Listening Together
Dear Friends,
I'm excited to start this new project :)
Here we will listen to good music and learn about pieces/composers together. I will update this page often, so keep tuned in order to take complete advantage of this idea.
The idea is to enjoy good music and improve our listening skills together. Every week I will post an audio or video file of a piece and write something about it. The writing will be brief and straight-forward and I personally invite you to complement the posts by clicking on “add a new comment”.
This section is made for people who want to be exposed to high quality music (non-musicians) and it is also made for the musicians/guitarists who want to improve their musicianship.
Listen, we all call ourselves guitarists but in reality we are all musicians who just happened to choose guitar as an instrument. The point is that we need to be listening to good music from many different sources and instruments. WHY? First, the obvious: to enjoy it, because we love music anyway :) Second: we need to have high quality references for diverse music styles, types of phrasing, tone, expressiveness, dynamics, tempo, etc. In other words, “what comes out in our performance is the result of what we allow to get inside our heads.”
Now, the challenge is that we are bombarded by external stimulation every day. Our cell phones, the advertisements, games, parties, etc. are constantly present in our lives. We live in a moment in time where we are conditioned to respond to all that stimulation by complying with most of them. It became rude to not answer your phone or to not show up to a soccer game with your friends. It is becoming rare for most individuals to really stop for a second and choose their experiences, I mean, how many times have you stopped your daily routine and said to yourself: “I’m going to listen to classical music now.”? If you have done this frequently, I have to tell you: “Good job!” because most people will just not make decisions like that. Simple decisions like that are what separate an outstanding guitarist from an average one.
Decide NOW you commit to listen to good music every day. I hope you can take full advantage of this resource, please accept this project as my gift to you, and remember: “The quality of your performance is the quality of your listening habits.”
Best wishes,
Eduardo Minozzi Costa
