How We Listen to Music Samples for Students †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the How We Listen to Music? Answer: The essay titled as How We Listen to Music is the second chapter from the book What to Listen for in Music written by Aaron Copland. The book was published in the year 1939 by Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company in the cities New York and London. In this essay, Copland shares his feelings about music is listened by people. Copland explicates active listening a combination of three different planes of listening namely the sensuous plane, the expressive plane and the musical plane. When people listen to music intentionally or not, it is listened at all three levels. The sensuous plane is considered as the simplest form of listening where music is listened by people for pure pleasure of listening. In sensuous plane, the music is listened without judging. Copland postulates that people hear the music even without recognizing its existence. The music is listened by people simply to elude the problems or obstructive feelings that persist in their mind. They do not truly concentrate on the music as they use music to escape their everyday life feelings. The second plane narrated by Copland is expressive plane where he believes that the music has expressive power. Every piece of music has a meaning that can be described or expressed. The people can observe the feeling generated from listening to music because in their mind they can understand the true meaning of what they are listening but they are not able to state it. The writers opinion regarding expressive meaning music can be on the sides of contradiction. Copland says that music does have an expressive meaning, but that we cannot say in so many words what the meaning is. The third plane is the sheerly musical plane. In this plane, the listener can separate the different compositions of music such as dynamics, pitch, tempo, time signature, key signature, form, chord analysis, etc. Copland states that the intelligent listener must be prepared to increase his awareness of the musical material and what happens to it. He must hear the melodies, the rhythms, the harmonies, the tone colours in a more conscious fashion. But above all he must, in order to follow the line of the composers thought, know something of the principles of musical form. (Copland 17) Both melodies and rhythm of notes are involved in this plane. Copland has pointed out and warned that one should not focus too much on melodies and notes consequently dropping out the previous two planes. It is very important to understand the reason for listening to music. Interpreting what level or plane is listened on a particular piece helps in deepening the understanding of music. When music is listened at all three levels, the listener flows between the levels. Every level imparts an incompatible type of satisfaction of music and each complement the other. Copland has ended the article with the analogy of going to theatre with the hope that the readers will become a more active listener. When a listener utilizes the concept of his three planes, one can become a more conscious and aware listener not someone who is just listening, but someone who is listening for something. (Knight) References "Aaron Copland "How We Listen"". Writing Across Media Wiki. Web. 11 May 2017. Copland, Aaron. What To Listen For In Music. 1st ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939. Print. Knight, Peter. "How We Listen To Music". HubPages. N.p., 2013. Web. 11 May 2017. Pennington, Jonathan. "Aaron Copland And Hermeneutics -- Three Kinds Of Listening/Reading". Jonathan Pennington. N.p., 2014. Web. 11 May 2017.