical side of classical music and jazz. But on the other hand, I have been listening for decades and I know how things go. I can often identify a composer in just a few bars (Nielsen comes to mind, than whom there is hardly anyone more fingerprinty). I might not always be able to spot a key, but I can generally tell the difference between major and minor immediately. All the basic forms are familiar to my ear and I can sense deviation from them. So although there are limits for a non-musician (as there are for a non-painter at the museum), I hope I am good at getting the “gist”.

[JasonPalmer]

All good, us non muscians support musicians by buying tickets to their concerts and buying their records.

[Dave2002]

I have never been a musician (no sense of rhythm, as I learned when I tried taking up the clarinet), so I do miss things on the technical side of classical music and jazz.

Nothing wrong with that - glad you've enjoyed the ride so far. Is it really too late to learn just a few things though - such as reading music notation, or some other entries to music?
Many people these days use DAWs with piano roll notation to create music, or you can even go electronic - with modular synthesis. Perhaps the clarinet was the wrong thing for you at the time. Some others work with chords and lead sheets and play guitar, while others stick with notation and play keyboards. Then of course there is percussion - but that brings rhythm back. Some musicians just learn by copying others - there are many ways to get into this. Others get into music by singing, or joining choirs. Some classically trained musicians are pretty hopeless when it comes to improvisation, so maybe just find your niche.

[hmvman]

I was pretty hopeless at trying to read music at school when also trying to learn the clarinet, although I was quite good at picking up tunes by ear. Singing in a choir has been a great joy, something I started 14 years ago in my 50s. I have learnt a lot about the technicalities of music even if I can't sight-read. There are a lot of choirs that are non-auditioning and don't require one to be a sight reader.

Like you, Patrick, I have learnt a great deal and derived a huge amount of pleasure over 50 years of listening to classical music (I was in my mid-teens when I started).

[PatrickMurtha]

I was pretty hopeless at trying to read music at school when also trying to learn the clarinet, although I was quite good at picking up tunes by ear. Singing in a choir has been a great joy, something I started 14 years ago in my 50s. I have learnt a lot about the technicalities of music even if I can't sight-read. There are a lot of choirs that are non-auditioning and don't require one to be a sight reader.

Like you, Patrick, I have learnt a great deal and derived a huge amount of pleasure over 50 years of listening to classical music (I was in my mid-teens when I started).

Oh definitely, it is life-enriching, and it is great to have a head start before adulthood. I worry that most of those without early exposure will never go down this road, and that there is no educative emphasis on the “high arts” anymore, in fact quite the contrary.

My goal early on was to be an educated and cultured adult. I remember seeing an interview with Cecil Beaton on public television in my teens, and he spoke so easily and knowledgeably about everything that I thought, “That’s it. That’s how I’d like to be.” I got the same motivation from watching and being enthralled by Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation series. Do these paths and invitations even exist now?

[oddoneout]

Oh definitely, it is life-enriching, and it is great to have a head start before adulthood. I worry that most of those without early exposure will never go down this road, and that there is no educative emphasis on the “high arts” anymore, in fact quite the contrary.

My goal early on was to be an educated and cultured adult. I remember seeing an interview with Cecil Beaton on public television in my teens, and he spoke so easily and knowledgeably about everything that I thought, “That’s it. That’s how I’d like to be.” I got the same motivation from watching and being enthralled by Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation series. Do these paths and invitations even exist now?

Never mind "high" arts( although even at the time it was current terminology, when I was young, it made me uncomfortable), arts full stop have little or no place in today's education here it seems. I was a high school governor for 13 years from 2000, and towards the end of that time we were having to face difficult financial priorities about the place of drama and music, which even then were secondary curriculum. Upsetting on two main fronts - the school had a well established reputation for high quality drama productions(supported not just by parents, the whole town looked forward to them) and the range of musical opportunities, but also it gave many non-academic or struggling pupils the opportunity not only to take part but also in some cases to find talents they didn't know they had, the effects of which were wide-reaching.
I don't know about modern equivalents of those you mention, but because they don't survive the modern filters about acceptable views and interpretations, it's not even possible to have them as an alternative, so the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater in my view.

[smittims]

You remind me of Peter Maxwell Davies reminiscing about how valuable the BBC Third Programme was to a boy from an impecunious and uncultured background. The dumbing-down of Radio 3 and the decline of public libraries may be seen as a bleak prospect for such young people today, but I don't know how much use the internet has been in replacing them. For instance , many scores and recordings are available on YouTube.

My parents loved music but purely as a leisure-time entertainment. I was the first member of my family to learn to read and write music and play an instrument, but though I sang in a university choir and played in an amateur orchestra, and composed music for many years , I never called myself 'a musician' ; indeed, I once amused musician friends by saying ' I'm not a musician, I'm a composer'.

Along the way I encountered dismissive attitudes from people who'd learnt to play the piano in childhood and , in some cases earned a living from performing, though I knew more about music than they did because I had listened to it more, many of them believing that listening to music isn't the real thing, only playing it yourself. While I accept that this gives an in-depth knowledge of certain works the mere listener cannot attain (e.g. a man I knew who played Brahms' symphonies in two-hand piano arrangements and must have known far more about their tonal and metric structure than I could ever know) It can limit knowledge to the actual pieces one plays or sings: I've known people who can play the '48' or Beethoven sonatas from memory but knew nothing about twentieth-century orchestral music, not even the dates of the composers, because they had never listened to it.

I would, however, like to warn against an attitude I have encountered from time to time: 'I'm glad I don't know anything technical about music; it would spoil my enjoyment'. I think this is very sad . It is choosing ignorance, not a good idea (unless you're going to have a heart attack tomorrow!)

[gradus]

I too am no musician but I enjoy fumbling around on the piano having long-forgotten my half-hearted attempts at the cello. What really brought music to me was hearing records at a friend's who had a separate speaker not just a record player and starting to go to concerts with him. I am afraid that my state grammar school education did nothing for me musically except to tickle me whenever the school orchestra played although my appreciation of the Portsmouth Sinfonia later owed much to this early experience.

[PatrickMurtha]

Never mind "high" arts( although even at the time it was current terminology, when I was young, it made me uncomfortable), arts full stop have little or no place in today's education here it seems. I was a high school governor for 13 years from 2000, and towards the end of that time we were having to face difficult financial priorities about the place of drama and music, which even then were secondary curriculum. Upsetting on two main fronts - the school had a well established reputation for high quality drama productions(supported not just by parents, the whole town looked forward to them) and the range of musical opportunities, but also it gave many non-academic or struggling pupils the opportunity not only to take part but also in some cases to find talents they didn't know they had, the effects of which were wide-reaching.
I don't know about modern equivalents of those you mention, but because they don't survive the modern filters about acceptable views and interpretations, it's not even possible to have them as an alternative, so the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater in my view.

I just use “high arts” as a term of convenience, since it communicates a notion (classical music, opera, ballet, literature, painting) fairly well. But I am hardly against popular culture, in fact I think that popular culture which lasts always becomes “high” culture. Look at jazz, it’s definitely high culture now. Happening with the Beatles. Already happened with classic Hollywood films. Dickens is another obvious example.

My blog has run items about Baroque opera and Hanna-Barbera cartoons on the same day!

[PatrickMurtha]

You remind me of Peter Maxwell Davies reminiscing about how valuable the BBC Third Programme was to a boy from an impecunious and uncultured background. The dumbing-down of Radio 3 and the decline of public libraries may be seen as a bleak prospect for such young people today, but I don't know how much use the internet has been in replacing them. For instance , many scores and recordings are available on YouTube.

My parents loved music but purely as a leisure-time entertainment. I was the first member of my family to learn to read and write music and play an instrument, but though I sang in a university choir and played in an amateur orchestra, and composed music for many years , I never called myself 'a musician' ; indeed, I once amused musician friends by saying ' I'm not a musician, I'm a composer'.

Along the way I encountered dismissive attitudes from people who'd learnt to play the piano in childhood and , in some cases earned a living from performing, though I knew more about music than they did because I had listened to it more, many of them believing that listening to music isn't the real thing, only playing it yourself. While I accept that this gives an in-depth knowledge of certain works the mere listener cannot attain (e.g. a man I knew who played Brahms' symphonies in two-hand piano arrangements and must have known far more about their tonal and metric structure than I could ever know) It can limit knowledge to the actual pieces one plays or sings: I've known people who can play the '48' or Beethoven sonatas from memory but knew nothing about twentieth-century orchestral music, not even the dates of the composers, because they had never listened to it.

I would, however, like to warn against an attitude I have encountered from time to time: 'I'm glad I don't know anything technical about music; it would spoil my enjoyment'. I think this is very sad . It is choosing ignorance, not a good idea (unless you're going to have a heart attack tomorrow!)

I too have met musicians whose knowledge of music history was pretty narrow! For some people, not just musicians, if it is outside their specialization, it is irrevelant. This is one reason I didn’t go for a PhD in literature. I didn’t want to narrow down my focus. I am a generalist by temperament, and that’s how I wound up teaching high school humanities.

The resources of the Internet are amazing, but I think I’ll quote Kevin Munger here: “Anyone with an internet connection has access to more high-quality information sources than Harvard professors 50 years ago could have dreamed of. It turns out that there just aren’t many people who want to take advantage of that.”

[Serial_Apologist]

You remind me of Peter Maxwell Davies reminiscing about how valuable the BBC Third Programme was to a boy from an impecunious and uncultured background. The dumbing-down of Radio 3 and the decline of public libraries may be seen as a bleak prospect for such young people today, but I don't know how much use the internet has been in replacing them. For instance , many scores and recordings are available on YouTube.

My parents loved music but purely as a leisure-time entertainment. I was the first member of my family to learn to read and write music and play an instrument, but though I sang in a university choir and played in an amateur orchestra, and composed music for many years , I never called myself 'a musician' ; indeed, I once amused musician friends by saying ' I'm not a musician, I'm a composer'.

Along the way I encountered dismissive attitudes from people who'd learnt to play the piano in childhood and , in some cases earned a living from performing, though I knew more about music than they did because I had listened to it more, many of them believing that listening to music isn't the real thing, only playing it yourself. While I accept that this gives an in-depth knowledge of certain works the mere listener cannot attain (e.g. a man I knew who played Brahms' symphonies in two-hand piano arrangements and must have known far more about their tonal and metric structure than I could ever know) It can limit knowledge to the actual pieces one plays or sings: I've known people who can play the '48' or Beethoven sonatas from memory but knew nothing about twentieth-century orchestral music, not even the dates of the composers, because they had never listened to it.

I would, however, like to warn against an attitude I have encountered from time to time: 'I'm glad I don't know anything technical about music; it would spoil my enjoyment'. I think this is very sad . It is choosing ignorance, not a good idea (unless you're going to have a heart attack tomorrow!)

My late dad's recommendation was always to just let music in all its multifarious levels of appeal flood into ones consciousness on a first hearing. He used to berate Mum (in his usual patronising way, it has to be said however) for believing she needed to analyse it all before appreciation met her own criteria. I tend to go with Dad on this: the good old subconscious can process and take care of detail, organic coherence and so on, which one can go deeper into in due time. It was this realisation that led me to appreciate composers such as Eliot Carter; even though I found the listening process tough going I could "at some level" detect the authority in it which made a particular work worth going back to. Repeated listenability is a vital aspect of what makes for good or great music for me, and I tend towards thinking music in over-easily digestible idioms while posing or being presented as "significant works" is part and parcel of a more general process of cultural oversimplification to indoctrinate a superficial unquestioning acquiescence in society in general, one that encourages mass consumption of unsustainable profitable pap

[Dave2002]

My late dad's recommendation was always to just let music in all its multifarious levels of appeal flood into ones consciousness on a first hearing.

There is room for several approaches surely. One is just to experience music - let if wash over one. Another is to do pre-study - then listen, while yet another is to do post-study - listen, then try to figure out what is/was important, different or enjoyable [if anything] in what was heard.

Different people have their own approaches.

This applies in other fields too, such as photography. and I have come across photographers who espouse different methods. Some are highly organised and plan in advance. while others are spontaneous and shoot what they like, and prune later. Some also plan post processing into their creative efforts, while others do most of their "work" ahead of time.

Listening is different from playing or composition though - so whether you try to learn about anything you are about to hear in advance is up to you. Some understanding of some basic theory might help, but is perhaps not strictly necessary.

[Serial_Apologist]

There is room for several approaches surely. One is just to experience music - let if wash over one. Another is to do pre-study - then listen, while yet another is to do post-study - listen, then try to figure out what is/was important, different or enjoyable [if anything] in what was heard.

Different people have their own approaches.

This applies in other fields too, such as photography. and I have come across photographers who espouse different methods. Some are highly organised and plan in advance. while others are spontaneous and shoot what they like, and prune later. Some also plan post processing into their creative efforts, while others do most of their "work" ahead of time.

Listening is different from playing or composition though - so whether you try to learn about anything you are about to hear in advance is up to you. Some understanding of some basic theory might help, but is perhaps not strictly necessary.

In general I agree - quite obviously one cannot and should not be prescriptive as to how anyone hears or listens to music. We would all be the poorer for the lack of music which pretends to no greatness or historical significance. However I do believe that some musics are deserving of the fullest possible indulgence from a critical angle if their weight is to be full appreciated as their composers must presumably have intended. This is one reason why it is so pernicious in my view when broadcasters take a single movement such as the Adagietto from Mahler 5 out of the defining context of its meaning.

[Dave2002]

This is one reason why it is so pernicious in my view when broadcasters take a single movement such as the Adagietto from Mahler 5 out of the defining context of its meaning.

I would love to agree with you, but sadly I feel that battle has been largely lost. Also how do you react when a single aria is extracted from an opera lasting 3-5 hours?

So far at least we haven't had [or not often, to my knowledge ...] the kind of indifference I have heard in the USA during the playing of a recording of one of MacDowell's pieces. In one movement the sound was faded out - perhaps for some other "important" material - more probably for some "messages". Some while later the announcer said something like "now let's go back to hear how Edward MacDowell's piece is geting on", and indeed that was faded up at later position in the recording.

[Mandryka]

I think I miss a lot by not engaging with the score, like a musician would. For one thing, a musician sees the structure of the whole in the score more rapidly - the textures in the sections and such like. To hear that you have to listen to the whole thing - which can take more time than you really want to give it, or more listing acuity than you actually have. I have had to deal with that recently while exploring Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux and Finnissy’s History of Photography.

And there’s a whole social dimension to music making which is missed by just listening. You miss out on the experience of coming together with other people to make music by following the score. Some music seems primarily about that - Christian Wolff’s Stones for example, or Jürg Frey’s Sächelechen duos.