Refind

Is this a guide on how to listen to music? Yes. Yes it is.

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Now, I know what you are thinking, but ever since I learned this technique it changed the way I hear music forever.

I first came across this exercise when I studied Music Technology and Production at college. The first 5-10 minutes of each lesson would begin with our teacher playing a song of his choice to the class, and he would ask us to write down, in as much detail as we could, the instruments that we could hear performing in that song.

What this exercise made us realise, is that once you start listening into a song and picking apart it’s many layers of instruments and sounds, rather than just listening to the lyrics or melodies, it changes the way you hear music as you start to pick up on all the intricate details that a song may have.

This is something I discussed in my previous blog when talking about my Desert Island Discs picks; sometimes what sounds like a simple song actually contains multiple layers of subtle elements, of which the song would not be the same without.

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There are a few great examples of bands and songs that are more complex than it seems upon your first listen, for example The 1975‘s first album. Most of the songs on this album include a faint ambient drone-type sound throughout the song.

See if you can hear it in their song Heart Out.

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Another fantastic example is in Childish Gambino’s song, Redbone, produced by Ludwig Göransson. In an interview with Genius in 2017, he deconstructs the song and discusses the writing process in how he put the song together. It is really interesting to see him essentially re-record all the layers of the song, and being able to hear the layers isolated from the rest of the music. It makes you realise, once you listen to the song again, how complex the song actually is.

You can watch this interview here…

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I urge you to give this a try. It will transform the way you hear music, and give you a deeper appreciation for your favourite music.

Thanks for reading.