Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Listening Book” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Listening Book

W.A. Mathieu

4.14 · Rating details · 156 ratings · 19 reviews

The Listening Book is about rediscovering the power of listening as an instrument of self-discovery and personal transformation. By exploring our capacity for listening to sounds and for making music, we can awaken and release our full creative powers. Mathieu offers suggestions and encouragement on many aspects of music-making, and provides playful exercises to help read ...more

Get A Copy

Paperback, 192 pages

Published March 27th 1991 by Shambhala (first published 1991)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Listening Book, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about Listening Book

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

Showing 1-19

Average rating 4.14 ·

Rating details

· 156 ratings · 19 reviews

Sort order

Start your review of Listening Book

Nov 15, 2014 Carla Krueger rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Anyone even remotely interested in music, writing or creativity.

Recommended to Carla by: My other half, a music composer.

Shelves: music, non-fiction, psychology

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. I bought it as a present for my boyfriend, who composes music as a hobby (and helps me with music for book trailers!) but decided to try it myself on his recommendation. Really glad I did.

I am not a musician, but still found "The Listening Book" incredibly useful – as a writer and human being! It's not just about listening or music. It's about opening up to the world around us. It's about art and how we respond to it, create it and live with being creative souls. Wi ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Feb 04, 2020 Timothy Ball rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"We ordinarily use mistakes to fuel self-denial, as a proof of our incompetence. But since mistakes are inevitable, try turning them instead to your best advantage. Embrace your mistakes; accept the self who makes them. This is the creative response, one that allows music to find its true shape inside you. Mistakes are your best friends. They bring a message. They tell you what to do next and light the way. They come about because you have not understood something, or have learned something inco ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 30, 2020 Anne rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Musicians, or those who want to learn to listen.

Recommended to Anne by: My hubby

Shelves: music

I was labeled as “non-musical” way back in elementary school. Mr. Mathieu insists we are all musical. He even has a chapter on how to create and manage a “tone deaf choir”.
This book has already made me listen more closely to my surroundings. I hope to extract more meaning from it when I try the simple note exercises he describes.

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Dec 02, 2013 D rated it really liked it

Never has music had such a written resonance. This book is on the money.

The More You Listen
We can no more hear all the vibrations in a sonata than we can see all the radiation from the stars. There is an effulgence [ a brilliant radiance; a shining forth], a surfeit in the world.

The history of music is the history of our response to tone, our waking up to it, our remembering and forgetting it, our becoming human it in human form. Each time you hear a tone more clearly than the last time, you par ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jun 03, 2012 Victor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a very subjective book, with many instructions on how to practice your listening skills. Like for example, how to listen to the subtle sound of your day to day life that you really doesn't pay much attention. It encourages you to dive deep in a kind of contemplative state of listening. It changes the way you listen for the better. But when I was thinking of buying it, I thought that it would have more ways to approach musical instruments in a new way, or even creating your own music, as ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jun 14, 2007 Hank Horse rated it really liked it

An invitation to the pleasures of sound. W A Mathieu has a generous spirit, and I found these short essays about listening and making sound very stimulating.

A riddle: say these words out loud-

pin tin key cod chutzpah

What's the connection?

Well, Mathieu introduces the International Phonetic Alphabet on p.63 by showing how the consonants range from front-formed to back-formed, from lips to glottis. This book has lots of odd wonderful investigations, as well as poetic insight and humor. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Aug 22, 2014 Mike Barretta rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own, nonfiction

This isn't really the type of book you "finish", but having technically read each of the pages, it counts for this purpose.

I described the book thusly to a friend, "It's great: philosophical, transcendent, zen in its mindfulness. All this without being new age-y". And it is. It's written from such a high place that it's applicable far beyond just music and musicians, it's for anyone who sees beauty and complexity and wants to create some of their own. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jan 17, 2021 Tavis rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Adam Neely mentioned this book in a video called The Worst Jazz Solo of All Time. It is a collection of short essays about different listening and playing practices. In the introduction, Mathieu mentions his hope that you will keep returning back to the book and taking new things from it every time. Here are 12 practices that stuck with me on this read through.

1) Symphony of Place: Combination of mindfulness practice with prose writing. Open your listening to your environment, and then narrativ Adam Neely mentioned this book in a video called The Worst Jazz Solo of All Time. It is a collection of short essays about different listening and playing practices. In the introduction, Mathieu mentions his hope that you will keep returning back to the book and taking new things from it every time. Here are 12 practices that stuck with me on this read through.

1) Symphony of Place: Combination of mindfulness practice with prose writing. Open your listening to your environment, and then narratively, non-judgmentally, write the things that you hear.

2) Chanting: Mindfully repeat a syllable (e.g. Om, Sa). Try to settle on a single sustained pitch. "You will hear your own overtones at the fringes"

3) One Note After Another: Play a note, hold it and listen intently. Get lost in the landscape of the sound, and scrutinize every detail. When you have heard all you can hear, play another note. Repeat until the experience is reliable. "There will be a moment when your sense of fullness gives you permission to go on to the next note). A connection between the notes eventually emerges. "If you find yourself trying to make a melody, stop. [...] Let the melody make itself, let the sounds choose the sounds. " (Don't be seduced by the melody is the instruction, but really it is OK to go ahead and be seduced, it's only love.)

4) What should I practice: The secret is to keep track of what you do practice, like an anthropologist would. Generally guideline is to spend 1/4 of your time on each: Playing other's music, Theory & Technique, Improvising & Composing, and Listening.

5) Lentus Celer Est: Slow is Fast.

6) Finding a Teacher: Reflect on the person you want to become - "Try to capture the character of your future music in your ear, even if the notes are a blur. [...] When the picture comes into focus, describe it in writing. Tell everything." What has to happen for you to become the person you saw? The person who can guide you there is the teacher you need to find.

7) Singing in Unison With a String: Like the chanting exercise, but first play an open note (doesn't need to be on a string) listening until it fades, and then try and sing that note in unison with the string, make your voice like the string.

8) AMAPFALAP: As Much As Possible From As Little As Possible. Improvisation with one note. So many variations possible: Dynamics, Duration, Timbre, Texture, Feeling & Intention. Eventually, do it with two notes, and then three, four, across octaves. But don't forget about the things you learned when you were only using one note! Another note is another tool in the toolbox, don't forget about the other variations.

9) Touch What You Sing: Strike one note on your instrument, then a second. Compose a brief melody with only these two notes. Then, continue improvising, but now sing what you are playing. Sing at the same time as you play the note, blend your voice with the sound of the instrument. Then, expand to three pitches and believe you are simultaneously singing and playing short passages of real music. Now, instead of pressing the key all the way down, merely touch it - the only sound is your singing but keep going through the motions of playing the instrument. Touch the keys and sing the notes that would sound if you were playing the instrument. If you're unsure of your accuracy, play a note to check it. Sing what you touch, then Touch what you sing, following your voice. This "gives priority to the inner world and asks the outer world to mirror it faithfully. You can then add more notes gradually (this is a life of work, don't rush!) You can play the root note to keep it in the air and stabilize your singing.

10) Play by the Clock: Improvisation and composition practice. Set a timer for exactly one minute and watch it while you play, realize you are half way done at 30 seconds, and that you need to start wrapping up at 45 seconds, at 55 second you need to be concluding. Try to finish the piece at exactly 60 seconds.

11 )Just the News: Improvisation practice - remember a scene or event you saw within the last 48 hours, take some time to mindfully remember what happened and then improvise a short piece that is like a journal entry for the event.

12)The Magic Scale: You don't need to be constrained by the modes, you can make your own mode using: C Db/D Eb/E F/F# G Ab/A Bb/B C - Root and Fifth are given, but for the other degrees let how you feel like playing decide which to choose. ...more

flag Like · see review

Apr 23, 2019 Hannah Lulu rated it liked it

The best chapter in this book is "practices" which is at the end of the book. It offers GREAT ideas for self practice and for teaching music to others--including, but not limited to teaching both music practice and theory to young children, and to people with a lot of musical experience or none at all. These exercises are somewhat helpful for making the fundamentals of music theory useful without the learner needing to understand them in depth. The exercises also help create strategies for impro ...more

flag Like · see review

Jan 22, 2018 Jonathan Harris rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I'm not sure what I was expecting to get out of this book when I picked it up, but I'm pretty sure staring at a wall in a dark room would've been quicker & just as revealing.

The book is a series of disjointed, rhythm-less stories relating in some way to sound. Some do provide some fairly straightforward advice (for example on how to practice an instrument), and there are a few unusual tidbits I found interesting to try (like writing a 'sound symphony') but these are far to few in what otherwise ...more

flag Like · see review

Dec 05, 2020 Rudolf Ray rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I loved this book!

flag Like · see review

Nov 01, 2011 Jon Ciliberto rated it really liked it

from
http://buddhistartnews.wordpress.com/...

Book Review by Jonathan Ciliberto, 26 December 2011

The Listening Book
Discovering Your Own Music
By W. A. Mathieu
published by Shambhala
Paperback
List Price: $17.95
978-1-59030-831-8

Aspects of oneself innate or ever-present are often overlooked when considering self-improvement. For instance, while people regularly train themselves to speak better French or acquire a better golf game, it is less obvious that one would seek to improve one’s mind or being.

An ...more

flag Like · see review

Aug 27, 2007 Derek Martin rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: musicians, music lovers

I read this book when I was in high school. I remember that it gave me some ideas on music that I had not thought about before. It is a good book for any one who lacks confidence in their musicianship or wants to come to know music on their own terms, but experienced musicians could find some ideas that would shake up their accepted views if they flipped through it. It's an easy read, a simple book and the basic theme of it is freedom. ...more

flag Like · see review

Jan 29, 2008 Annie rated it it was amazing

I would say that this book is essential for anyone who wants to teach music to the layperson. It is also a great refresher for those who have already dedicated their lives to music. It is about hearing the beauty in the sounds of our world. An easy read.

flag Like · see review

Apr 06, 2010 Linny rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Short, 1-2 page essays on aspects of music applicable to arts in general, discipline (as in approaching practicing), imagination (anyone can improvise - start on 1 note), the simplicity of music, and verifies some of the way I teach piano. Plus new ideas, breaks down barriers and preconceptions.

flag Like · see review

Dec 12, 2011 Gloria rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction

Brief vignettes about the benefits of becoming a good listener, many of which are related to music. Sounds a bit like a preppie New Englander who embraces the hippie life in San Francisco. Not terrible, but no real meat to it.

flag Like · see review

Feb 05, 2008 rae rated it really liked it

good ideas for opening up your ears.

flag Like · see review

Apr 18, 2009 ava rated it it was amazing

poetic & mind-altering
intellectually & spiritually nurturing
thanks mr mathieu

flag Like · see review

Jan 28, 2018 Liz added it

Pages with quotes to remember (I’ll write a for-real review later on my blog): 36, 52, 60, 88, 92, 94, 101, 113, 125, 127, 129, 132, 142, 143, 147, 149, 155, and 166

flag Like · see review