You know that feeling when you hear a mind-blowing song: that bittersweet mix of awe and… dejection?

The immediate listening experience can be immensely rewarding, but to hear a composition which takes advantage of music theory to a greater degree than we’re capable of can also be a truly humbling experience.

At times it can make the road ahead seem so long and arduous that we forget the musicians we’re listening to still put on great records themselves and feel much the same thing.

There are essentially two responses an aspiring musician can choose between when faced with this situation. Either we look up to them, or we assume they’d look down on us. The first is a path of infinite inspiration, but it seems to be the latter option that is most often our default reaction.

Most of us have doubts we could ever reach such great heights, which can considerably limit our growth as artists. The humbled musician begins to see the worlds of music theory, ear training, and instrumental skill as a giant web of untranslatable complexity. We start thinking about notes on a staff in terms of mathematical equations, and become intimidated by our own conceptions of what is, in reality, nowhere near as complicated as we’ve convinced ourselves.

The first type of response, a positive one, is much more difficult to cultivate. There are however methods that can help optimize this passive listening experience, and ideally turn that otherwise fleeting inspiration into a moment as educational as any formal theory class. Well, at least as valuable as the classes I’ve taken (which, to be fair, have not set the bar very high!)

What follows are a couple of tricks I use on a daily basis. Click to read the rest…

Music matters.

If you’re visiting this site, you probably don’t need to be convinced of that! But how often do we give music the attention it deserves?

Today, find a moment and choose a song.

Close your eyes.

And just… listen.




Whether you’re a musician or music-fan, music is undoubtedly around you for a large part of every day.

How much of it do you really hear?

When you play that piano sonata for the 57th time this week, do you hear the music – or do you just hear the mistakes made and the room for improvement? Deliberate practice is wonderful for improving your skills – but rarely musical.

When you hear your favourite song on the radio or on your iPod, do you really listen to it – or do you just hear the top layer of sound? The melody, the lyrics, the driving beat… And your mind wanders to whatever it is inside you that made this song a favourite. The song is barely heard at all because you know it so well.

Or do you?

Active listening is a core part of musicianship training and aural skills development, but even more importantly it increases your potential to enjoy music. Partly this comes from developing your ability to hear detail in songs, but equally importantly it develops the habit and the mindset of truly listening to music instead of just hearing it.

So, choose a track.

Choose a song you know, or a song you don’t. That song that’s been on your “to listen” playlist for weeks now. The song that just came on the radio and caught your ear.

Take a few minutes.

It won’t take long, but you’ll experience more in these few minutes than the countless minutes of unfocused attention before them.

Put on headphones or turn up your speakers.

They each have their advantages. The key thing is have privacy from interruption and clarity of sound.

Turn up the volume.

Find a level that lets the sound encompass your senses.

But don’t damage your hearing!

And let the thoughts of the day disappear for a moment.

Let the song be all that you pay attention to.



Allow your attention to wander through the sound.

Try to listen in to different instruments, different timbres, different textures in the sound.

Listen out for a melody or harmony line and follow it until it disappears again.

Feel the rhythm and how it intertwines with the other elements of the song.



Breathe slowly.



Hear more.



And savour the sound.

Steel Pole Bath Tub were an undeniably prolific band, releasing somewhere in the neighborhood of ten EPs and LPs between the years 1987 and 1995, as well as a heaping handful of singles. But even this level of productivity wasn’t enough for these noise-rock weirdoes, and the 90’s found the main members of SPBT participating in two fully-fledged side projects: Tumor Circus (with Jello Biafra), and Milk Cult, which was basically a pseudonym the band used when they wanted to explore their more sample-based, abstract electronic side. Some folks call it “industrial,” and as much as I’m not eager to describe this music as such (it’s not like it’s rooted in the KMFDM aesthetic) I guess that comes fairly close to hitting the mark.

I heard Milk Cult’s Burn or Bury (the band’s second release) shortly after it was released in 1994, and found myself particularly excited about it because the album featured guest spots from two members of one of my all-time favorite bands (still true): Faith No More. Billy Gould, Faith No More’s bass player, does a guest spot on guitar on a pummeling, metal-laced track called “Bow Kiness Static.” And it’s cool. But what I was really excited about was hearing the guest vocals that Mike Patton contributed to the album’s opener, “Psychoanalytwist.”

Patton’s now widely known as a highly experimental vocalist, but in ’94, he was still branching out, and a vocal turn like the one he pulls out on this song, while not completely out of left field, definitely felt like a step in a new direction. And that was exciting to me. But what was really exciting, and what kept me coming back, was the song itself. Patton’s vocals end up being only one part of what is not only an infectious and catchy tune, but also an unassumingly intricate one, which covers a lot of ground in three and a half minutes.

Milk Cult – “Psychoanalytwist”
 

The song opens with heavy breathing in the right channel, followed by a Click to read the rest…