Why Do We Listen To Music?

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From the course by Berklee College of Music

The Art of Music Production

680 ratings

Berklee College of Music

The Art of Music Production

680 ratings

Course 1 of 4 in the Specialization Music Production

Explore the art of record production and how to make recordings that other people will love listening to. This course will teach you how to make emotionally moving recordings on almost any recording equipment, including your phone or laptop. The emphasis is on mastering tangible artistic concepts; the gear you use is up to you. You will learn to develop the most important tool in the recording studio: your ears. You will learn to enhance every aspect of your own productions, both sonically and musically, by employing deeper listening skills. Assignments will include posting your own recordings for peer review, and reviewing your classmates’ work by employing specific tools and strategies. If you use a digital audio workstation to record and mix, that’s great, but as long as you can record into your computer and post an MP3, you can complete the assignments. As you learn about the art of record production in this 4-week course, you will also learn about yourself and who you are as an artist and producer. It is not necessary that you read music or play an instrument to take this course.

From the lesson

Listening Like A Producer

By the end of this lesson, you’ll understand the concepts of listening to music emotionally and technically. Strategies for maintaining objectivity and using kinesthetic observations to discover musical effectiveness will be internalized. You’ll train yourself to make distinctions on what works and what doesn’t work, rather than just passively listening as a fan.

Make It Sound Like A Record0:53

Why Do We Listen To Music?3:15

Listening Emotionally vs. Listening Technically2:20

Kinesthetic Observation - Emotional Cues4:57

Elements of A Compelling Musical Recording4:13

Letting Go Of Prejudice2:51

Meet the Instructors

Stephen Webber
Director of Music Production, Technology and Innovation
Berklee

[MUSIC]

Why do we listen to music?

What do you think?

And while you're contemplating that, let me ask you another question.

What is the one talent that all effective

recording artists must have?

Now this is a talent that is shared by Miles Davis and Miley Cyrus.

What do you think, what do those two recording artists have in common?

What does NWA have in common with Doris Day, for instance?

What skill, what talent do both of those artists share?

What about the jazz pianist Bill Evans?

What talent, what skill does Bill Evans have in common with Deadmau5?

Two entirely different styles of music, but they share the same talent.

I would put forth to you that the one non-negotiable

talent that all recording artists must possess,

it is the ability to convey emotion through music.

Now, if you think about recording artists,

a lot of them deal with a very specific palette of emotions.

Think of Rage Against The Machine, for instance.

You know exactly what you're signing up for

when you put on a Rage Against The Machine record, because the name of the emotion

that they tend to convey is right there in the title of the group.

Other artists will sometimes put the emotion that they're trying to convey

right there in the title of the song.

Think about Happy, by Pharrell.

Or, Dont Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin several years before.

People like Bruce Springsteen deal in a palette of emotion that includes

inspiration and nostalgia.

Great albums, too, are incredible conveyors of an emotional palette.

Think about Kind of Blue by Miles Davis.

The best selling jazz record of all time has a very specific palette of emotion.

So you know that that's the perfect record to put on if you're going to be fixing

dinner for your lover, your husband or wife, or boyfriend, or girlfriend and

you want to have a nice romantic evening that's going to be sensuous or

contemplative.

And that's going to set that emotional palette.

Thriller, by Michael Jackson,

again has the name of the emotion right there in the title.

It's very thrilling.

It's very exhilarating.

It's very exciting.

So the way that music makes us feel is really why we go there in the first place.

Maya Angelou had a really interesting thing to say about this when she said,

I've learned that people will forget what you say, people will forget what you do,

but people will never forget how you made them feel.

How we make our audience members feel when we make a recording

is the most important thing that we do when we set out to make a record.

So think about that when you're making your recordings.

We're going to explore how to do that in this course.

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