Lexicon Listen

The simple act of listening, when we allow ourselves to actively engage in it, can be an exhilarating, magical experience says music writer Niall Doherty

Listen

Verb, give one’s attention to a sound.

What are you doing when you’re listening? In the age of distraction, perhaps it’s something we’re not always consciously aware of. The composer Phillip Glass had some thoughts on the subject. “The problem with listening, of course, is that we don’t,” he said. “There’s too much noise going on in our heads, so we never hear anything.”

Glass’s remarks were made at the close of the 1990s, before subsequent decades significantly advanced technology – and, arguably, diminished our attention span. “In an era of fighting for attention between apps and tech and scrolling down, it’s like we’ve come full circle from the fifties, when pop music first came in and vinyl records were two and a half-to-three minutes long,” says Christian Wright, a mastering engineer at Abbey Road Studios. “Pop music now is defined by people’s attention spans. The song lengths are shorter and choruses are generally back at the front of tracks.”

In the face of oversaturation, perhaps we should be listening more intently than ever before. Last year, when the world slowed down, almost to a halt, our routines changed overnight. For those of us, like me, who were used to commuting, hours previously spent inside our headphones listening to new records, old records, indulging in ambient dreaminess on tired evenings and synth-pop bangers as a morning jumpstart were suddenly non-existent. As the weeks rolled by I realised that music was on in the house, but how I was listening had warped: I wasn’t, really. There is nothing like the feeling of falling in love with a piece of music for the first time, forging an emotional connection with sound and the worlds being built between your ears – and it was this connection I was no longer experiencing. “Music is supposed to make you feel good,” said Daptone record label boss Gabriel Roth. Not only that, but this simple act of listening, when we allow ourselves to actively engage in it, can be an exhilarating, magical experience.

In the face of oversaturation, perhaps we should be listening more intently than ever before. Last year, when the world slowed down, almost to a halt, our routines changed overnight. For those of us, like me, who were used to commuting, hours previously spent inside our headphones listening to new records, old records, indulging in ambient dreaminess on tired evenings and synth-pop bangers as a morning jumpstart were suddenly non-existent. As the weeks rolled by I realised that music was on in the house, but how I was listening had warped: I wasn’t, really. There is nothing like the feeling of falling in love with a piece of music for the first time, forging an emotional connection with sound and the worlds being built between your ears – and it was this connection I was no longer experiencing. “Music is supposed to make you feel good,” said Daptone record label boss Gabriel Roth. Not only that, but this simple act of listening, when we allow ourselves to actively engage in it, can be an exhilarating, magical experience.

In the face of oversaturation, perhaps we should be listening more intently than ever before. Last year, when the world slowed down, almost to a halt, our routines changed overnight. For those of us, like me, who were used to commuting, hours previously spent inside our headphones listening to new records, old records, indulging in ambient dreaminess on tired evenings and synth-pop bangers as a morning jumpstart were suddenly non-existent. As the weeks rolled by I realised that music was on in the house, but how I was listening had warped: I wasn’t, really. There is nothing like the feeling of falling in love with a piece of music for the first time, forging an emotional connection with sound and the worlds being built between your ears – and it was this connection I was no longer experiencing. “Music is supposed to make you feel good,” said Daptone record label boss Gabriel Roth. Not only that, but this simple act of listening, when we allow ourselves to actively engage in it, can be an exhilarating, magical experience.

To hear is the physical means that enables perception.
To listen is to give attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically.”

Listening requires not only attention, but empathy

Some musicians have explored ways to take you deeper into the cave. In 1989, experimental artist Pauline Oliveros invented the concept of “deep listening” with her pioneering Sonic Meditations texts, a collection of work intended to expand consciousness, a “tuning of mind and body”. “I differentiate to hear and to listen,” she wrote. “To hear is the physical means that enables perception. To listen is to give attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically.” This idea of radical attentiveness – being aware of listening as an actively empathetic act – became her life’s work, through the music she made, talks she gave, books she wrote and more. Oliveros urged us to become aware of what we give to the ways of how we listen and indulge our own capacity to receive and engage with what we hear, similarly to how we would listen to a person. How do we judge what we hear, she asked? And how willing are we to accept new information and experiences we hear?

The flipside of Oliveros’ transcendental recordings is muzak, a brand of background music conceived in 1930s America. While we can all easily recall their tones, these are bland sounds designed to exist on the periphery of our inner worlds – they become embedded in our conscience over time, sure, but by way of osmosis in moments of idly passing time. Here, we’re almost asked not to listen too carefully or attentively. Similarly, the world of ambient music introduces us to a multitude of ways to listen that don’t always require us to be active participants of sound. In the liner notes for his game-changing record Music For Airports, Brian Eno wrote that it was music designed to “accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.”

That was back in 1978, but it’s an apt description of the music being made by modern artists such as Max Richter, Nils Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen. They’re among the sonic visionaries who have brought neo-classical into the mainstream. Their records are slow and beautiful, where it sometimes feels like nothing is happening until you switch it off – and, suddenly, the room changes colour. The message is that life is chaotic: great music slows the world down.

The flipside of Oliveros’ transcendental recordings is muzak, a brand of background music conceived in 1930s America. While we can all easily recall their tones, these are bland sounds designed to exist on the periphery of our inner worlds – they become embedded in our conscience over time, sure, but by way of osmosis in moments of idly passing time. Here, we’re almost asked not to listen too carefully or attentively. Similarly, the world of ambient music introduces us to a multitude of ways to listen that don’t always require us to be active participants of sound. In the liner notes for his game-changing record Music For Airports, Brian Eno wrote that it was music designed to “accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.”

That was back in 1978, but it’s an apt description of the music being made by modern artists such as Max Richter, Nils Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen. They’re among the sonic visionaries who have brought neo-classical into the mainstream. Their records are slow and beautiful, where it sometimes feels like nothing is happening until you switch it off – and, suddenly, the room changes colour. The message is that life is chaotic: great music slows the world down.

The flipside of Oliveros’ transcendental recordings is muzak, a brand of background music conceived in 1930s America. While we can all easily recall their tones, these are bland sounds designed to exist on the periphery of our inner worlds – they become embedded in our conscience over time, sure, but by way of osmosis in moments of idly passing time. Here, we’re almost asked not to listen too carefully or attentively. Similarly, the world of ambient music introduces us to a multitude of ways to listen that don’t always require us to be active participants of sound. In the liner notes for his game-changing record Music For Airports, Brian Eno wrote that it was music designed to “accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.”

That was back in 1978, but it’s an apt description of the music being made by modern artists such as Max Richter, Nils Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen. They’re among the sonic visionaries who have brought neo-classical into the mainstream. Their records are slow and beautiful, where it sometimes feels like nothing is happening until you switch it off – and, suddenly, the room changes colour. The message is that life is chaotic: great music slows the world down.

It matters how the sound is delivered

The same song can mean different things to different people, but the way we listen can also give individuals varying experiences of the same track. “If you turn the lights off, lie on your back and put headphones on, psychoacoustically you are going to have a different perception of the sound versus being in a well-lit room, perhaps a mastering room like the one I’m in right now,” says Christian Wright. “Psychoacoustics play a massive factor in things.”

Listening to music actually produces neurochemicals that make you feel happy.”

Take Blur’s The Universal as an example. Say you stuck it on late at a party – a communal, cathartic singalong. Listen alone on headphones, however, and all that outward projection turns in on itself, the euphoric transforms into melancholy. You need both of those things; they’re the emotional kicker you get from music. Gabriel Roth, Daptone’s label boss, wasn’t being flippant when he said that music makes you feel good: listening to music actually produces neurochemicals that make you feel happy. And then there’s the mental health benefits you can get from your favourite record. Some songs take the weight off in the same way a good conversation does.

It felt stupid the first time I wrote “listen to music” on a to-do list back at the start of lockdown. But it was worth it. Now, placing my headphones over my ears I can be transported, even for just a few undisturbed moments. So what are we doing when we’re listening? We’re engaging in another world. The only thing we need to think about is how.

Take Blur’s The Universal as an example. Say you stuck it on late at a party – a communal, cathartic singalong. Listen alone on headphones, however, and all that outward projection turns in on itself, the euphoric transforms into melancholy. You need both of those things; they’re the emotional kicker you get from music. Gabriel Roth, Daptone’s label boss, wasn’t being flippant when he said that music makes you feel good: listening to music actually produces neurochemicals that make you feel happy. And then there’s the mental health benefits you can get from your favourite record. Some songs take the weight off in the same way a good conversation does.

It felt stupid the first time I wrote “listen to music” on a to-do list back at the start of lockdown. But it was worth it. Now, placing my headphones over my ears I can be transported, even for just a few undisturbed moments. So what are we doing when we’re listening? We’re engaging in another world. The only thing we need to think about is how.

Take Blur’s The Universal as an example. Say you stuck it on late at a party – a communal, cathartic singalong. Listen alone on headphones, however, and all that outward projection turns in on itself, the euphoric transforms into melancholy. You need both of those things; they’re the emotional kicker you get from music. Gabriel Roth, Daptone’s label boss, wasn’t being flippant when he said that music makes you feel good: listening to music actually produces neurochemicals that make you feel happy. And then there’s the mental health benefits you can get from your favourite record. Some songs take the weight off in the same way a good conversation does.

It felt stupid the first time I wrote “listen to music” on a to-do list back at the start of lockdown. But it was worth it. Now, placing my headphones over my ears I can be transported, even for just a few undisturbed moments. So what are we doing when we’re listening? We’re engaging in another world. The only thing we need to think about is how.

Niall Doherty is a writer for The Guardian, Variety, Apple Music and the former Deputy Editor of Q.

He co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue.

Lexicon of Sound