Concert List

Did you know that there is more than one way to listen to music? I first read about this from a small book by composer Aaron Copeland.
You see most people listen to music as if something were has been hing over them. They listen to the oncoming barrage of notes and chords and never wonder or understand how it achieves the effect it does.
Not composers. They listen varying ly. While most people enjoy music for music’s sake – a composer listens for sections or how the music is constructed.
I am not saying that composers never listen to music for pure pleasure. That would be terrible. No. What I am saying is that a composer or anybody who takes the time to learn, can be gin to hear how music is put together.
And most music created now is comprised of sections. More especially,  we  have A and B sections, introductions, transitions and endings and so on.
All these “pieces” go into creating a piece of music. Even spontaneously improvised pieces of music have been given a name by composers. They call it “through composed” which means that there are no distinctly repeating sections.
For example, take the lesson “Cirrus.” It begins out with several notes that, by themselves, seem to go nowhere. But, if you listen to the entire piece of music, you’ll begin to hear sections. Musical composition is the art of repetition and contrast. This is what composers listen for. They listen to see how the songwriter uses these 2 qualities. The piece “Cirrus” has been actually an improvised piece but it turns out that even with this, you might hear that repetition and contrast has been used.
This can be done consciously, as a lot of composers do as they create a piece, or simply generated spontaneously as in the case of “Cirrus.”