How Do Non-Musicians Hear Your Music?

This idea has bounced around my mind for years as a dedicated songwriter, musician, and composer. How do people with no musical training hear music? It sounds like a strange question at first, but I believe they hear music from a totally different perspective. As a musician myself, I can only guess what that perspective may be like. It’s certainly something to ponder as we try and create music that is universally appreciated.

How Musicians Hear Music

First, let me tackle how we as musicians, songwriters, audio engineers, producers hear and digest music. It seems to me that we process several components of music at once. We are aware of the mechanics that go into creating and performing music, so we have an idea of what it must be like to be the one performing the song we’re listening to.

For example, I am first and foremost a guitarist. I have been studying and playing guitar for over 15 years. When I listen to a song with a guitar part, I’m aware of how that guitar part is being played. The picture in my mind is of the guitarist’s hands and picking style. I think about the type of guitar the performer is playing. What type of amp it’s running through. Which effects pedals are being used. I may not know the exact answers to these questions, but these are the things I’m thinking about as I listen to the song.

Audio engineers listen to music in a different way than most. During my years in audio engineering school, many of my classmates and professors would tell me that they hear music in a completely new light now that they are trained in audio production theory. Some even say they wish they could be back to before their training so that they could truly appreciate a good song before deconstructing it’s production value. Audio engineers are focused on the frequency response of the recording. They hear the bass, treble, and mid-range response. They’re listening to the dynamics and the compression being employed. The depth and subtle nuances of the overall listening experience.

How about songwriters? Songwriters can appreciate a well-written song just as anybody else can. But they’re focused on what exactly it is that makes it a well-written song. They hear the lyrical poetry, the chord structure, the arrangement of instruments, the sequence of the parts, and everything that goes into crafting a great song. Since this is primarily what they do, they are more sensitive to the mechanics of creating what they’re listening to.

How Non-Musicians Hear Music

I really can’t speak with any true authority here, since I myself am a musician. But I have a strong hunch that non-musicians do hear music in a very different way than we as musicians hear it. Maybe I’ll never truly grasp what the experience must be like to listen with an un-trained ear, but I have a few educated guesses on the subject.

Lyrics are king when it comes to popular songs. When I hear my non-musician friends comment on a song, they are almost always commenting on the lyrics. The lyrics are probably the most accessible component of a song to a non-musician, because poetry can be universally appreciated without any training. They can immediately grasp the meaning behind what went into the song through the lyrics.

The beat is another big component to the universal appreciation of a song. This is especially true when talking about live music. Many concert goers will spend a good portion of their time watching the drummer, because let’s be honest, the drummer is usually the most exciting and energetic person on stage. The beat can determine the overall mood of the song, the mood, the crowd, etc.

Non-musicians hear and appreciate an interesting chord progression or riff, but in a different way than we as musicians do. I get the feeling that non-musicians will be touched by the chords or riffs but not necessarily realize that it’s the chords and riffs which struck a chord (no pun intended) somewhere inside them. They don’t know why they love this song, they just do.

So What?

If it’s true that musicians and non-musicians hear music totally differently, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s what makes music so interesting as a general phenomenon. It hits us all in a different way for different reasons and at different moments in our life. It’s the truest universal language which can speak volumes about an emotion with a single key stoke, vocal melody, or drum beat.

Let finish this post with one of my all-time favorite lyrics:

One good thing about music
when it hits you
you feel no pain.

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