Getting Back to Basics: "Listening"

While we can all get behind the sentiment that the study of music is a value-add to any society, it’s not always obvious to most as to what that can look like in any specific terms. Therefore, I want to offer up an easy to understand explanation regarding the most fundamental aspect of music that exists: “listening.”

I recently heard one of the best and most succinct explanations as to why some people seem to pick up Jazz at a slower pace than others. And the reason was that "most people today like playing an instrument more than they like listening to music" (thank you Branford Marsalis). And so after hearing that, it got me to thinking about how I could best explain what enables someone to learn this musical language as fast as they do, while simultaneously giving context to why others don’t.

Since we all agree that music is a language, consider the idea that a baby’s first WORD isn’t even recognized until around 12 months. In other words, a baby’s ears are stuck in an incubation period where all they can do is listen. And during this time they’re coming to all kinds of conclusions about the "meaning" of certain sounds with respect to pitch (such as the level of seriousness in the tone of a command from someone), rhythm (such as the sense of urgency from the vocal cadences of someone), and harmony (such as a group of people laughing, speaking, singing, arguing, etc.). And again, even after 12 months of listening, the best they can come up with is a WORD. It won’t be for some time until they can understand the meaning of enough words to be able to string them together to make A sentence. But before long, they’re able to speak with the same level of fluidity as any other native speaker. Now granted, while the depth of their vocabulary will limit their ability to express themselves fully, anyone listening could clearly identify the origin of their accent. Therefore, the same goes for learning Jazz, in that if you want to sound like a “native speaker,” there’s a certain amount of patience and reverence for deep listening that you’ll need to cultivate if you want to sound like an authentic sounding musician within this style (or any other for that matter). In short, the degree to which you’re able to identify the meaning/intent behind certain words, will be the degree to which a connection can form between you and others around you. Which, of course, will be reflective of the time you’ve invested into listening and observing the relationship that others have to those same words.

“How you play is reflective of how you hear. And how you hear is reflective of what you’ve been conditioned to pay attention to and value.” -Couture of Music