Is there a difference between listening and hearing? Is hearing the same as listening? As musicians, we require our ears to be in the best shape possible, our ears must lead us toward the best tonality we can play, and our ears are used as music is played either in the background or with music that we are performing.

I heard a bird singing while walking through the park. I stopped to listen to the sounds the bird was making, the short high-pitched twitter, and the longer whirling tones. I heard my boss talking to me, but didn't listen so I didn't know the instructions he wanted me to follow. Uh-oh.

If I heard what my boss was saying, how come when I left his office, I didn't know what he wanted me to do? I feel this is because I only heard what he said and did not listen to what he said.

When I hear something, I may not necessarily need to be paying close attention to the sounds I hear. It may be a car passing, a mother talking to her child in the grocery store, music on the elevator. I hear the sounds, but I am not registering them as I would if I were listening. When I listen, I am actively involved with my ears to the sounds around me. I listen to the words my boss is saying so I understand what he wants me to do. I actively listen to the CD on my stereo, taking in all the sounds of the orchestra, noticing the highs and lows, the nuances, who has the melody and what is happening in the harmony. When I am listening, I am paying closer attention to the details of what is going into my ears.

So here I am playing in the first night of rehearsals for that weekends performance. Am I using my ears to their fullest potential? Am I taking advantage of the opportunity to let my ears lead me to greater musical heights? Or I am just letting the music I am playing and the music around me to just pass me by, not paying careful attention to what is being said musically?

My main thought on this subject is that as a musician, I should be actively listening to the music that others and myself are making. I can then respond to the piano player in my jazz combo who is playing a rhythmic motif during one of her solos, I can determine how a figure should be played when the first trumpet in the orchestra interprets it a few measures before it is my turn to play that same figure. I can memorize a rhythmic pattern played for a few bars on a CD I am listening to because I have paid close attention to what was going into my ears.

I have played with musicians who were obviously not listening. I could have stopped and the music may have well gone on for quite some time before I (the drummer!) was noticed for stopping! It was obvious they weren't listening since I was trying to hold the tempo back, and they were a bull charging forward, uncontrollably. Had they been listening, they would have noticed the volume of the other musicians was significantly lower than their own and they could have adjusted. Had they been listening, they would have noticed that the bass player and I were trying to keep the tempo steady - the tempo that the tune started out. But no, they were only hearing the sounds around them and not reacting, but rather, like a horse with blinders on, focusing on only what they were doing.

I encourage my students to listen to recordings and digest the music on them. I also encourage them to hear the music - play it in the background and just have it there. Listening can be tiring. I don't want to be tired all the time. There is a time for listening and a time for hearing. I encourage my students in ensemble rehearsals to listen to all of the activity and individual parts being played around them -react to the others, beyond what is written on the page of music. Listen to yourself, your section, and the entire ensemble. Many of my students who have developed a keen sense of listening notice when their part does not sound right. They often find a missed note or wrong rhythm in their part, a chord that doesn't match what the rest of the band is playing, etc. They know when to play their melodic line out a little more or draw back a bit to let the melody project more. They will realize that if seven saxophones are playing the same melodic line as our one French horn, then they should play softer so there is more blend. All of this because they are using their ears to listen and not just hear.

Some people may call listening hearing, and hearing listening. Either way, my point is that we must pay close attention to what sounds are around us and which ones must be given more careful attention - specifically when we are playing or conducting music.

Listen and react to what you are playing, don't just hear it.