Music is a wonderful thing that gives a lot of people a lot of pleasure. However, have you ever wanted to appreciate the music you listen to even more than you do? Have you ever wanted to get more deeply into it and understand it better rather than just having a surface-level enjoyment of it? If so, here are some of the things you can do to make that happen.
Try New Things
At some point, we find a certain type of music (or even a certain artist) and stick with it. In fact, studies have even shown that after a while, we stop enjoying new music, and that’s why we keep going back to the tried and tested tunes we’ve loved for a long time.
Of course, that is a generalization, and unless you try new things, you’ll just never know. So why not? By diversifying your playlist even a little, you might come across some wonderful and unexpected pleasures and treasures that open you up a little more to what great music can be like. You’re not going to like everything, but if you want to appreciate music more, trying new genres and artists is a great idea.
Learn To Play
Another excellent way to appreciate music more is to learn to play it yourself. When you can read sheet music, when you understand how harmonies work, when you know more about what goes into creating music in general, you’re sure to have a better appreciation for it when you listen to it.
You don’t have to become an expert in playing whatever instrument you’ve chosen, but having a little knowledge and the ability to play some simple tunes is a great place to start – it’ll open up all music much more for you, ensuring you can get more deeply into the mechanics of it, rather than just what you hear as the finished result.
Practice Active Listening
How do you listen to music at the moment? For a lot of people, it’s something that’s on in the background while they clean the house, cook dinner, read a book, or drive their car, for example. And although it’s great that you can fit music into your life like this, the issue is that when you’re multitasking, you’re not really getting the full experience of a piece of music – that only comes with active listening.
What do we mean by active listening? Active listening means really immersing yourself in the music you’re listening to – it means only listening to the music and not doing anything else or being distracted. In this way, you can hear all the little intricacies that you might have missed otherwise, and you’ll get a better understanding of the piece.
If you want to try this, you’ll need to set some time aside specifically to listen to your music, and you’ll want to be in a place where you’re not going to be disturbed. When you can really listen to the music, you’ll appreciate every note, making it all that more special.
