Hearing But Not Listening: Part 3

This is part three of a two part series. Confused? I didn’t intend to write this article, but I’m being pulled back toward my roots, and I think you’ll find it interesting. See the bottom of the article for links to the first two articles in the series.

Certain tunes mark chapters of my life. It's probably the same for you. Even if you don’t share my passion for music, you still have your favorites that bring back specific memories from your journey. You hear a song and it takes you back to high school, or a special person, or it ignites a whole set of feelings stirring inside of you. A specific tune transports you back to that early salsa class, your first great dance with someone, or a summer trip across the country.

When I was writing the original articles for this listening series, I remembered one song in the back of my mind that started me listening to vocals decades ago. I knew it was a Kenny Loggins tune but couldn’t recall the song title, or the specific album. I could still hear the feel of the tune in my head, although I couldn’t remember the specifics.

After publishing the articles, it kept bugging me, so I did a Google search and found the tune that started my vocal listening years ago.

Kenny Logins: Enter My Dream


In the 20th Century, when I was a young adult, music was on vinyl disks called records or albums, and I purchased hundreds of them before I was twenty. When I was 17 or so, Steve Gadd and Harvey Mason were among my favorite drummers, and they were the session players on Kenny Loggins' first solo album titled “Celebrate Me Home.” I originally purchased the album for the drummers (and because Bob James was playing piano and producing).

The groove on “Enter My Dream” fascinated me, and it still does today. It has a reggae influence and I was studying Latin music variations at the time. I was also learning how difficult it was to play slow, controlled, and dynamic, while creating a feel without rushing the time. This tune is an amazing example of laying back and creating a great groove, without rushing or getting in the way. The song breaths and feels effortless, like a work of art. In the process of listening to the drum track a few hundred times, I was drawn into figuring out the vocals in the last part of the tune.

From around the 3:45 time mark until the final fade, the voices ebb and flow, adding layers on a set of interesting overlapping lines. The voices sound like a dream, with rich harmonies creating a floating feel. I couldn’t figure out what they were saying at first, other than maybe the top layer. It was all a big mess of sounds, but I knew they were saying something related to the dream, and I couldn’t figure out any of the words.

Over many hours, I starting being able to selectively listen to the different voices, figuring out the words and enjoying the textures created as they overlapped each other. My ability to separate musical layers in my mental ear began when I spent so much time breaking down this song, and it started me on a quest that I still enjoy today.

Most people won’t enjoy this tune like I do, because being able to hear some of the lower layers took me so many hours of listening. But the drum track still impresses me today, especially since I know the difficulty in playing such a great feel at that tempo. (I also love the “Lucky Lady” track on that album; what a great rhythm section!)

I hope you enjoy my starting point in my musical journey, but finding your own is more important. Find something that intrigues you and that you enjoy and listen to it hundreds of times. Check out one of my early articles titled “Listening to Music: 100 Times or More” for more insights.

Let me know the tunes you enjoy that help you fine-tune your listening. I'm sure you have some that bookmark your life as well.

This is part three of a two part series. I never intended to write this article but I decided it made sense to outline my personal starting point, hoping it inspires you to find something you love and can enjoy as you grow.

Here are links to the previous articles in this series:
Hearing But Not Listening: Part 1
Hearing But Not Listening: Part 2

The difference between genious and stupidity is that
genius has its limits.
--Sam Carbin

Hearing But Not Listening: Part 2

This is Part 2 of the “Hearing But Not Listening” articles. If you missed Part 1, click here to read the first article in the series.

In Part 1, I outlined the lyrics as an excellent starting point for tuning your ears and becoming a stronger listener. After 30 years of serious listening, I still work on getting the correct lyrics on tunes I enjoy. Some songs are a serious challenge and some are pretty easy, but it’s always a fun thing to do.

You’ll find interesting parts in a wide variety of music, and while I love salsa music, a wide variety of music is great for growing your ability to listen selectively. Voices are easier than most instruments, but some songs have very complex vocal parts, and they are excellent for ear training and focused listening.

The more advanced level of listening to voices includes picking out the words from fast moving sequences and/or background parts. Many tunes have subtle background voices, with 3 or more people singing phrases in harmony. Some tunes have layers of voices, singing different words and creating great depth in the vocals, similar to the instrumentalists playing different parts.

One of the jazz instructors at Millennium uses the Jennifer Lopez tune below during the conditioning phase of his class, and I heard it 20 times before I purchased a copy. The background vocals and layers of words create a very interesting effect, and it takes some effort to figure out the words for all the background parts. I still have a couple words I can’t get, but I’m darned close.

Jennifer Lopez – Gotta Be There


Most people will NOT hear all the details, there are simply too many. They hear the overall mix and the feel, but this version requires hearing the tune over and over to sort through all the parts. For the few that want to challenge their ears and can already hear background parts, check out this tune. (Side note: the YouTube video is for reference. The quality of YouTube videos is all over the place, mostly “just okay” or poor quality. Download this song and play it on something with quality speakers or ear buds to hear all the parts.)

Check out the fast moving phrases around the 49 second mark (“I really didn’t mean it…”) , and I love the layered vocals at around 1:07. Notice there are background vocals interwoven with the primary vocals in the “If you’re in Houston…” section. See if you can get all the words on top, and within all the layers. I love this arrangement.

Again, the depth of these parts is just not obvious via the low quality YouTube example. I can hear most of the parts because my speakers are good AND I’ve heard the tune on an excellent quality system. Spend the buck and get a good copy if you are serious about learning.

For those with more advanced ears who are focused on the instruments, download the Anita Baker song (Rhythm of Love, from Part 1 of this article), and play it on a great sound system. Notice the bass player doesn’t even start until the intro ends (the keyboard/marimba player does play some lower notes, but no bass player).

After the bass player starts, the piano player doubles the bass groove in many parts of the tune, providing an interesting feel that is unique. For the non-musicians, it’s unusual for the piano player to double so much of the bass line, and unless you have both good speakers and experienced ears, it’s tough to hear both instruments are playing the same notes. It creates a unique sound, so it’s obvious to people with more experienced ears, but it’s not something the casual listener will notice.

For us percussion fans with more advanced ears, check out the bongo player. He smokes the intro, drops out for a while, then makes himself known again around 3:27, and builds from there until the end, playing some really tasty stuff. I love his groove, and he’s easy to hear in the final outtro (the fadeout toward the end), he is also playing some interesting parts while the tune is cooking. That’s outside the scope of this article, but if you have the ears already, you’ll enjoy the rhythm section on this tune. Go back to Part 1 of this article to get the YouTube version, but if you are serious about tuning your ears, I’ll repeat myself and say get quality downloads of the songs.

The more you practice without dancing, the easier it is on the dance floor, where there are a hundred distractions, including flashing lights, energetic people, inconsistent sound systems and a partner who is loving your moves. If you can’t hear the parts yet in a controlled environment, the dance floor has too much happening to learn there.

Let me know what you think of these examples.

Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered
an old idea and thinks it is his own.
--Sidney J. Harris

Hearing But Not Listening: Part 1

OK... I'll take one for the team:

Men often hear but we don't always listen. I think it may be an inborn skill, but my Y chromosome keeps me from being totally objective.

For the record, women are often guilty too, but men are the gold medal winners in the "in one ear, out the other" competitions. Most men have an uncanny ability to ignore female voices during ball games, video games, and sometimes across the dinner table. It's not all men's fault, we were born that way, and we trained long and hard to miss statements from women like "Pick up your socks," "How about we go shopping together," "Did you notice the grass is taller than the dogs?” or "Do I look fat in this?"

Most guys hear that something was said, but the blank look on our faces says we never picked up the details, especially if there are any video screens within viewing distance. If you ask the guys later, they will swear, "You never said that!"

It can wreak havoc in relationships, and in dancing, we want to move beyond simply hearing the music, toward actively listening to the music. This means being able to block out certain instruments and focus on others. While men occasionally have a head start in this type of listening, both men and women benefit from training their ears to pick out select sounds in music. Everybody can improve their listening skills, so where do you start?

Over the years of working with dancers to hear the music, I’ve found that decoding the lyrics (words) of tunes is an excellent starting point for ear training. Our ultimate goal is to go back and forth from listening to the complete mix of sounds, to focusing like a laser on a single instrument from the beginning to the end of the tune. Singers voices are among the easiest "instruments" to pick out, especially for non-musicians, as we are already familiar with that sound and the language.

Sure, you could simply Google a song and get the lyrics quickly. But it's tough to Google while dancing and it does nothing for your ears. The effort of actively listening to the tune, figuring out the words and writing them down gives you skills that pay off when you're dancing.

Look up lyrics on-line only after you master the skill of hearing them with your ears. The more tunes you work through yourself, the sharper your listening skills become and that provides raw materials to shape your dances.

Be sure to start simple; pick out some of your favorite commercial music that has a singer and write out the words to the song. Salsa is fine, but not required.

For most people, it’s tougher than it sounds. Getting the chorus (AKA “the hook”) is generally easy, but getting every word is often more challenging. While our goal is ultimately to hear all the instruments, figuring out the words to a tune requires the same skills as listening to the instrumentalists. However, it’s also much easier than hearing the individual instruments because we already know the language. Check out the introduction of this old Anita Baker tune and try the following exercises:

• Figure out the exact words she uses until the she says “and love…” at around the 41 second mark. It’s a fairly clear rap and most people can figure out the words with a few listens.


• WRITE THEM DOWN (How hard can that be; it’s less than 41 seconds, and she speaks slowly!)


• Try to say it EXACTLY like she does. (This is the interesting/fun part.) She pushes some words, breaks up the syllables and stretches other words.


• Play the introduction repeatedly and say it out loud until you are totally in sync with her phrasing and emphasis (I love how she says, “... stop! and find your own…”).

Anita Baker: 1992 – Rhythm of Love

Don’t be surprised if you have to listen and replay the intro 50 times or more to get it right. I spent hours getting it nearly perfect on that tune, and I still don't get it right all the time. The process is very valuable in terms of forcing yourself to really listen to both what she says and how she says it, but the real payoff comes later as it gives you the ability to selectively focus and actively listen to different sounds. Moving to the dance floor, your active listening skills pay off big-time as you advance, and you’ll never get too good at it. Remember that when a female voice says something we don't want to hear, just use the blank look you rehearsed for so long.

In part 2 of this article, I’ll provide some interesting ideas for people with more advanced ears. The Rhythm of Love is an interesting study for both novice ears and expert listeners.

I also like the Sting tune called “Fragile” as a learning tool. Someone has done a salsa cover of this tune, but so far I haven’t found it on YouTube so I'm including a couple of his versions (they are excellent).

See if you can get every word and you’ll find some sections require listening many times to verify you’re right. Again, the process of listening over and over is part of the ear training so don’t panic if you listen to one part 25 times. It goes that way sometimes.

If you can hear, understand and write out the words in most tunes consistently, you are ready for working on the instruments, and you’ll have a huge jump start over people who start with other sounds. Many people do succeed starting with other instruments, but I strongly believe in the “walk before you run” concept, and lyrics are a better starting point for most people.

Sting - Fragile


Another tip: Sometimes an alternate version of a tune can help you hear some things that were difficult in your first version. Many tunes have remixes available and/or the artists have a live version and a studio version. I’ve sometimes figured out lyrics from one version that were close to impossible on the other. If you get stuck on a word, try another version before cheating and using Google. Finding the lyrics on line does little to help your ear training, although it’s a great verification tool once you believe you have as many words as possible.

For fun, here is another version of the Sting tune.

Sting – Fragile (Alternate version)

Let me know how these exercises go; I suspect you’ll be amazed how much your ears improve with these concepts. In Part 2 of this article, I'll highlight some things more advanced listeners will find interesting.

Formula for success: under-promise and over-deliver.
-- Tom Peters

Baarns Musiciality Principles (BMP) Part 1

In 1968, Sly and the Family Stone soulfully and infectiously begged us to "Dance to the Music." Forty years later, the tune still grooves, and for many of us, dancing to the music is still much easier said than done.

Dance to the Music: Sly and the Family Stone


“Musicality” is a term thrown around as people improve in their dancing, but learning about the music is often not discussed. It's tough to dance "to the music" if you don't know about “the music.”

When we step back and take an analytical approach, that song raises two important questions:

• Do we know enough about the music to “dance to it?”
• After understanding music, what are the appropriate movements that compliment the songs?

To answer these questions, (and the many others that they raise), I'm excited to begin a new series that will focus on knowing the music through my “Baarns Musicality Principles” (BMP).

I'll lay out some principles because awareness is the first step to understanding. If I don't know I don't know, I never fill in the knowledge gap. Once you understand the framework of the music, however, fitting the pieces together is much easier, although it does take some practice.

We’ll discuss the foundational principles and provide exercises where possible. Some will require video/audio support, meaning it’s easier to learn when music is playing. I am taping some video examples and will upload them as time permits.

The stronger dancers almost consider themselves another member of the band, providing the visual components to the music, both complimenting and completing the art. Many know the instruments, the words, and can play air piano, bass, timbales, or bongos with the best of them. That requires extensive practice to get it right, and you can’t play air piano if you’re not hearing what the musicians are playing.

Now, there are a minority of people who learn to “dance to the music” but know very little theory or background about the music. If you grew up in a household with dancers and/or musicians, you can soak up a ton of stuff without formal training. But if you're an adult and learning dance and/or music, having a conceptual framework dramatically shortens the learning curve.

In the abstract, dancing musically is simple: You and your partner create a visual dance reflecting some aspects of the music. Easier said than done, but it’s still a simple concept. For example, when the music is calm, your dance is calmer. When the music is intense, your dance intensifies. When the music stops, you stop. Your dance movement mirrors or contrasts the emotion in the music, creating a visual which fits with the music.

I have a set of principles I teach dancers when learning about the music and I'll share them with you here.

Baarns Musicality Principles (BMP)

• Music has Structure! (Music Ain’t Random)
• Time is Foundational to Music
• Listening With Specific Objectives Improves Your Understanding
• Music has Shape: It’s Always Going Someplace
• Contrast Creates Emotion
• Over Time You Feel The Music, Without Having to Analyze Every Detail
• Knowing the Music Does NOT Make You A Great Dancer

We’ll discuss these principles one at a time in future articles and point to past articles which outlined some of the principles. Because it's such an overwhelming subject, I expect to write all the articles, then probably rewrite/re-organize them over time. During the writing, I’m also producing a set of video clips to enhance the concepts, illustrating the most important points.

Because this is primarily a project of love, it takes more time than I'd like. I have all the raw materials from 30 years of musical background, now it's getting it out of my head and into a form others can use.

Your feedback is always welcomed. Send me mail directly and/or add comments.

Disclaimer: Music and dancing have hundreds of years of history. College music majors spend a couple years or more learning “Music Theory” and “Music History,” so this subject is vast and deep. Ear training exercises run for a couple years at most schools, which include teaching musicians to hear different sounds and how they relate to each other (intervals, chords, scales, melodies, rhythms, etc.) For our purposes, we will simply focus on the topics relevant to most dancers.

I look better, feel better, make love better, and I'll tell you something else...
I never lied better.
-George Burns

Air Guitar, Air Drums: A One Man Band

Do you play any air instruments? You know, pretending you’re the singer in the hot band, or sitting in with the band on air guitar, drums, congas or maybe just cowbell?

Every dancer should! It’s a great exercise and not always easy to do, especially if you really try to get everything right. To play air instruments well, you have to really listen to the music. It’s hard to play things you don’t hear, so start packing your gig bags now.

Anybody who's around me in my car, or in one of my musicality classes knows I'm one of the best air musicians on the planet. (What an egotistical thing to say! But I'll take the Texas defense on this one that says, "It ain't bragging if you've done it.")

I can play air drums, guitar, bass, piano, bongos, timbales, and more. I’ll bet 80% of the people who don’t play those instruments will think I do. Being a drummer, air drums is no big deal, nobody should be impressed. But my air piano is pretty strong for some tunes, and most would be surprised how well I fake “playing” some of the other instruments. I don’t do this in public much, but I always do it in my car and when few are watching.

I also try to sing song lyrics, and phrase them EXACTLY like the artist. (You don’t want to hear my Whitney Houston, Faith Evans or MJB, unless you have excellent ear plugs or need some windows broken.)

The point is not to be a great singer, but to try and sing the words and phrases just like the singer. I sometimes have to play a part of a tune 25 times or more to get the phrasing close. I also try and sing some sax and piano solos. That isn't always easy, but what a great exercise for your ears. I have one sax solo that took me a few weeks to get close, and I still have some things I can refine, after doing it over and over for hours. On the other hand, I'm amazingly close and it forced me to really, really listen to what he's playing.

Last night in took a basic hip-hop class (yea… I didn’t blend) and the instructor was playing air drums at one point, punching out the bass drum with his fist. It cracked me up but I realized “Darn… he really knows this tune! That was not an easy or obvious part…” It was obvious he enjoyed the music (and he loved it) and his dance reflected that he knew the music extremely well.

When listening to music, can you pick out the individual instruments and pretend you are playing them? If not, start with the lyrics, those are the easiest. Take a song you really, really like with a vocalist, and figure out the words. Try to lip-sync them or sing them out loud until you can get close. Continue to refine it over time until you could close your eyes and become that singer for a few minutes.

Quality isn’t the thing here, it’s getting the phrasing and timing like the singer. See if you can get EVERY word just like the recording, even if the dog starts howling along with you.

Do it in your car, do it while exercising, do it anyplace you can where you’re not bothering others. We’ll go over more details later, but the more air instruments you play, and the better you sing words (even if the pitch is wrong), the better off you’ll be as a dancer.

I promise you it will pay off later if you continue to refine your air instruments. You can’t pretend to play without learning to hear the instrument throughout the tune. I have some good exercises for that and I’ll expose those later, but for now just know, the more you sing and pretend you are playing, the better you’ll be as we work on musicality issues.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.
-Igor Stravinsky