Active Listening Through Music

           I have taken several communication classes throughout my last two years here at Boise State University, and one of the most beneficial courses I took, to my surprise, was Listening 131 during my first semester. To this day, several of the concepts that I learned from that class have stuck with me and continue to effect the way I hold everyday communication interactions and conversations. This is why, throughout the past couple of weeks in COMM 160, the idea of listening as an intentional and purposeful action has really resonated with me. It has reminded me of the importance of listening, not only in terms of creating and maintaining healthy relationships with others, but also for the purpose of actually understanding what the intended meaning of a given message is. Taken from chapter four of our textbook, Fassett and Warren state that, “If listening is a stance, then we can begin to move away from thinking of listening exclusively in terms of the physiological act of hearing and move toward thinking of listening as a way of fully engaging with others” (65). To me, fully engaging with another person first begins by putting an effort into understanding exactly what they are trying to say. An example from class that truly demonstrated this concept was when we read the lyrics to the famously catchy and seemingly upbeat song “Hey Ya!” Our class quickly realized that, though the beat seems very cheerful, the actual lyrics of the song convey a sad and somewhat depressing message. People often listen to songs without recognizing the meaning behind them. In a similar way, people often hold conversations and interact with others without fully understanding or recognizing what the other person’s intended message is. We walk away from conversations without truly grasping what our counterpart was trying to tell us just how we often “listen” to songs without even knowing what they’re about.

            According to Thomas, “Music has the power to enrich student engagement in the college classroom if they learn the art of active listening and how to connect what they hear with the broader conceptual network” (Thomas, 2015). For my family, music is one of the main commonalities that we share and therefore place a lot of significance on it. I have grown up listening to artists like Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen which I truly believe have led me to see the importance of the lyrics behind a song. I knew pretty much all of the words on every one of their albums by the time I was in fifth grade, but I really had little idea about what was being sung. As I grew up, I realized how Van Morrison sings of his religious revival and the tremendous impact it has had on his life. Bruce Springsteen sings of his days growing up in New Jersey, and I began to see how similar his story is to that of my dad’s; I was able to visualize some aspects of my dad’s childhood in New Jersey because we would talk about Springsteen’s songs and how he could relate to so many of them.

            Relating active listening through music has shown me just how important being fully engaged in any and all types of interactions truly are. I believe that active listening is the first step to having and maintaining healthy relationships, and one of the best ways to understand this is through comparing it to music.

References

Thomas, C. (2015). Active listening: Teaching with music. Yale Center for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved From: https://campuspress.yale.edu/yctl/active-listening/