This blog centers around the lost art of listening.

I am a musician, therefore listening is a main topic of my life. So what do I mean by “listening”? Well, for starters there is a big difference between hearing and listening. Hearing might be said to be an automatic response when encountering soundwaves whereas listening on the other hand involves directing one’s attention towards a specific part of something we perceive.
However, today this act of directing our attention has become an endangered ability which are being increasingly threatened by the very world we live in.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by an overload of sense-stimulation? The background music of the malls and the shops, the intertwining tunes of the cell phones, flimmering commercial banners, neon signs, flickering screens, the half muffled sounds emanating out of earplugs.

This is the world we live in today, a world where distractions are labeled as enriching experiences. A world where we spend huge sums on learning to practice mindfulness and internal silence while at the same time stuffing our environment with an ever-increasing amount of noise and distractions. In this world of distractions I am concerned with the comprehension of music.

In order to comprehend music we need to be able to listen to it. To be able to listen is to be able to focus. The ability to focus is not something which we are born with, it is an acquired skill.

In this blog I write about attention, focus, musical comprehension and the lost art of listening.