Derek Reaban

Manny,

I’ve been considering the listening process lately. Most, if not all, teachers and players recommend daily listening to their students in order to plant the seeds for a great internal sound concept. The better that a player can imagine what they want the horn to sound like, the closer they will come to this goal. And the best way to do this is through frequent and detailed listening.

I thought it would be interesting to see how people spend their listening days (on average) against a somewhat subjective scale. I know that players will say, “I listen to music 3 hours a day” or maybe “I wish I had time to listen to more music. At most I listen to the classical or jazz station on the way to work or school”.

So, this is a poll directed at focused listening for learning purposes (study literature). Background music will get very low scores on this poll.

I found an old post that I wrote about the different kinds of listening that seems to be appropriate to add to this message:

With the noise of daily life, I feel like my regular listening is typically in the “passive” listening range (I don’t even turn on the radio in my car – all study music all the time given my limited listening time). Even then, I feel that my passive listening could be better.

Here’s the best “subjective” scale that I can come up with…

100 - Score open, earplug type (sound canceling) earphones, in a quiet room alone with a world class recording, singing passages frequently
90 - Score open, in front of your home stereo, in a quiet room alone with a world class recording singing passages frequently
85 - Sitting on stage with a full-time orchestra in rehearsal
80 - Score open, in front of your home stereo, air conditioning on, noises in other rooms, listening to a world class recording (singing occasionally)
75 - Attending a live concert of a quality ensemble as an audience member
70 - Driving with earplug type earphones, listening to a world class recording
60 - Driving with the CD player on, listening to a world class recording
50 - Driving with the CD player on, the air conditioning on full blast, listening to a world class recording

I think that all of us would like to spend as much time in the active listening mode as possible. I like this quote from Phil Myers (Principal Horn in the New York Philharmonic):

For an average week, where would you put the quality of your listening to “study music”. If you do some work with the score in active listening and some work in the car as passive listening, take an average of the scores.

I find myself between a 50 and a 60 (the drive home from work is with the air on full blast in the car for the majority of the drive) and I know that the quality of the sound that I am hearing is reduced because of this. I could sing much more than I currently do, and take little credit for this in my preparation (a very honest personal evaluation). Given that I play along with the CDs that I am listening to during my daily practice right now (reading the part), I would put my average score in the 75 range.

After you put in a number for the poll, if you would like to detail an average week of your study music listening approach, I would certainly like to read about it!

Thanks for taking the poll!

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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona

dizforprez

I actively listen to my middle school band students, does that count as time ?



the rest of the time I spend listening is to clean my ears

mike ansberry

I hate to admit it, but most of the listening I do falls into the passive catagory. There just aren't enough hours in the day to be a father, husband, teacher, player and to get a lot of high quality listening in. On the other hand, I can probably sing all the parts on most of my favorite world class recordings. I guess that is kind of close. The only time I get active listening in is when I'm working on new music for a job. This is one thing I miss about my youth. Some of my favorite times were spent with friends playing a game that I like to call "check this out". We'd bring what we considered our most astounding recordings to friends houses, have a few beers, and try to amaze our friends. That is where I first heard Edward Tarr, Stan Kenton (50's band with Buddy Brassballs and Maynard Fergueson), Gerard Schwartz, and a bunch more.

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"Music is a fire in your belly that has to come out of your mouth, so you'd better put a horn in the way before someone gets hurt" (paraphrase of Bleeding Gums Murphy)