Look Who it Was Random video

No Listening, No Music: Why Listening Matters

2,364 views · Published 12 October 2018 · 46:17 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Gresham College · 2018 · Education

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00:00 // Introduction: Why Listening Matters
02:15 // Benjamin Britten's Holy Triangle: Composing, Performing & Listening
04:30 // A First Concert: Personal Awakening Through Music
07:00 // Listening as Active Engagement, Not Passive Experience
09:20 // The Pyramid of Musical Culture: Listeners at the Centre
12:10 // Defining Listening: Vibration, Perception & the Body
15:45 // The Evolution of Hearing: 350 Million Years in the Making
19:00 // Hearing vs. Listening: Is There Really a Difference?
23:30 // The Origins of Music: Ice Age Flutes & Cave Acoustics
28:00 // Prof. Steven Mithen: Early Humans & Musical Culture
33:15 // Concert Halls as Modern Caves: Our Deep Listening Legacy

What does it mean to listen to music? How might the concepts and practices of 'listening' and 'music-making' have first emerged in the story of human development? 

We journey back in time, to the origins of human society - in the company of research like Steven Mithin's book The Singing Neanderthals - and to the origins of our hearing, to the mechanisms of how our bodies and auditory systems are designed to receive and interpret sound waves. Our music and our listening have been in a symbiotic round-dance ever since.

This lecture was recorded by Professor Tom Service on the 8th of October 2018

Tom Service was the Gresham Professor of Music 2018-2019, as well as a renowned music journalist and television and radio presenter. He has written regularly for The Guardian since 1999. His book titles include Music as Alchemy: Journeys with Great Conductors and their Orchestras and Thomas Adès: Full of Noises.

Professor Service joined BBC Radio 3 in 2001 presenting Hear and Now and later Music Matters. He has been a contributor and presenter across BBC Radio and Television since. In 2011 he joined the BBC Proms team, presenting the world’s largest annual classical music festival. Professor Service is also the creator of several successful documentaries on classical music, including the highly acclaimed The Joy of Mozart.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/listening-music

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