Music appreciation is a great place to get started in learning about creativity, everyone loves music. Although it’s a lot of fun, this workshop is really meant to be an exercise in developing our listening skills, but it is also a way for us to learn to focus in general.
Hopefully this will take you beyond the normal routine of music just being something in the background, and will get you right in to the music and learning about sound itself. The questions will help you discover what sounds do to us and for us. Every time we have done this in a corporate setting we have had an amazing time. The exercise really shows how much we can get out of taking the time for contemplation.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the best songs are where the melody sounds like the lyrics, especially true in worship music. So here’s something to think about. If we get really good at identifying particular sounds, why not reverse the process and begin to create music with what we’ve learned. The more we develop our ear, the more skillful we can become at using specific sounds that evoke the specific feeling we want the listener to experience.
Most songwriters have learned to put themselves in a place of contemplation where they consider lyric and song, but leave the rest to inspiration. We’re hoping this method will not only help get the inspiration process moving, it will help us get a little closer to hitting the target we desire.
If you come up with something, you can go to the Co-Lab Studio and post it for others to contribute.
You could also call this exercise:
Music Appreciation
Impressionistic Listening
Musical Mood Contemplation
Sound Imaging
Musical Image Reflection
Representational Sounds
How This Works
The objective is to listen to a broad variety of music from a playlist. While listening, write a description of the music as you see it fitting the categories listed below. Listen to instrumentation, tempo, and arrangement and of course, melody and key (major or minor). The goal is to develop our musical ear.
Do you hear in this musical piece a:
Picture
Emotion
Mood
Culture
Season
Impression/Sense
Graphic Images
Representation
Colours
Time of Day
Food
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
