The Art of Listening

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the power of listening.  As a musician and teacher the activity comes up quite frequently!  I’m amazed though at the amount of convincing it takes for some of my students to listen to recordings.  

I remember as a student if I wanted to listen to a professional recording of my pieces I had to contact the flute specialist store in Sydney to enquire whether they had a recording of what I wanted on cassette!  If they didn’t they ordered it for me from somewhere overseas and it took a while to arrive.  

My students now have the opportunity to listen not only to one recording of their work, but often times several different renditions and have the luxury of comparison.  Not only that but most things are available instantly online and often for free.  

Why does it take them so long to look up a recording and spend the time listening? I always ask them isn’t this the best homework any teacher has prescribed for them all week?

I know there is a school of thought that suggests that music students shouldn’t listen to recordings of their repertoire until after they have learned the work so that they come up with their own interpretation.  Perhaps this is a valid point for accomplished advanced students, but just by listening to recordings we form sound images in our mind.  I had an advanced student play for me this last week and the progress she demonstrated since the lesson last week was outstanding.  She was playing a Mozart flute concerto.  Style and elegance are paramount.  I had asked her to listen and compare several recordings for phrasing and articulation.  She didn’t actually practice her own playing much that following week, but just the act of listening produced amazing results when she next played in her lesson.

I often ask my students the question “how did they learn to speak English?”  Most of them tell me it was as a young child listening to their parents.  When did they start to speak?  When did they start to read and write?  Wouldn’t it make sense for music education to follow the pattern of learning a language? There is truly much to learn if we take the time to listen.  

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder – perhaps the beauty of music is in the ear of the listener!  Sound images are powerful, just as visual images.  The more we listen the more detailed our sound images become and the better we replicate, recreate or self-create the sound worlds we desire.