Music on one of the most powerful of the arts partly because sounds - more than any other sensory stimulus - create in us involuntary reactions, pleasant or unpleasant. It may be difficult to connect analysis with the experience of listening to music, but everyone's listening, including performer's, benefits through understanding of some of the fundamentals of music.
Music can be experienced in two basic ways: hearing and listening. Hearers do not attempt to perceive accurately either the structure or the details of the music. They hear a familiar melody, which may trigger associations with the composer, time era, or places dedicated to the song. Aside from melody, little else, such as details or chord progression, is heard.
The listeners, however, concentrate their attention upon the many elements of the music. …
