How We Listen To Music Analysis

To be an active citizen in society, we must make a decision. This decision is to participate in society, or to shun it. Both have life altering consequences. If you choose to truly shun society, you would have to live in the wilderness somewhere and be completely self-sufficient. On the other hand, choosing to an active member of society, in America, means to pay your taxes, vote in elections, and have some type of community involvement. The latter adds structure to your daily life, whereas the former is without structure. I do not think that the type of musical structure we adapt affects the type of people we are. I see music as being, primarily on the sensuous plane. As Copland says in How We Listen To Music, “Yes, the sound appeal of music is a potent and primitive force, but you must not

Ellison also talks about this in Living With Music. Ellison says “…I had been caught actively between the two: that of the Negro folk music, both sacred and profane, slave song and jazz, and that of Western classical music. It was most confusing; the folk tradition demanded that I play what I heard and felt around me, while those who were seeking to teach the classical traditional the schools insisted that I plays strictly according to the book and express that which I was supposed to feel. This sometimes led to heated clashes of will.” I too had a similar experience. When I was playing in my high school band I would always complain to my instructor about the music that we played. We played mostly classical tunes, but I wanted to play more modern music. I was then instructed to play with the jazz band if I wanted to play different music. When I joined jazz band,