What Are You Listening To?

The world can be a noisy place nowadays. You hear it too, right?

I'm usually a good listener. I like to pay attention to things that seem to want to be heard. But sometimes I've found that it's not enough to just listen. You have to engage, as well.

What are you listening to? And what are you doing to help that voice know it's being heard? Perhaps think of it as a "call" and a "response."

Music is a call...dancing can be a response.
Reading is a call...writing your favorite lines in a journal can be a response.
Social media is a call...taking time to write a comment can be a response.
And when it can all feel like too much noise, just remember that silence can also be a call...and stillness a response.

There is always value in the silence. Silence between moments. Silence between brush strokes or even music notes.

Because I'm fascinated with creative process, I once wrote down this quote by the composer Philip Glass from his book "Words without Music." He talks of the importance of listening in performance. I think the sentiment could be applied to other art forms as well, though.

The performer must be listening to what he is playing. And this is far from automatic. You can be playing and not pay attention to listening. It's only when you're engaged with the listening while you're playing that the music takes on the creative unfolding. The moment of creativity. Which is actually every moment. That moment becomes framed as it were in a performance. A performance becomes a formal framing of the activity of listening. And that would be true for the player as well.

Don't just take time to listen...take time to perform a tiny moment, if you will.