January Blog Post

Blog Post #1 (January)

As we have learned in class, listening can be very inherent on the situation and or setting that we find ourselves in. Furthermore, there is a large difference between the biological act of hearing, and the involved and active act of listening. This idea is stressed in the “Compassionate Critical Listening,” reading written by Chris McRae. In the text, McRae quotes musicologist Ola Stockfelt, saying “that different musical genres invite us to listen in different ways and that as listeners we can work to develop different modes of listening for different situations or contexts” (Stockfelt 132). While I was reading this I was able to directly connect this to my own life and my musical listening habits. For example, when I listen to a genre like country or folk, where the lyrics typically tell more of a story than that of pop and today’s hip hop, I tend to listen to the music more actively and concentrate more on what is being said by the musician. However, when I listen to a genre like jazz, I tend to put it off as background music. Often I actually use this genre for studying or helping myself to fall asleep. If we directly apply this to our everyday listening, we can see how our listening skills can change based off of the context of our conversations or environment.

The book explains that there are certain situations that you may listen more actively than others, and it is almost always linked to what interests you more in the setting. To keep the analogy of music going, let’s use two different environments, first a concert hosted by your favorite band, versus a noisy restaurant with a soft musical backdrop. So in that first environment it is safe to say that most of us would have nearly all of our focus and concentration on the music and the performance. Furthermore, in that same concert setting the majority of noise occurring around us would be put to the backburner as our attention was occupied elsewhere. The second setting was that of a restaurant that has a soft musical backdrop. In the restaurant you might acknowledge that there is music playing but most likely your attention would be on a combination of your company and your food.

Most of us would admit if asked that we could improve our listening skills, and truly I believe that listening is one of those skills that you can constantly be building upon. According to the article “Improving Listening Competence,” found on the University of Minnesota website, it is most important to “discern between intentional messages and noise,” and then “concentrate on stimuli most relevant to your listening purpose(s) or goal(s)” (1). Personally, I would agree with this statement, because if we look back at the restaurant analogy it’s obvious that there are so many different noises and stimuli all around us, and to get the most out of the experience it is imperative that we hone our listening in on what is intentional and most important.  

Works Cited

“Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies.” University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing, University of Minnesota, 29 Sept. 2016, open.lib.umn.edu/communication/chapter/5-3-improving-listening-competence/.

Warren, John T., and Deanna L. Fassett. Communication: a Critical/Cultural Introduction. SAGE, 2015.