Making Music Creative Strategies

for Electronic Music Producers

Active Listening
Problem:
Although you listen to a lot of music, you dont really have a sense
that youre learning from what you listen to. You know what you like,
but you dont really understand why you like it or how to extract
compositional or technical ideas from what you hear so that you can
reuse them in your own music.
For most people, listening to music is a passive experience. We turn music on but
then engage in another primary activity. The music is playing, and were loosely
aware of it, but its serving a decorative or soundtrack-like purpose for whatever
else were doing. Although this is certainly better than not listening to music at all,
you can learn more if you spend at least some time engaged in active listening.

Solution:
Active listening simply means listening as the primary activity, and its an
important skill to develop. Rather than using music as the background for another
activity, try listening without doing anything else. This requires time, quiet, and
focus, which are skills you need for your own production work anyway. A good way
to start is by just putting on some music and then turning your attention to it
entirely. If youre listening at your computer, close any open applications (and,
ideally, your eyes as well). At this point, youre not trying to listen with a particular
focus, but rather a general one. If you can concentrate and avoid distraction, youll
be amazed by how much more you hear than in a passive listening state.
The next step in active listening is to start trying to deconstruct whats happening
in the music youre listening to. Here are some tips for doing this:

Listen in Layers
A great way to actively listen is to listen to the same piece multiple times and force
yourself to focus on a different specific parameter each time. For example, spend
one pass listening only for:
Sound: What are the timbral characteristics of this music? What instruments are

used? What is the texture (dense vs. sparse)? Are there some specific production
techniques that you recognize (either from your own or other music)? What kind of
acoustic space is suggested by the music (dry vs. reverberant, near vs. far, etc.)?
Harmony: What key (if any) is the song in? What chords are used? Is there a chord
progression that happens throughout, or does it change from section to section? If
there are no overt chords (as in some minimal or experimental music), is harmony
implied in another way?
Melody: Whats happening in the melody? Does it have a wide or narrow range?
What is its general contour: Angular, with lots of leaps? Stepwise, with motion
mostly by one or two semitones? What instrument or voice has the melody? Does
this ever change? If there is no overt melody (as in some minimal or experimental
music), is melody implied in another way?
Rhythm: How are events distributed within short time ranges like a bar or phrase?
Are there patterns that repeat, or do rhythmic gestures happen only once? Are
rhythms and tempo overtly identifiable, or is the music free and largely arrhythmic?
What instruments have the most impact on the rhythm? What do the less rhythmic
instruments do?
Form: How does the song evolve over time? Are there clear sectional divisions or
are there Fuzzy Boundaries between regions? What defines one section versus
another? Do certain instruments play only in some sections or is the
instrumentation the same in every section?
Additionally, if there are specific instrumental or vocal parts that youd like to
understand better, try spending an entire listening pass focusing entirely on only
one part. For example, the best way to learn how the bass line works in a particular
song is to tune out everything else and focus just on the bass line.

Listen in Chunks
By isolating and looping short durations of music, you can more easily focus on the
specific parameters or instruments discussed earlier. The best tool for this is your
DAW. Try loading the song you want to listen to into your DAWs timeline, adjust the
project tempo to match the song, and then set the loop to a short regionone or
two bars or, at most, a single musical phrase. Listen to this loop as many times as
necessary in order to really hear whats happening in the parameter youre
listening for. Then advance to the next chunk and repeat. When youre done, go
back to the beginning and gradually expand the loop length so that youre
covering a larger amount of time in a single listening pass. Listening in chunks like
this is also a great way to learn or memorize a particular part by ear.

Listen Subjectively
In addition to helping you learn how a particular piece of music works, active
listening can also help you understand your subjective responses to music. For
example, are there particular aspects of the song that sound familiar, nostalgic,
emotional, etc.? Can you explain why (perhaps with reference to the parameters
discussed earlier)? When listening passively, its common to have some kind of
emotional response. But via active listening, you have a chance to understand
what it is, specifically, that causes that response. And once you understand a
technique or musical gesture, youll be able to adapt it for use in your own music.

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