Select a two- or three-minute excerpt, and save the entire movement, symphony, or opera for the future. It is important that the excerpt has some musical content for you to identify and name, but is short enough to fit in memory without having to listen to the whole thing. This means that it does not matter to identify all the instruments, nor name every form perfectly. It means only that you are able to hear some elements so clearly that the experience of sound stops being a blur.
Begin by listening to the excerpt just once, without taking any notes. Listen only and observe, for example, whether it seems bright or dark, loud or soft, fast or slow, joyful or solemn, active or calm, smooth or jagged, crowded or spacious. These words are not the final answers to describe the music, but the beginning to understanding it. You may miss something in the very beginning of your listening experience if you have a tendency to analyze the whole piece too deeply without first identifying the general mood of the piece.
Now listen to the second time, and this time choose just one musical element of the passage to listen to: the melody, the rhythm, the texture, or the mood. The melody of most classical pieces is usually a very clear element in the music; if not, then begin with the rhythm. If you find the melody to be elusive, listen for any of the following: the rhythmic quality of the piece is lively, fast, or steady. The rhythm is syncopated, dance-like, slow or irregular. Listen to see whether there is a pattern that repeats. This helps you to train your ability to listen to a particular element while disregarding any other part that distracts you.
You can also make a musical drawing while the excerpt plays: draw a line going up when the excerpt becomes louder, or a line going down when the excerpt becomes quiet. Break the line where there are rests or when a new movement starts. This is not music notation, but just a simple description of the music as you heard it. Now, make a brief written note beside your sketch, for example, the piece has a bright orchestral timbre; the piece has a repeated motivic pattern. Or there is a sudden shift to a quiet section at the end of the piece. This can help to remind you of the piece in the future.
There is one thing that many new listeners find difficult about listening to the classical excerpt for the first time. They want to hear everything perfectly. In reality, classical music often uses texture to make certain parts of the piece hard to understand. For example, an orchestral texture might start with one melody instrument that plays clearly; the next time this instrument plays the melody, a second melody joins it and creates a different timbre; the next time this instrument plays the melody, it is no longer in the texture. Similarly, harmony might shift the feeling and mood of the piece while the rhythm stays the same. Or, the piece uses a motivic idea as an important thread in the music. It means that this was the first time you have heard this piece before, and it takes time for you to begin listening in a way that will allow you to hear it more deeply as a whole.
Finally, make one connection from the piece to the visual arts or other aspects of the culture that you have already learned about in this course. Perhaps you are listening to the piece and it reminds you of a painting by a certain artist. Perhaps you are listening to a particular piece that relates to another work you have studied about in this class. These three small sentences will help you to remember the piece as you learn more about the composer and the historical period. Music history does not have to be the list of composers and dates that you have to memorize. It is the study of a culture as experienced through the medium of musical sound, in which music helps to convey information about how a society was created, and how it continues to exist today.