What to Listen for in Music
by Aaron Copland
ISBN: 0451627350
Read: 15 March 2011

Generally speaking, this is a good book for beginners approaching music, and above all approaching the act of listening. It stresses how important listening is, both in music and in life, as a way to understand other people better.

That said, I found it a bit snobbish where it discusses so-called popular music (pop) versus so-called serious music (classical, jazz, and so on). To quote the book: "Popular music has a special purpose: to entertain while demanding the least amount of effort on the part of those exposed. To attempt to compare the worth of popular music with that of so-called serious music is a non-issue."

Personally, I do not think there is any gap between pop and serious music. Music is just music. Why label it as serious or popular? Do we need to lock it in a cell and sort it into genres? I do not think so, but people love to define things, I guess because they are afraid of the unknown.

I also do not like how the author frames composers, often describing them as a kind of elite who can listen better and manipulate sounds in ways others cannot. But we are all born with the same listening potential; we can all hear in the same way. It is only a matter of practice.

Anyway, here are my notes.

1. Preliminaries

"The destiny of a piece of music, while basically in the hands of the composer and performer, also depends on the attitude and ability of the listener."

"Are you hearing everything that is going on? Are you really being sensitive to it?"

"If you want to understand music better, you can do nothing more important than listen to it."

"You must be able to relate what you hear at any given moment to what has just happened before and what is about to come afterward. In other words, music is an art that exists in point of time. In that sense it is like a novel."

2. How we listen

Sensuous plane. "The simplest way of listening to music is to listen for the sheer pleasure of the musical sound itself." "This plane is the plane on which we listen to music without thinking, without considering it in a way." "Music lovers go to concerts in order to lose themselves. They use music as a consolation or an escape."

Expressive plane. "What the piece is about." "Simple-minded souls always want music to have a meaning, and the more concrete it is, the better they like it, the more expressive it appears to be to them." "What they really mean is that no appropriate word can be found to express the music's meaning."

Sheerly musical plane. "Music does exist in terms of the notes themselves and of their manipulation."

3. The creative process

"Composing to composers is like fulfilling a natural function." "The way in which a composer writes is a personal matter. The method is unimportant. It is the result that counts."

  • Spontaneously inspired composers (Schubert type): "Music simply wells out of him. He cannot get it down on paper fast enough." "They work better with shorter forms."
  • Constructive composers (Beethoven type): "The composer really does begin with a musical theme."
  • Traditionalist composers (Bach type): "They improved on what had gone before them."
  • Pioneer composers (Mussorgsky or Debussy type): "They seek to add new harmonies, new sonorities, new formal principles."

"The composition must have a beginning, a middle and an end." "Every good piece of music must give us a sense of flow, a sense of continuity from first note to last."