Music is a beautiful amalgamation of the right notes, chords, and keys that offers you a way to express yourself.
Has it ever happened to you that when you hear a song, it moves you in a way that invokes various emotions? That’s the beauty of music. However, in today’s technology-driven world, most people have forgotten how to listen to music.
Yes, we know it might seem such an obvious activity to do. We all listen to music either on our mobile phones, laptops, or more such electronic devices. But do we really listen to music? Do we really get into the depth of the song we are listening to?
Not really! With such easy access to music, we haven’t trained our brains to identify the different frequencies, chord progressions, keys, and more of these fine elements of music.
And if you are an aspiring musician, composer, engineer, or producer working in Maplewood recording studio or anywhere around the world, you need to learn the art of listening to music. This will help you enhance the enjoyment of listening to the songs. Moreover, it will help you learn the qualities and differences between songs that you are working on and the songs that you appreciate listening.
So, how do you listen to music? Or rather what you should and shouldn’t do while listening to music? Let’s find out!
Avoid Listening to Music on Mobile Phone Speakers
We know that mobile phone speakers make listening to music more convenient. But the truth is that it doesn’t! If you are passionate about music, you wouldn’t want to listen to something in such a distorted manner.
Mobile phone speakers are unable to define the musical qualities of a song or composition. You can’t understand the musical nuance of a song. It doesn’t tell you how different sound frequencies are interacting with your ears and thus the brain. You can’t understand the spatial nature or arrangement of that mix. Understanding these fine qualities is crucial to recording a fantastic song mix. So, don’t play your composition or someone else’s on mobile phone speakers.
What can you do instead?
Easy! Create a link to your composition and send it to the concerned recording studio/mixer. They can now listen to the composition on high-quality speakers. This way it will be easier for them to note the finer details of composition. Even if someone wants you to listen to their composition, ask them to send a link to the same.
Develop the Habit of Listening to Albums
Whether you are an average listener or a professional working in a recording studio in St. Louis, develop a habit of listening to albums.
Why you might ask?
Well, when you start listening to a musical album,you set yourself up for two types of musical journeys. On one hand, you notice the song order of the album. And on the other hand, you notice the dynamics and arrangement order of the album. When listening to musical albums you understand how things just flow into each other.
You can identify the song arc and album arc easily once you start listening to albums without cherry-picking songs from them. Understanding these arcs gives you context and an enhanced listening experience.
Practice Active Listening
What do we mean by active listening? In simpler words, we are suggesting learning parts of the song irrespective of whether you are a professional musician or an average listener.
How can this help you?
When you start actively listening to a composition, you can slowly learn on identifying the chord progression of the song. If you don’t understand in the beginning, you can hone this skill with practice over time.
Secondly, you will start to identify the key of the composition. Once you understand this, you can determine how the melody might interact with your voice quality. Moreover, knowing about chord progression and key allows you to visualize your composition without even picking your instrument.
Another part of active listening includes identifying the different vocals in the composition. Are there any background vocals? How are the background vocals affecting the main vocals of the composition? What are the different instruments used in the composition? Asking these questions while listening to music will help you be truly inspired to create outstanding music compositions.
Bottom Line
Although listening to music seems like an obvious activity, it is truly an art! Once you have learned the art of listening to music, you will experience it like never before. You will be able to create high-quality, nuanced musical compositions that touch the heart of the listener.
To read more tips and advice on the art of music, make sure to check out our blogs on our website Kalinga Productions Studios. We are amongst the leading music recording studios in St Louis Missouri.
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