How We Listen

Aaron Copland How We Listen

This essay How We Listen by Aaron Copland deals with the three ways in which we listen to music. The three planes he talks about are sensory, expressive, and musical. Copland begins the essay with the simplest way of listening to music, or the sensuous plane. This is when we listen to music simply just for pleasure. It does not require any thought process. It’s a way of listening to music subconsciously. Copland says most of us listen to music in this particular way. Although others may feel more sensitive to the music and begin to like different composers. When this occurs he calls it the expressive plane. This is the part of music that becomes controversial. Every piece has some sort of expressive power behind it. Sometimes the meaning comes off