The Power of Listening

I often tell people that I wasn't really musical until I started taking piano lessons at the age of 26, but that statement isn't entirely true. I did have some early music experiences that helped me become the musician I am today. My uncle taught me how to whistle when I was five years old, and to this day I still whistle whenever I am happy. Then when I was thirteen I joined the church choir and have been participating ever since. But there was something even more important to my development than these avenues of musical expression: listening.

The benefits of having listened to music for more than two decades before learning to play an instrument weren't obvious at first, when I was still focusing on rudimentary note reading and fingering skills. But as soon as I started to learn some chord-style piano techniques I began to add embellishments to songs and make them "my own." One of the first songs I learned that sounded like "real" music to me was the song "Moon River" by Henry Mancini, which has long been a favorite of mine. Over the years I made small changes to my arrangement of "Moon River"--tweaking notes here and there, substituting chords, etc., until I realized that "my" version sounded very much like a version I had listened to frequently about a decade previously. This revelation--that I had been slowly transforming a song into something that so closely resembled music I had heard many years before--was surprising, and the fact that I had been doing it without any conscious thought whatsoever opened my eyes to the true power of listening.

There are two ways to learn rhythm: by looking at music notation or by hearing a song. I encourage my students to develop both skills. Being able to play rhythms simply by looking at them allows them to play songs they have never heard before, but being able to listen to a song and get the rhythm into their heads can also be extremely useful. There are some music teachers that refuse to play a song that a student is learning to play because they want to ensure that their students are actually reading the notes and not just trying to play by ear. I understand where they are coming from, because it's important for students to develop basic note reading competency. But once my students reach a certain point I usually agree to play through a new song once for them so they can at least know what they are working towards. This is because I recognize the power of listening, and in my own experience it is the combination of note reading and listening skills that enables expressive playing.

For several years I wanted to learn to play the song "Killing Me Softly." I had the sheet music, but my attempts were less than satisfying. I didn't have a lot of spare time to count the rhythms and play through the song with a metronome (which was my typical approach), but while I was at work one day I decided to put on headphones and listen to the recorded version of the song repeatedly throughout the day. The next time I sat down at the piano I was looking at the very same notes I had tried to play before, but this time I knew the song inside and out and was able to play it quite well. This experience convinced me of the power of listening, and ever since it has been one of the secret weapons I use to enhance my playing.