Summary Of How We Listen By Aaron Copland

From the reading “How We Listen”, I found the ideas that Aaron Copland presented are interesting. I was entreated by his explanation of listening to music. There are three layers in listening to music, they are the sensuous plane, expressive plane, and the sheerly musical plane. I found myself mostly in the expressive plane, but lack of the awareness of listening music through a more technical mean.
Music is a form an expression, it cannot be defined by an exact word or description. Certainly, there is background information about how and why a specific piece of music is composed, but why should I describe the music by a definite word? Before I read this article, I am a fan of Tschaikovsky, his romantic music with different melodic lines really
struck out from other composers to me. Beethoven was more of someone who is hard to follow, because of his experience are distinctly different from different stages of life. I never had a chance to play a lot of his piece, I had played more piano pieces by Bach than Beethoven. I only remember two of his well-known piano pieces, Moonlight Sonata 1st Movement, and Fur Elise. Every time that I played, there is always something different that shows up in the music. Thus, I think that is why I prefer Tschaikovsky more than Beethoven. After the reading, I realize that Copland is correct, in the way that if a piece is conveying a different meaning each time that I listen, the music is more alive. It is an object, that can change, can be view differently instead of a static appearance.
Aaron Copland also pointed out a common mistake that I made during listening to music.
I was floating myself with the expressive of the music, but lack of being critical of the performance. The melodies and rhythms are often the lines that I followed the most because it mostly will stick in my head for a long while. At the same time, I also lack conscious to identify harmony and tone color that is being used in the piece. Listening to music is not only about enjoying the music itself, discovering the beauty and meaning behind each piece by my interpretation, but it also about learning and critique the music. How the harmony, dynamic and timbre structure the piece in a certain way? How does harmony make this piece convey a certain emotion? How do all these musical techniques make this piece alive? I believe this is also the true way to learn music, to understand the different eras of classical music. The Baroque Age, Classicism Age, Romantic Age and Modern Age each uses a different technique in composition. For example, Baroque Age has a signature of irregular music, many music definitions were born at that age. Classicism is more about the beauty of structure, while Romantic is about expressing the feeling. Modern Age music is a step out from Classicism and Romanism, is not about structure nor harmony, is more about unique traits and identity. Pieces from modern age often do not sound
harmonic.
Listening music is a limited step in understanding music. Understanding music requires applying critical thinking and analytical skill to a piece of performance. After reading “How We Listen” by Aaron Copland, I realize the significance of taking those music classes. I found that it is not enough to just play the music but to understand the theory and logic behind it, as well as perform the piece with my own interpretation.