For readers, this blog is about enhancing your enjoyment of music. I hope to enhance yours by sharing what has enhanced mine. The blog will include essays, reviews, topical discussions, but few to no rants. (Rants almost never enhance my enjoyment of anything.)

My musical aesthetic closely mirrors what I think about art. Music and art are better when they can be appreciated in a number of ways. Indeed, the more ways one can listen to and interpret music the ‘better’ the music is. Stated differently, a work of art or music is only as good as the number of modes of experiencing the work can sustain. So a fundamental way I approach listening is to listen in different ‘modes’. Modes are interpretive schemes, ways of listening, ways of thinking what the music is about or how it moves me. What I mean by modes of listening is best illustrated by presenting the modes of listening I have identified. In posts to come, I’ll be describing a series of modes of listening which are the theory for the way I approach writing about music.