Music History and Appreciation

Listening to music is a skill that can be developed like any artistic ability. Listening is active and doesn't happen automatically, as opposed to the passive hearing of sound in the world around you.

Two people can have strongly different reactions to the same music. This can depend on different factors in the music itself, such as novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre (the unique color of each voice or instrument).

Listening well can improve your connection with music as you hear music with a different mindset. It can help you learn about yourself. Our network in the brain related to our sense of self can be activated by listening to music we enjoy.

Susan Rogers, a professor at Berklee College of Music, provides one theory of how we listen to and enjoy music in her book This is What it Sounds Like. This theory involves a personal profile of traits in music and our responses to different aspects of each trait:

• Authenticity (hearing the emotions expressed in music as genuine): Do you prefer it to be naive (created without formal training; music "from the neck down" (Rogers 23)) or more cerebral (using music theory/specific principles to create the emotions the musician feels; music that comes "from the neck up" (Rogers 24))?
• Realism vs abstraction: Do you like music that closely resembles live music played by physical instruments? Or do you prefer computer generated sounds and recordings that create effects that aren't possible live?
• Novelty: Do you prefer musical risk taking, familiar sounds, or somewhere in between?
• Melody (the main musical theme of a song or piece of music): Do you like melodies with a wide or narrow note range? ones that are smooth and flowing or sharp and detached? complex or simple?
• Lyrics: Do you prefer music with or without words? In music with lyrics, do you prefer complex or simple? Do you prefer ones that distract you from your life or ones that you relate to?
• Rhythm: Do you prefer music you can dance to, music that you feel in your body?
• Timbre (the unique tone color of each instrument or voice that allows you to identify what is making that sound): Pay attention to which instruments and which types of voices you are drawn towards.

Rogers, Susan, and Ogi Ogas. This Is What It Sounds like : What the Music You Love Says about You. First edition., W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.