Surfing the net for some background on DSCH's string quartets, I came across this. It contained an interesting and simple idea about three ways that music is listened to.
I certainly listen to music according to the first two, but not the third. Although the three approaches are pretty much mutually exclusive, there probably is some slight overlap, here and there. Maybe not.
One
There seems to be three ways that we listen to music - be it pop, jazz, classical or whatever. The first is the most common: we use it as background music. We listen but our thoughts are elsewhere. We are shopping in the supermarket, or enjoying ourselves at a nightclub, or we use it to block all other distractions whilst studying. In these cases the music creates a backcloth, an environment in which we feel well and relaxed. We are not really conscious of the music; we might not even remember afterwards what was played. We hear the music rather than listen to it.
Two
The second way is typified by falling onto the sofa with the headphones on, gazing at the ceiling and letting ourselves be seduced by the pleasure of the sound. We indulge ourselves in a sensual experience which Wagner exemplified in the 'Liebestod'. We submerge ourselves in the music and it overwhelms us. Lost in rapture we are conscious of nothing else. Consumed by the music we let our feelings freely drift in its cross-currents. But we are mesmerized emotionally, but not intellectually: we are engulfed in an aural occurrence, but not in a dispassionate analysis of the musical structure. This is a deeply subjective sensation. We react as individual beings and our innermost predilections amplify the music's emotional impulse.
Three
The third way is rarer, maybe equally valuable, but certainly not superior. We scrutinise the music itself. In other words we ignore our emotional reactions to the music and are concerned only with the music as a composition. We examine it through the eyepiece of the academic; the historian; the musicologist. It is its form rather than its effect on us which is important. We are interested in perceiving the musical ideas; dissecting them and seeing how they reappear, develop and resurface. We follow the syntax of the piece; how it is constructed; how the various elements are related to each other; we analysis and follow the logic of music's development. We also try to understand the music in a wider context; relate it to the time of its composition; to the circumstances and conditions of its creation. When we listen to a composition in this way it seems that the deeper our background knowledge is, the richer is our musical experience.
I certainly listen to music according to the first two, but not the third. Although the three approaches are pretty much mutually exclusive, there probably is some slight overlap, here and there. Maybe not.
One
There seems to be three ways that we listen to music - be it pop, jazz, classical or whatever. The first is the most common: we use it as background music. We listen but our thoughts are elsewhere. We are shopping in the supermarket, or enjoying ourselves at a nightclub, or we use it to block all other distractions whilst studying. In these cases the music creates a backcloth, an environment in which we feel well and relaxed. We are not really conscious of the music; we might not even remember afterwards what was played. We hear the music rather than listen to it.
Two
The second way is typified by falling onto the sofa with the headphones on, gazing at the ceiling and letting ourselves be seduced by the pleasure of the sound. We indulge ourselves in a sensual experience which Wagner exemplified in the 'Liebestod'. We submerge ourselves in the music and it overwhelms us. Lost in rapture we are conscious of nothing else. Consumed by the music we let our feelings freely drift in its cross-currents. But we are mesmerized emotionally, but not intellectually: we are engulfed in an aural occurrence, but not in a dispassionate analysis of the musical structure. This is a deeply subjective sensation. We react as individual beings and our innermost predilections amplify the music's emotional impulse.
Three
The third way is rarer, maybe equally valuable, but certainly not superior. We scrutinise the music itself. In other words we ignore our emotional reactions to the music and are concerned only with the music as a composition. We examine it through the eyepiece of the academic; the historian; the musicologist. It is its form rather than its effect on us which is important. We are interested in perceiving the musical ideas; dissecting them and seeing how they reappear, develop and resurface. We follow the syntax of the piece; how it is constructed; how the various elements are related to each other; we analysis and follow the logic of music's development. We also try to understand the music in a wider context; relate it to the time of its composition; to the circumstances and conditions of its creation. When we listen to a composition in this way it seems that the deeper our background knowledge is, the richer is our musical experience.
) will say they've never done it? And wouldn't CD sales and much other musical activity collapse if we all saw the light?
Pleasure??? That's only permissible in Category Two! 
- my "leaning", too!
Maybe a bit like those language courses you were supposed to listen to and learn while you slept? Though I heard that the snag was that to recall the word you needed, you had to mentally replay the whole tape from the start till you got to it
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