Are you listening?

This post was contributed by the lovely Tabitha Ricks!

This month's post is on the three types of listening. Edward Kreitman says there are three types of listening: passive, parallel, and active listening.

Passive Listening

This is the type of listening done in the car or at home...or anywhere where it's not the primary activity going on.

This is the way the student learns melodies, quality of tone, and intonation.

Another good idea for this type of listening comes from Michele Horner. She calls it "listening like a maniac." Each day, you listen to the song you're on at least 10 times in a row, then switch to the next song 10 times in a row, and finally the song after that 10 times in a row. Michele Horner did this with her own daughter and was able to learn faster. I have been doing this with Seth, and it has been much easier to for him to learn the next song. One thing to mention is that it's important to listen to the rest of the CD and the other CD's also.

Parallel Listening

This type of listening is listening to the higher books while you are in a lower book. For example, listen to book 4 while you're in book 1. You should listen to all books as early as possible.

This listening builds great vision for the parent and the student (and they will know the pieces much better). It is also good to hear other classical music as much as possible.

Active/Targeted Listening

This is where you have the student listen specifically to one part of the music during practicing and hear specific detail to learn from listening.

This has been helpful to us for a couple of reasons. It has helped Seth learn the song easier, it gives him a break of playing during practicing, and it is training his mind to listen to the details of the piece. When he was learning Humoresque, I had him listen specifically to the order of the piece with the music in front of him. Since he is learning to read music, having him look at the music and identify the sections gave him confidence in reading music and added visual input to help him learn the piece. He played it in the right order a lot easier than some of the pieces before that.

Here are some examples of other questions you could ask:

"How many slurs do you hear in each line?"

"Do you hear the 1st or 2nd ending here?"

"Does this section repeat?"

"Where does the first part end?"

"Do you hear legato or staccato bowing?"

"Are the notes on or off the string?"

You can even point to the music to show how the slurs are or the staccato bowing is written...where the repeat is, or where the 1st or 2nd ending is.

All in all...KEEP LISTENING...it might save you from going crazy!!!