Day 6 - 75 -- Power in Listening

Saturday brought the usual weekend household chores, which I completed earlier in the day. By mid-afternoon, I settled into my homework from the music course. The next listening quiz occurs on Wednesday. This listening list contains 63 songs. The first two quizzes had fewer songs -- 20 and 30. These quizzes remind me of the television program from eons ago -- Name that Tune <smile>. We hear a segment of the song and have two questions to answer -- generally the artist name and the song title. It is possible that there would be a question about a group to ask who played which instrument or which name wasn't part of the group. Happily, the questions are multiple choice. I've always said that if life were multiple choice, I'd be fine. I've had difficulty with nouns and names since early adulthood but can recognize the correct name when I hear or read it. Fill-in-the-blank questions would be disastrous <smile>. The afternoon, then, was spent listening to the 50 songs I hadn't yet played. I knew half of the songs and could hum or sing parts of them. The other half were from artists I recognized yet were in genres that weren't in heavy play on the music players of the days. Today listening included heavy metal, hip hop (and several subgenres), funk, disco, soul, and punk.This will be more challenging since there will be about 10 songs chosen for the quiz. Further listening of those that are unfamiliar will occur in the next few days.

Listening is an interesting process. I often hear things I hadn't realized were there or recognized differences between artists in similar genres -- guitar styles of Clapton, Hendrix, May and Townsend. That helped when guitar solos were part of the second quiz <smile>. Listening to the world around us and to the person speaking to or with us can benefit from similar attention and skills. This helps us to understand what is happening around us. People use the same words and phrases in different ways. If we've paid attention to communications, we can begin to identify the key messages those words carry for different people. Hearing the words alone may lead to interpreting these through our personal filters. When this happens, we may read the message very differently than intended. Listening to the other verbal and body language cues of others can reduce misunderstandings.

Lyrics from a selected song describes music as a communication device. These words match the concepts I've been pondering today. The music brings an upbeat happy feeling that matches the bits of sunshine that tried to shine through the clouds today. Enjoy!

Listen to the Music -- The Doobie Brothers