Listening to Music Intentionally

Music: Let’s talk about it. You know what music is: that strange combination of sounds that comes out of your car on the way to work, that background noise you play while you write papers or enter data. It’s that stuff that seems to come out of the empty, eerily high ceilings at the supermarket. Or maybe it’s that barely audible pattern that plays while you’re on hold trying to fix a problem with your cell phone contract.

Let’s forgive that last paragraph of attempted pithiness for this post. This week, we’re going to be talking about listening to music, specifically, how to listen to music. You may be telling yourself that you should not have to be told how to listen to music, but I’m here to say that you need to. In today’s society, where we’re blasted with music at gas stations, through television commercials and before Youtube videos, it’s become difficult to really appreciate a song or piece. I’m going to tell you how you should be listening to music. Before we begin, I should say that I do not know how to play a musical instrument or read music. I can’t tell you what a time signature is, I vaguely know about chord progression, and I’ll admit that I’d have to Google what a stanza is. What I do have is close to 21 years of hearing music on a regular basis and learning to appreciate it, so those will have to be credentials enough for now.

If you’re like me, music often becomes the background of your daily activities. Everyone listens to music in their car, whether it is through the Great Satan that is the radio, or by plugging our Ipods, smart phones, what have you into our car’s stereo. If you’re also like me, you need music while you work. It’s been shown that my generation is uncomfortable without music or sound while working- we need constant stimulation as a result of our media-addled mind.  While we’re listening to this music, we sometimes forget that songs have little conventions called lyrics. You know, lyrics- those things that people are singing to the pretty sounds coming out of your stereo? How many of us ever stop and listen to them?

As a teenager, one of my favorite things to do was to buy a new CD, pop it in, and lay on the floor and read the lyrics in the little CD booklet as the songs played. For people older than me (or hipsters), you may have enjoyed or still enjoy putting on a record and reading the lyrics in those awesome liner notes. This is an immensely enriching experience that helps you fully understand the music you’re listening to, and when you listen to the songs in the future, you’ll remember what the songs are actually about. But doesn’t knowing the exact lyrics of a song cheapen the song’s magic?

A few months ago, as I was browsing Reddit, I came across a comment someone made saying that the mark of good songwriting is when the lyrics can be interpreted in different ways and listeners can get different things out of a song that may relate to circumstances and events in their life. Knowing the full lyrics of a song helps you tap into this magic- the lyrics of the Smashing Pumpkins “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” (don’t ask why I’m using this as an example, it was the first thing to come to mind) will mean something different to you at 15 than at 30. At 15, you may consider yourself a rat in a cage due to being forced to bow down to the demands of your parents and teachers. At 30, you may consider yourself a rat in a cage as you look upon the forces in the world that are larger than yourself, and, despite all your rage, you realize you are quite powerless to stop them.

There are albums with endlessly rich lyrics that I first neglected because I was playing the album as “background noise” that I’m only now revisiting. For example, I’ve been quite enthralled lately with The Decemberist’s 2009 album “The Hazards of Love”. I played the album once or twice in 2009 and wrote it off as bizarre, and it sat on various hard drives for 3 years without being listened to. I recently decided to give it a good, honest, intentional listen and I’m sure glad I did. It’s an indie rock opera set in an 1800s European fantasy setting about a pair of lovers trying to avoid the schemes of two evil villains. There are moments on that album of humor, passionate love that will make you misty eyed, and over the top anthems from the villains- it really must be heard to be believed. The thing was, I missed out on all this richness the first time because I played the album at low volume while surfing my Facebook.

Well what about “instrumental music”? I hold that you need to give this music your full, undivided attention as well. I know that it sounds pretentious, but I challenge you lay back sometime and put a full classical piece on and really absorb it. One of my personal favorites is Antonin Dvorak’s “New World Symphony”. If you listen to the entire thing, you’re treated to quiet movements reminiscent of early morning in a tiny village to truly epic moments that remind you of world leaders clashing on a battlefield of thousands. You don’t get a lot of this subtext if you just sit and play the music while you microwave your Lean Cuisine at work.

The other thing about sitting and intentionally listening to music is that the album “clicks” quicker. All of us have been through the disappointing experience of listening to the latest album from our favorite band for the first time and hating it. When you’re just listening to the album in the background, you may miss out on some clever lyric that just makes sense to you, or a change in the mood of the piece that may move you to tears. I’ve found that if I lay back and read the lyrics with a piece of music the first time I listen to it, the music really shines. Subsequent listens only build upon my love for the piece, and eventually I get into that indescribable joy of being addicted to an album or band and having a love affair with it for weeks. That album then becomes the soundtrack for a short period of your life, and when you look back in 20 years at major milestones in your past, that music is an essential part of who you were, who you are and what you’ve become. It’s really a beautiful and profound thing that science can explain, but can’t fully capture.

It’s so easy to throw on the latest pop songs while we do whatever and only mildly pay attention to them. Pop music is scientifically designed to stick in your brain as quick as possible so you keep revisiting it, and if it’s “poppy” enough, the music is able to overpower whatever else it is we’re doing and lodge in our minds. However, I think it’s sad that we take music for granted at times- it’s this thing beyond description that is amazing in the truest sense of the word. Myself, being a Christian, marvel that God created humans with the ability to come up with something so heavenly. The nonreligious among you may find it awe inspiring that humans were able to create these patterns of sound that evoke all ranges of emotion as well. Regardless of your religious preference, I think we can agree that good music demands our full attention.

Now I’m not going to be the ultimate snob and say that you should never listen to music in the background while you’re doing other things, I play music every day while working and would be a massive hypocrite if I told you to do so. Listening to music while running, for instance, has been shown by scientists to increase intelligence and motivate you to continue running longer. I personally enjoy playing intense, epic, high tempo music while running, and nothing compares to being dog tired toward the end of the run and sprinting at the final stretch because a hot blooded, over-the-top part of a song comes on.

I just encourage you to sit and listen to a piece of music once in a while and only listen to that music. You will gain a new appreciation of what you’re hearing, and it will affect you in a positive way that you’ll look back on as you move through the great checkpoints of life.