Whether we are teachers, performers, or CEOs, we all function less well when our audience isn’t paying attention.When an oblivious audience member whispers or flips pages during a live performance, it sends internal frustration to everyone onstage and in the hall. From Shakespeare’s King Lear to the TV hit “Succession,” we are warned of what happens when people don’t listen.
Effective listening is the communications glue that holds together corporations, organizations, and national politics. But the American obsession around “dominating the conversation” and “building a personal brand” obliterates our ability to listen to others. Noise pollution and social media further undermine our listening powers. This leads to increasing anxiety and disconnection, and affects the close relationships essential to our well-being.
Mental noise is a vicious cycle. Our reactivity to it is also anxiety-producing: we are anxious about feeling anxious. When our individual listening is compromised, it creates more chaos and doubt for our collective.
The rich environment of classical music can redirect and anchor our minds to an aesthetic moment of beauty that reminds us to celebrate the human capacity to be conscious. Then the noise melts away.
Mindfulness, a common word these days, means being fully attentive in the present moment. In contrast, focus is the skill of putting attention on one thing. Mindfulness opens up new possibilities, while focus zooms in.
There are many piecemeal solutions for mindfulness on the market, but if we want to cultivate long-term adaptive change, we need something multi-dimensional. As a concert pianist and educator, I help people become mindful through conscious listening to classical music. In helping people value their curiosity and collective music listening, I have found that mindfulness improves and grows. As they become more aware of breathing, emotions, and beauty, listeners can be guided away from a fear of embarrassment to a place of wonder.
This wonder is what motivated me to embrace a career as a musician. My flow of consciousness was amplified whenever I played the piano. Through the anticipation and fulfillment of phrases, the variety of textures, and the surprises of dynamic changes from shouts to whispers, I felt my senses come to life.
The beauty of this virtuous cycle lies in how our audio-sensory enjoyment motivates our anticipation and desire, which then increases our mindfulness as we try to notice and absorb more.
But a listener does not need to be a trained musician to reap the benefits. True music appreciation does not hinge on how well someone can transcribe harmonies or analyze rhythms; it is a rich layering of learning experiences.
The most common method of cultivating mindfulness is through using breath. But that can be challenging when the pressure to become mindful itself produces anxiety. The nervous system is sensitive; it cannot be forced into doing anything. A better way to relax is to engage first and then allow the flow of energy to create tension and release in an arc, creating an anticipation and then fulfilling it in the dorsal striatum reward system part of the brain.
This is exactly what listening to musical harmony does. Chords in a harmonic progression create tension and release in an energy flow by increasing and then resolving dissonances – the notes that don’t naturally belong in the chords. This resolution closes the loop and relaxes the brain. My students find it is easier to be mindful when focusing on the arc of the music, rather than trying to focus in the vacuum of silence.
Whereas lengthy silence can cause people to feel pressured or bored,, music can be an enjoyable companion. Research shows that music pleasure emerges from the interaction between our anticipation of upcoming sound through our reward system and the actual pleasing sound itself. Feeling the pacing of time as we approach the harmonic arrival increases our mindfulness.
Anyone can immediately use musical flow to become mindful of time. Following a melodic line is a more rewarding way to stay focused than thinking, “I must not have a single thought in my head.” Deep breathing to a musical phrase is much easier than dryly counting your breath. Music allows us to aerate our experience rather than hold our breath in order to focus.
While the broad term “classical music” encompasses four hundred years of multiple genres of notated art music, they all share a common thread of interplay between elements. To be sure, one can listen to any music in a mindless way. But the layers of emotion and details that classical composers embed in their music rewards those who listen deeply.
Compare easygoing massage music that lulls a person out of thinking – to the multiple voices in J.S. Bach’s compositions that inspire mental calm and clarity through their coordinated interaction. Compare the simplistic repeating chords of much commercial pop music – to the visceral tension and release patterns in the passionate harmonies of Sergei Rachmaninoff. Even if one has never gone to a classical concert, these multidimensional concepts have greatly influenced everything from Phish to Emerson, Lake & Palmer to action movie scores.
Practicing these listening skills regularly has improved my adult students’ confidence to both discuss the complexities of music and stay more relaxed and present in their wider environment. Better listeners are more adaptive in this noisy world, and they also improve the listening environment for others. And when we are surrounded by people who model good listening, not only do we feel we matter more, but as social creatures we reciprocate by making others feel heard too.
