How I Listen To Music

Everyone listens to music differently.  Some listen to the words first, others the music, and others listen to both. I am one of of those who just listen to the music, and then maybe later (sometimes years later) I listen to the words.  My brain is wired for sound. I went for many years not knowing anything about the lyrics of many Beatles songs. The melodies and George Martin's production were too powerful for me to pay attention to anything else. 

For some reason, I am wired to interpret music as repeating sonic patterns made of melodic note sequences, chord sequences, and bass and rhythm sequences.  If I like the song, I will listen to it over and over and I will dissect and analyze each individual pattern for anything interesting. I will literally play a song in my head over and over each time focusing on a different instrument. The most interesting  songs have new patterns I've never heard before that are pleasing. The more complex the production (with orchestral backing) the better.  That's why a song like 'I Am The Walrus' by the Beatles is a sonic masterpiece extravaganza that I can listen to over and over (and I have, probably numbering in the hundreds of times) and not get tired.  There is so much pleasing, interesting, non-cliche sonic tapestry in that one song that it never grows old.  I'm sure George Martin contributed a lot to it.

Folk music with just a guy on guitar and vocals is not my favorite type of music. I am not saying I won't like it, but there's not enough interesting sound there to hold my interest. Folk music is more about the words, and I since am wired for sound it doesn't grab me.  An exception to all this is the Blues. I love blues even though blues is mostly the same repeating patterns we've heard a million times. But the blues is about feel. You have to feel the blues to play it. And I don't mean the sadness of the words. I mean the wailing and screaming of the guitar whether its a Mississippi Delta acoustic slide or Hendrix/BB King on electric.

So music for me is all about the sound.