Miss Wald's Listening Guide
How to Listen
When listening to music, we need to be actively listening and thinking critically about what we hear. When you complete this assignment, I want you to write in bullet points or paragraph form, whichever will help you structure your ideas best.
Listen to each piece for your instrument at least two times. The first time you should listen for general ideas. The second time you should take note of more details. You should answer in bullet points or paragraph, whichever helps you organize your ideas best. You should write 4 bullet points or a short paragraph discussing what you heard during each listen through. This should be done for each piece in your instrument's standard repertoire Spotify playlist. Choose one movement to listen to if there are multiple movements of a given piece. The prompts below are questions to guide your thinking. You may answer them directly or take note of other musical ideas you hear.
Take note of the musicians who represent your instrument on the "Musicians" page. Please research one of them and write a short biography about them as well as a similar analysis of one of their recorded pieces.
Additionally, the jazz portion should be completed the same way as the standard repertoire portion. You will choose three jazz pieces to actively listen and write an analysis about. The first should be a Big Band Tune, the second a small ensemble tune, and the third from a specific musician's playlist. You should choose a musician who plays your instrument. If you do not play a jazz instrument, please choose one to focus on and write about.
First time through: Broad Picture
When you listen to a piece the first time you should get a few things out of it. Take note of the style. What genre of music are you listening to? What feelings are trying to be conveyed? Are there any forms you can identify (ABAB, AbAcA, trio, Da Capo, Repeats, etc.) you can identify? What meter is the piece in? What is the tonality (key if you can identify it) of the piece? What is the general shape of the dynamics? What kind of articulations did you hear? What is the range like? What extended techniques did the composer write? What makes this performance musical?
Second time through: Details
The second time you listen to a piece, I want you to listen for more details regarding the structure. Listen for melodic patterns and ideas. What direction does the melody go in? How does the harmony or accompaniment push the music forward? If there is an accompaniment, what instruments do you hear the most? How are they balanced? How does this align or differ from typical ensemble playing? Does the music pull back at all? How do the musicians maintain energy in the music even when they play softer? Do the musicians slow down when they play softer? Do they pick up the tempo when they play louder? Is there a correlation between tempo and dynamics? How does the composer transform the melody or move from one idea to another?