Summary Of How We Listen To Music By Aaron Copland

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“How We Listen To Music” Aaron Copland
The essay "How We Listen," by Aaron Copland was published in New York, both an individual attitude and the aim attitude occur in each separate plane that is being described. The individual attitude is where everything is taking place in the listeners mind, where as they are unaffected by the world around them. Aaron Copeland stated we all listen to on three separate planes which are; the sensuous plane, the expressive plane and the sheerly musical plane.
Many people listen to the sensuous plane as described by the author as what we listen to for the sheer pleasure of the way the music sound. People hear this music without even knowing that it exists. There is an attitude being displayed here, because …show more content…

Many listeners in this plane hold an individual attitude because the music always seems to play a role in the listener’s life, where as it might reminds them of something or someone. The author talks about how the question of “how close should the intelligent music lover wish to come to pinning a definite meaning” (Copeland, 1939). It becomes personal, going in their mind the true meaning of what they are listening to, yet they are unable to explain it. This helps the listeners to experience different types of feeling. Though the author didn’t say much about the third plane which is the “sheerly musical plane” but the author explained it as the pleasurable melody sound of music and expressive feeling it brings along. The sheerly planes, the listener must know the principle of the music in order to follow the sweetest of the music. Sheerly music is easy to understand because of the melody and tune it produces.

The three planes of music are basically what we are experiencing today, which is why most people have their own genre of what they listen to. Most people feel the power and energy when listening to metal which falls under the sensuous plane, while others would take metal as their expressive plane.
The author’s tune in this essay is somewhat curious. Though it’s the suitable tune for writing; because, the author is a well known writer and composer, so everything he says is out of experience and his personal feelings towards the three planes of

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