Listen up!

A look at listening skills and how to develop them at home.

The first step of learning a piece by rote is listening to it—but there are different types of listening and different situations in which we use them. Listening thoughtfully is a skill that is developed over time. Eventually, students will build a musical vocabulary that allows them not only to describe what they hear, but also to “think” in music and make predictions about how unfamiliar music will sound. Because rote learning is a core tenet of my teaching, listening skills are practiced at home as part of weekly assignments. The following is a realistic guide to get started with independent listening activities.

Types of Listening

Active listening occurs when music is our primary focus. When we actively listen, we make a deliberate choice to listen to music. We may also try to use what we know about music to understand what we hear.

Passive listening occurs when music is not our primary focus, but we are aware of it. We passively listen to the radio while driving or while performing other tasks.

Unconscious listening occurs when we have little awareness of the music around us. We unconsciously listen to background music at the grocery store.

Active and Passive Listening Within Rote Pieces

While working on rote pieces during at-home practice, we primarily use active listening skills. However, passive listening still has its purpose in rote music learning. I have students listen to rote pieces for several weeks before we learn them. The beginning stages of listening are often passive—we listen to a piece in the background while we unpack the student’s materials, complete a theory assignment, or play a game. This way, when it’s time to actively listen to the piece, the student is already familiar with it. Outside of lessons, a great way to passively listen to rote assignments is to play them in the car on the way to or from school.

Easy ACtive Listening Activities

Draw a Listening Map

Students might draw the direction of the melody, draw short lines for short notes and long lines for long notes, or create a combination of their own symbols to represent dynamics, form, and articulation. As they learn formal musical symbols, students may also include these in their listening maps. The youngest of students may simply draw what they think the piece is about.

An example of a listening map of “Robots” from Piano Safari Level 1 by a 7-year-old student. This piece has three distinct sections, each one at a different tempo. The melody remains the same throughout, but moves up an octave in each section. The student shows that the pitch gets higher by drawing upward lines, uses different colors to show the three different tempi, and drew a similar shapes throughout to show that the melody is the same in each section.

Move with the Form

After listening to the piece a few times, students can brainstorm movements to accompany each section. Simple movements for a piece with ABA form might look like this:

A: clap hands to the beat

B: tap knees to the beat

A: clap hands to the beat

Guided Listening Questions

Open-ended questions:

How does this piece make you feel?
What do you think this piece is about?
Do you think the piece sounds like its title?
What story do you think the music tells?

Objective questions for beginners:

Is the piece a slow, medium, or fast tempo?
What dynamic levels does the piece use?
What animal rhythms do you hear?
Does any part of the piece repeat?
What is the form of the piece (e.g. ABA)?
Is the piece in duple meter, triple meter, or something else?

Objective questions for more advanced students:

What time signature is the piece in?
What is the tonality (major, minor, something else)?
Can you name some of the musical terms you hear (e.g. crescendo, ritardando)?
What is the texture of the piece (e.g. melody with accompaniment, melody only, melody over an ostinato/repeating pattern)?