Violet Moon

Did you know that musicians and non-musicians differ in how they listen to music? If you're not a musician, you probably don't realize that there's a distinct difference between how you hear music and how a musician does. Non-musicians often experience a piece of music as a single, unified whole—like looking at a painting and simply seeing the complete image.

Musicians, on the other hand, don’t listen to music that way. They tend to hear each instrument as a separate voice, each with its own movement and character. They recognize how these individual parts interact and weave together, forming intricate patterns that, when viewed from a distance, reveal the bigger picture. It’s like looking at a painting and noticing every brushstroke, every dab of color, and understanding how those details combine to create the full work of art.

I can still remember how I used to listen to music as a non-musician. When I was a child, I listened to music and experienced it as one unified wave of emotion, moving as a whole. But after I learned to play a musical instrument, and gained experience playing in a band, I lost the ability to listen to music the way I used to as a child.

Now, every time I listen to music, I can’t help but hear the bass guitar—or one particular instrument—standing out and “swimming” or “surfing” through the sea of movements created by the other instruments. I can also shift my focus from one instrument to another. Whichever instrument is in focus becomes the one that, in my mind, is surfing or floating on the sea of sound formed by the rest of the band in the background.

Even when there's an instrument playing a solo, I can still choose to push it into the background if I decide to focus on another instrument. This is what I do every time I listen to music.

I wish I could relearn how to listen to music the way I did before I became a musician. I want to experience the kind of emotions that style of listening would bring me now that I’m older.