I am a big advocator of getting my students to listen to as much live music as possible, offering extra credit if they attend any live music concert (provided they bring me a program or ticket stub). I believe that there can be good lessons in any musical performance, and that basic tools learned in the classroom can be used to stimulate conversation around a particular listening experience. It also gets the students participating in their local cultural life, and doesn't require that they listen to music that they find no aesthetic value in. To me, it didn't matter if it was a Queen concert (or a cover such as this ukelele rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody") or someone playing a series of Beethoven piano sonatas; the overall lesson was in listening to someone playing music.
Recently, one of my friends who is a teacher in the Bronx shared with me an interesting piece of information: the letters in the word LISTEN are the same as the letters in the word SILENT. I think this is a great piece of information to share with students: to really listen effectively, we have to be as silent as possible in order for the true performance to shine through. If we aren't quiet, we might miss something that could in turn be the part of a piece of music we like the best...
Yet, to challenge the common thought that listening can only be done with the ears, I want to draw your attention to another video on TED.com. In this roughly half-hour long video, the deaf Scottish percussionist, Evelyn Glennie, challenges the audience to think about what it means to really listen. Glennie, not wanting to believe that a deaf person couldn't rise to the same musical accomplishments of a hearing person, fought the odds against the British educational system, and changed the way that they admit candidates to their degree programs. As an accomplished percussionist, Glennie's lecture-demonstration clearly shows us that listening can be accomplished in more ways than just with our ears.
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