This is why you have not been able to Appreciate a Piece of Music: Your Problem Solved...

I once told a friend that music and the way we perceive each note and the melody that comes from the combination of these notes differs within us as individuals. Just as we see in the real world today where someone feels good enjoying a Burger meal with a bottle of soda while another will prefer to enjoy the same Burger meal with a bottle of water or even a bottle of beer because of what I call individual preference.

This is what happens when it comes to the perception of music. Each time I hear how people condemn a particular piece of music either because it is not of their musical world culture (does not come from their region or country) or because they are not open to listening to that particular genre of music, it makes me sick because I believe they have made themselves to have a myopic appreciation of music. This is one of the greatest threats music as an art faces in our world today. I am not just writing this because I want to but it is because I have seen a lot of loopholes when it comes to our level of musical appreciation.

This article is intended to spur you to see music in a broader form and not as a one-sided piece of art. If you have had the opportunity of attending an art exhibition, you will understand that art is not and should not be perceived with a closed eye i.e. myopic sense of reasoning. The word Art is more than you can imagine and the only way to swim in its ocean is by opening your inner mind because art deals more with the inner mind than the physical.

This is seen when an artist carves, paints or writes either a piece of music or poetry and he is asked what inspired him, you will begin to hear things that may be very hard for you to understand. This is because he is more connected to the spiritual than the physical i.e. what the eyes see is translated into the inner mind to give it millions of ways to express it in another form. I would want you to try and understand what I am talking about in this article because I believe that the understanding you will get will go a long way to affect the way you appreciate a work of art, especially music.

The Perception of Music

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In other to break this down in such a way that will be easy for everyone to understand, I will give an analogy of what I have been practising over the years when it comes to musical perception. These three things are what I call The Human Behavioural Pattern towards Appreciation of a Piece of Music. This is completely my thought which came as a result of my years of practice in the music sphere, therefore, I would not say that it must be the same for everyone but I believe that a lot of people may have had a similar experience when it comes to appreciating a piece of music. What are these three behavioural patterns? They are: (LACE).

• ·        Listening

• ·        Acceptance

• ·        Enjoyment

I will try as much as I can to break it down in a way that you can be able to relate it to yourself as regards your musical appreciation. Let us look at the first one.

Listening

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Listening deals with the ear as an organ of the body and in all my life I don’t think I have seen someone born without the ear lobes on his head. What this means is that we are created to listen to each other. Another thing we must know is that listening can only occur through hearing. You cannot listen to someone if you cannot hear clearly whatever they are saying at a given moment. Therefore, for you to say you are listening to a piece of music, you must be sure that you can hear it very clearly and for a given duration.

When we hear, we are led to listen which take us to the gate of understanding. Now, let us look at what happens to us when we try to listen to a piece of music. At the moment we hear a song either from the introductory part (prelude), middle section or the end, what happens is that most of us do not give a particular song the desired time or duration for us to truly hear what it has to offer even before we begin to criticise it. This happens mostly when the artist is not well known or the beat is not the type of vibe we want. This will make us either fast forward the song or change it entirely.

Once we do that, we have succeeded in not hearing the song which will hinder us from listening to it and by so doing we will end up not appreciating it. So in summary on the aspect of listening to a song, we must make sure that we can hear the song up to a given duration or if possible we should allow the song to play out but not without listening to it. You know that listening comes in two forms i.e.: the Active and Passive forms of listening but the best form of listening is the active form which takes away every form of criticism, bias or distractions.

Acceptance

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Acceptance is the second in the pattern because it is only facilitated through active listening. You cannot accept a piece of music if you do not listen to it for some time. There is something that happens when you give a listening ear to a piece of music and that thing is what leads to acceptance of the piece. As you are listening, you will begin to hear notes, punch lines, the lyrical flow and the meanings it carries and also you will begin to hear most especially the vocal texture of the artist. These are some of the things that will make you accept a piece of music and once there is an acceptance, you will automatically find yourself in the next pattern which is enjoyment.

Enjoyment

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Just as I have stated above, you will notice the patterns and the way they were flowing from one to the other. Now, for you to enjoy a piece of music you would have seen in this article that it requires some form of commitment which must be flowed carefully. First, you must listen to the song by allowing it to play more than ones and as you listen to it, you will begin to accept the hidden treasures of that particular piece and once the appreciation level increases, you see that your body will begin to enjoy the song either by nodding of the head, shaking of the body even as you are seated or by completely dancing to the song. This enjoyment level can be noticed when you see yourself putting a particular song on repeat in your playlist.

When next you hear a song, do not be quick to judge the piece of music without doing these things I have outlined and tagged as the human Behavioural Pattern towards the Appreciation of a Piece of Music.

I hope I have been able to inform you and not deform you through this article.

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