The fashion, language, and even mannerisms of our favorite musicians often slowly, unconsciously, become our own.īen Ratliff, author of Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty, says that finding new music starts with overcoming our prejudices. Music tastes tend to bind social groups, draw lines around them. They signal who we are, where we see the world from: either from the edges or from the duller, denser centers.
Below is a quick, beginner’s guide to what I learned.Īs any Deadhead or Belieber will tell you, music tastes are etched deep into our identities. I reached out to various musicians and music scholars to gather some insights about how nonmusicians like myself could select and listen to music more intentionally. But music scholars insist that if we listened to music the way a musician would, understanding how notes trigger feelings, how tones take on their own textures and meanings, then we might experience something more visceral and expansive. We literally-when we forget to shut off the television or our Spotify playlists-do it in our sleep.īut sometimes I wonder what would happen if we listened harder, or better, or more rigorously. We’re often not aware we are doing it, or even fully conscious. It’s more of a sensation than activity, a dreamy, ill-defined feeling stretching through us. Listening, for most of us, doesn’t feel like doing anything. I don’t have to concentrate or pull myself in. With their frothy melodrama, Lana’s songs tend to match my postwork mood so precisely that it doesn’t feel like listening at all. More often than might be healthy, I listen to Lana Del Rey, as she cycles through her doomy refrains about how her life is over, she’s filled with poison, she’s running like mad to heaven’s door. During my hour-long commute home from work, when I’m too tired to even listen to podcasts, I listen to music.