How to appreciate music is a very old topic. Over the years, there have been many monographs. But some people still don’t understand how to appreciate music. In fact, appreciating music can also be said to be a very simple matter, that is, as long as you like it. I often hear many people say: "The music is good, but I just can't understand it." But I often ask them: What do you want to understand? As for music, as long as it sounds good to you. Why do we need to understand it in such a utilitarian way? This is actually true. As long as you find a famous piece of music pleasant and touching, you don't have to think about the story it describes. What musical form, tonality, and theme are the next steps. In fact, those are not important yet. The most important thing is that you must first find it pleasant to listen to and be moved by the music. Otherwise, no matter how famous the song is, it will be of no use to you. As for those things it's the next step to learn about music. If you can be moved by music then anything will be easy. Because when you are moved, you will have an impulsive thought, and you will think about why this music moves people so much. What is the reason for this? In this way, you have the desire to learn more about music. It’s impossible to understand everything from the beginning.

When you first start to appreciate music, the sound it has is so infectious that it can move almost everyone who hears it. The music of this time is very mysterious. It has great charm and fascinates people. Whether it's the melody or lyrics, or even the accompaniment's harmony, etc., it will make people extremely excited. We can see the difference between pop songs and romantic music in people who like different types of music. It is very obvious that music is too tempting to the senses at this time, especially for those who have not really been exposed to music or have less exposure to music. They will be immediately attracted by its euphemistic melody, distinctive rhythm, pleasant chords or even lingering lyrics. It is precisely because of this that many people at this time often regard music as a kind of sustenance, as an ideal, as a gift, as an escape from reality, or even as their own fantasy world. Because of this, some people often participate in song request programs on radio and television stations and give their favorite songs as gifts to others as a kind of personal feeling. Because they feel that this music (song) moves them, as if it is an expression of their own mood. Of course, this is understandable. What you give to others is your own business. Everything is moving forward. People cannot stay in an appreciation stage forever. One thing is clear among people who like pop songs, that is, there are definitely very few people over the age of thirty. Why? In terms of experience alone, those "dream for love all your life" and "always believe in love" are really a relatively empty thing. No one will live in such a song forever. If you can't stand it, others can't stand it either.

(2)

There is a process of music appreciation from shallow to profound, that is, from perceptual (being moved by music) to rational understanding (exploring music knowledge) and back to perceptual understanding (deeper understanding). level of appreciation) such three stages. This is the only way to enjoy music. A person who learns an instrument may not necessarily be a good music listener because he focuses on technique. Expression and understanding are not the same thing. Music has its own language, just like every move in dance has its own meaning, the chords, scores, speed, and tonality in music also have their own meanings. In the beginning, music can touch you from the senses, excite you and delight you. This is an unconscious aesthetic activity. But if that's it, you still can't really listen to the music.

Music has a huge power of contagion. This kind of appeal is not only for young people who have just come into contact with music, but also for an old man who has been through many hardships and hardships in the world. It's just that the stages of appreciating music are different, and the ideological content they bring is also different. In the stage of perceptual knowledge, your understanding of music is limited to sensory feelings. If you are not proactive in appreciating music, then you may not be able to truly appreciate the true meaning of music. For example, "The Blue Danube" is a popular famous song. In the stage of perceptual understanding, we will find it very beautiful. In fact, we are only attracted by the ups and downs of the melody, the three-beat waltz rhythm, the story, fame and other factors of this famous song. attract. We don’t know why the three-beat waltz form is so attractive; we don’t know what kind of waltzes this piece is composed of; we don’t know what are the substantive differences between Strauss waltzes and other waltzes. , but first we will be attracted and moved. If you are indifferent to a good piece of music, that is the worst thing you can do. When appreciating music, you must be an active listener and never be satisfied with simple sensory experience and unconscious appreciation. In this way, you will have an in-depth understanding of other contents of this work, from the creative background to the music genre to the musical form, theme, ideological connotation, artistic attainments, etc. In this way, your understanding of music will be deeper than others. In the first stage of perceptual understanding, we usually borrow the titles of the tracks by some composers or the text descriptions marked by later generations to deepen our understanding of the music.

For example, "For Alice" is a piano piece written by Beethoven. When listening to the music and the association of the title text, we can easily understand this warm and bright lyrical piece; another example is the Mexican composer Luo From the title of Sass's "Waltz on the Waves", we can appreciate the free and happy mood of the music describing the splashing waves, flying seagulls and sailing on the crest of the waves; Kreisler's violin piece "Chinese Flower Drum" , as soon as you hear the title of the song, you will know that it uses Chinese pentatonic tones to express a warm and cheerful mood. There are a lot of title music in the vast river of music. As long as you are willing to enter this temple of music, you will find that this temple is full of the essence of human civilization. It is like a huge wealth that can last you a lifetime. .

(3)

In the initial stage of music appreciation, it mainly relies on the sense of sound. Beautiful melody, sweet harmony, regular rhythm, rising and falling loudness, etc. It's a kind of joy that makes people feel. Most music lovers, especially audio lovers, have this feeling: the first thing they pursue is the sound effect. At the beginning, I used audio equipment to replay music. I listened and compared the audio equipment, and learned a lot about different replay effects such as rhythm, timbre, dynamics, etc. These concepts about audio are involved. I don’t know anything about the content, polyphony, fugue, counterpoint, what a tarantella is, or what a sonata form is. In fact, it's not just some audio enthusiasts who don't know, many people don't know these music theory concepts. Actually, it doesn’t matter? Music appreciation does not require everyone to be a musician. Everyone who listens to music will go through this initial stage, whether he listens to pop songs or popular symphony music at the beginning. Over the years, I have also seen a phenomenon: some young people, mainly middle school students, if they were not influenced by music culture when they were children, they will soon become obsessed with rock music such as Michael Jackson. Soon he became an obsessive and crazy follower. Because they were immediately confused by the crazy rhythm and exciting sounds. As for the content, they did not understand and would not understand it. Compared with those sensible rock music lovers, they were only children. Sometimes some garbage music programs are broadcast on TV stations. Although they are not many but disgusting, these programs have a large group of followers. We can no longer say that the TV programs in socialist China are all healthy and uplifting programs. Sometimes we also consider the ratings of sponsored advertisements. A passive and undiscriminating person can easily regard the dross as the essence.

When listening to music, you must be proactive. You have to have your own experience. This kind of music experience is very important, because the music appreciation guide that you can follow just to help you deepen this experience. You want to learn to appreciate music from just a pamphlet or a few superficial articles like this. That's delusional. Because music guides can only tell you how to appreciate music, if you don’t even have a little inner experience of music, reading those introductions is useless. Because there is no book or article that will teach you how to have passion in your heart or how to create joy, sorrow, or sorrow. Because this is human nature, Enya's almost obscure music makes most people sound like the voice of heaven, but some people can hear sleepy talk and silence, and that doesn't matter. Your qualities and experience drive you to this. But if you are indifferent to any kind of music, that is the real sadness.

Music is not a condiment. Although it can be used to adjust the atmosphere, it is by no means a condiment. But now many people regard music as a condiment, as if music is a high-end magical condiment. Store openings, banquets, weddings and weddings... music is like pepper in a restaurant. When the magical sound of music sounds, it can indeed change everything. It can make you solemn immediately, make you extremely happy, or make you depressed in a thousand ways. The huge appeal of music is very mysterious, but you must not use music as decoration. Put a popular song here, a saxophone there, just like using those cheap plastic decorations to decorate you. 's bedroom.

In short, in the initial stage of music appreciation, that is, the perceptual stage, what you need is an inner experience of the charm of music. Whether it's a beautiful melody, charming timbre or touching lyrics. In short, the requirement is that you can be moved by music. As long as you can be moved by music, everything will be easy.

(4)

Moved by music. The emotional experience when listening to music and the desire to explore music will drive you to the second door of the music temple: the stage of rational understanding. If you do not go through this stage, you are still a passive music listener. Although you may choose music or listen to music at any time, you are still passive because there is nothing except that you are moved by the music. . Whether it's beautiful, happy, or sad, it's just the sound that causes your emotional fluctuations.

Of course you can listen to music anytime, anywhere, even while riding a bicycle to work or having a meal, but the music at this time only creates a barrier for you, using the melody and rhythm in the music to isolate you from the hustle and bustle of the city and the entanglements of the world. . We mentioned earlier that music is not a condiment. Although music is very magical, it is by no means the condiment. Music needs to be heard. If you really want to use it for other purposes, such as enhancing the atmosphere, adjusting the mood, or even appetizing it, then it is not music. Because no one will listen carefully to the replayed sound in the restaurant, and no one will be excited by the music in a certain terminal. Music is music only when you listen to it carefully. Because if a loudspeaker can arouse your inner experience, it must have some kind of connotation, and this connotation is the music content itself.

Entering the stage of rational understanding of music appreciation illustrates the development process of our appreciation of music from passive to active. In the second gate of this temple, we will get to know Bach and Mozart, and experience Beethoven and Rachmaninov. In short, all the famous musicians in the entire history of human civilization will pass in front of us one by one, allowing us to get to know them. We will also know the elements of music composition: melody, rhythm, timbre and harmony; know what Baroque music is, who are the musical representatives of the late Romantic period; and how sonata and sonata form are different. A person who is new to music may have a superficial understanding of music. You can't appreciate music better without fully understanding it. For example, if you don’t know what timbre is, you won’t be able to understand music at all. Because the timbre is like the gorgeous colors in paintings, it determines the rich musical meaning. Another example is the touching theme in Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony "Pathétique", whose appeal really makes people cry without tears. Mr. Yang Mingwang has a description of this theme that I think is very wonderful: "This sleepy soul, with indelible trauma, finally fell into the embrace of eternal death in the wave of inconsolable mourning and sorrow and despair." Without knowing anything about music, can you understand the profound meaning of this theme?

At this stage of rational understanding, not everyone may have the opportunity or conditions to seriously and systematically study music theory and music history. But we can still gain knowledge about music through some other books. One of the best ways to compare and listen is to use a book like "Appreciation of Famous Music". Music analysis, musical structure, theme hints, etc. are essential for listeners. In this way, you will know the structural difference between a concerto and a symphony; you will also know the difference between a variation and a rondo; you may even become obsessed with Mahler or Brahms; Pavarotti You may also like the high-spirited voice and Armstrong's husky voice at the same time. Etc. All of this is based on your understanding of music. It was at this time that you also began to change: your conversation, your opinions, your experience and cultivation, etc. "Sesame blossoms", the huge treasure of music has opened its door to you.

(5)

All music has its own connotation, and your understanding of music is the process of understanding the connotation of these music. Although it is impossible for everyone to stay at one stage in isolation to simply explore music knowledge and ignore the connotation of music. It is necessary to listen carefully to a piece of music with the help of some auxiliary tools such as analysis of famous music appreciation. At this stage, you must first understand the history of music and the different expressions of music in different periods; you also need to understand the basic content of composers such as the different styles and ideas of Beethoven and Wagner in music creation; in addition, you also need to know some Basic knowledge of music, such as musical form. In fact, musical form is the form of music. The most important thing to understand in musical form is the sonata form. Generally speaking, among the musical forms of classical music, the sonata form is the most common. Sonata form basically represents the basic form of most music, and most symphonies, concertos, chamber music, etc. use this form. The sonata form has one movement, and there are also three or four movements. Music form is of course not just sonata form, there are many kinds of music forms. For example, variations use a theme to carry out various evolutions: A-A1-A2-A3-....AZ. To understand variations, you can listen to Tchaikovsky's "Variations on a Rococo Theme". A theme changes into seven A variation; like a rondo, its basic meaning is to repeat a theme many times: A-B-A-C-D-A...etc., where A represents the theme, and B.C.D.....etc. represents the change. After each change, it returns to the topic. To understand this musical form, you can listen to Mozart's "Piano Rondo in A minor".

Music appreciation should also include an understanding of the theme. Themes in music are crucial. In a piece of music, a listener must firmly remember the musical theme image in the piece, and its changes, contrasts, and developments constitute the entire connotation of the music. So we must learn to remember the theme when listening to music. In Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique", the theme of the frail and sensitive young artist runs from the first movement to the fifth movement, and each movement has its own changes. From gentle and innocent at the beginning to grotesque and crazy at the end. Listening carefully to this piece of music will help you understand the theme.

If you can't hear the theme when listening to music, you won't be able to understand the music well. Of course, the theme of music is not as clear as the visual image. As soon as the main character in the movie appears, you know that he must be the main character in the entire movie. The same goes for novels. Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu in "A Dream of Red Mansions" are a contrasting theme, and the contrasting development of the relationship between the two themes and images runs throughout the novel. Although there are other characters, such as the Twelve Hairpins of Jinling and the large population of Jia Mansion, the main theme is still Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. The same is true for the theme and image in music, but the theme and image in music will not be as clear as in movies and novels. There are many musical images in a piece of music, but no matter how many they are, they all revolve around the theme of the piece. There are many other musical images in Beethoven's "Symphony of Destiny": sorrow, sighing, killing, ferocity, deep thinking and strong belief, brightness, victory, and even melancholy and hesitation, but these are all caused by contrast. generated by the theme image. Therefore, when listening to music carefully, you must firmly grasp the theme. As Mr. Yi Youwu of Hugo Records said, you must improve the focusing ability of your ears, so that you can find the moment-to-moment changes in the roar of music. Theme image to appreciate the infinite charm of music.

(6)

In the aesthetic process of appreciating music, in addition to musical form, there are many factors, such as rhythm, timbre, etc. As far as rhythm is concerned, the original origin of music should have a very close relationship with rhythm. The rhythmic beauty produced by the rhythm is still believed by primitive tribes to this day. Different combinations of strong, weak, fast and slow rhythms as well as multiple repetitions can create a huge connotation and charm to the rhythm, making people crazy or obsessed. No one will reject the rhythm. The expression of rhythm in music is beat. The beat is usually represented by bar lines and time symbols, such as 3/4, which indicates that it is triple time. Each beat is a quarter note, and there are three beats in each measure; the first beat is accented, and the last two beats are pianissimo. This forms a waltz rhythm pattern. Changing the position of the accent will cause some new changes. Grouping two or more different beats together will form a new polyrhythm. In this way, endless rhythms form one of the elements of our music. As far as rhythm is concerned, an appreciator needs to feel it with his ears rather than analyze it. The same goes for overall music appreciation. Speaking of rhythm, we have to mention free-beat music genres such as "Golgorian Chant". In many early religious music and Eastern music, there is often some music without rhythm requirements. In fact, this kind of free-tempo music has more precise rhythm requirements. It's just that this precision can no longer be marked with beat marks. What it requires is a deeper understanding and grasp of it by the performer or singer.

Of course, the charm of music is not only in the theme, melody, rhythm, color, musical structure, tonality, etc., but sometimes it even involves the composer’s creative concept, the performer’s style, and the recording engineer. The recording technology and hobbies, as well as the listener's quality, experience, emotion, personality and many other factors add up to form a whole music. To analyze one part of it alone is actually to dismember the music. Understand the composer's creative personality based on the historical background, listen carefully to the development, changes and contrasts of the theme, so that your whole body will be infected by the music and sound, and your thoughts, emotions and emotions will undergo subtle changes in the experience of music.

There are indeed too many things you need to know in the second stage of music appreciation, which may scare some fans: Oh my god, it is so difficult to appreciate music! In fact, it's nothing. Because everything you need to know is based on your great interest in music. Understanding this knowledge will make you more interested in music. The premise is that you must first have a necessary desire for music, that is, you must first truly love music! It is because of this premise that you can enter this stage to seriously learn this music knowledge.

(7)

Entering the third stage of music appreciation is not very obvious. Because the stage of understanding music can never be said to be over. Entering the third stage of music appreciation does not mean drawing a clear line from the past stage. In fact, our analysis and introduction in this way is just a conceptual concept. But no matter what, after a period of study (at this stage everything mainly relies on your own self-study, because no one will teach you how to analyze and understand a piece of music in detail) we already have a certain understanding of music. Now let's listen to music again: when the magical music sounds, boundless waves of passion will surge in our hearts. Whether you are talking with Bach or wandering with Mahler; or listening to Mozart's inner voice, in short, music is like a source of emotion. At this time you have entered the palace of music.

Whether it is the journey of life or the struggle to start a family or start a career; whether you are young or old; depressed or proud, happy or sad, in the palace of music, you are using your own emotions to experience music! By this time the music was no longer mysterious. Music is no longer unattainable. Everything music expresses is no longer external. Maybe the theme is still the same, but "Mountains are far away and rivers are far away, but our hearts are not far away." Now your inner experience when listening to music has a deeper emotion. It is at this stage that you have transformed from a passive listener to a free music lover. You will not use thematic analysis and musical structure to constrain the free flight of your thoughts, nor will you use a simple musical image under a title to constrain your imagination and emotional surge. Although sometimes you need to analyze the theme, explore the structure of the music, etc., when you really listen to the music, you are already experiencing the music with emotions. What you need at this time is pure music rather than a theme or a collection of famous songs. Collections of famous songs and thematic duets are the most off-putting. Because it really can't make people feel passionate. This type of music can only be regarded as popular reading. The biggest benefit of listening to this kind of music regularly is that you can participate in music prize-winning quiz activities. That has little to do with enjoying music.

In the aesthetic process of music appreciation, inner experience and cognitive activities are always combined. The development process from perceptual to rational knowledge will never stop, and our understanding of music will always be endless.

Step into the infinitely beautiful and grand temple of music, and let us fly freely and heartily!