On Listening

One of the great pleasures of my youth that has become a rare occurrence for me as an adult has been the act of actively listening to music with people. Sitting in a room or being a car with a group of friends, getting into a song or an album, turning someone on, or being turned on by them in return – those moments have provided me with some of my favorite moments in life. They can shape how I listen to something and how I can get my past my own immediate judgments and biases – and they now occur all too infrequently.

I write of this because a couple of weeks ago, I was at a dinner party with some friends, and at the end of the night, there were four of us sitting around listening to music. Our lovely hostess, Amber, was playing Odetta’s version of “Gallows Pole.” I, of course, learned the song through hearing it on Led Zeppelin III, and when I found out that Amber hadn’t heard Zeppelin’s version of it, I broke out my iPod and we listened to it.

I’ve heard the song at least a hundred times, and it’s never been one of my favorite Zeppelin songs, but as the song began and built momentum - Jimmy Page’s slowly strummed acoustic guitar turning firmer into that signature riff in the chorus, adding banjo and mandolin, Robert Plant’s vocal rising in pitch and intensity as the song’s tension built and cracked into John Paul Jones and John Bonham’s irrepressible rhythm section – well, it was like I was hearing the song for the first time. As we listened, everyone’s head was moving in unison, and very spontaneous smiles broke out on our faces, and without a word exchanged between us, we knew we were experiencing something special – and it was only special because it was a shared experience.

I learned something important that night – oftentimes it’s less important what you’re listening to then who you are listening with and how you are listening. I used to believe that listening to music was a passive experience – but it’s not, at least not necessarily. To actively listen to a piece of music, to find yourself in it and to find what you can create for yourself in it – well, that’s just one of the best experiences life has to offer.

And it’s a hell of a lot more fun to do it with other people.