Listening to Music

Copland says that the first plane, the sensuous, is just enjoying the music without thinking about it. ThatÆs how I had been hearing this song, as a pleasant background piece that I would sing along with in the car without becoming too distracted to pay attention to the road. When I copied down the lyrics from the CD insert, however, I realized IÆd been singing the wrong words. IÆd been hearing the repeated phrase, ôthe fields of barleyö as ôthe fields of holly,ö and it still sounds like that to me. The interesting thing is that, from a sensuous, non-thinking perspective, the difference doesnÆt make any difference. What Copland calls ôthe mere sound appeal of the musicö works with either holly or barley because it still fits into the enjoyment of just listening to the music.

On the second plane, however, the difference does matter. Although Copland doesnÆt talk about lyrics (heÆs focused on music, not songs or opera or other kinds of music-with-words), the words matter on the expressive plane. In fact, they have a huge influence. I canÆt tell what ôFields of Goldö might mean to me if I were able to h

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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1031
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)

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