What Was That?

—Talking About What We Hear in

Music
By Patricia J. Flowers
Patricia J. Flowers is a professor and chair of graduate studies in music in the School of Music at The Ohio State
University in Columbus.

We listen to music in many different ways, depending on context, style, and state of mind. Listening
is arguably the most ubiquitous form of music engagement, inescapable in nearly every aspect of
life—from insipid to annoying to sublime—encompassing background music, mood-enhancing music,
and music that demands our full focus of attention. Listening is like breathing or eating: most people
partake without direct instruction. But just as fitness experts have suggestions on how to breathe more
efficiently, and nutritionists have principles on how to eat well, so do music educators have guidelines
about how to listen effectively, to get the most out of the music, and to focus attention for maximum
musical impact. It is true that our brains and our culture do much of the work for us. Infants are born with
the ability to make fine auditory discriminations useful for survival, communication, and learning. Most
babies babble in response to vocalizations made by their parents, but they do not attempt to imitate
sounds made by the dishwasher. They come to know the music that surrounds them as “our” music and
everything else as “other.” The ability to hear, perceive, discriminate, respond, and communicate in
sound is well developed by the time a child reaches school age. Simultaneously, most young children
learn to understand at least one language and to speak it. Like with music, this is accomplished “by ear,”
resulting from numerous direct and incidental learning experiences. And finally, while music and
language may represent different domains, there is surely a degree of interdependence as children learn
nouns, verbs, pronouns, possessives, and modifiers, and apply them to their world of sound as well as
everything else. By the time children enter the school years, they know about 5,000 words (Chall, 1987),
they have watched and heard numerous hours of television and videos, listened to tapes and CDs in the
car and in the nursery, and participated in structured or unstructured musical activities such as dancing,
singing, and playing with sounds. Entering kindergarten, they bring an astute ear, a culturally informed
mind, a functional vocabulary, and opinions about how music should go. Then, we play C8 and C1 on
the piano and ask them which is “high” and which is “low,” and when they fail to respond, we surmise
that they haven’t formed a concept of pitch. Or, at least we used to make that assumption. This paper will
address music description and its role in music listening. The title of the paper, “What Was
That?—Talking About What We Hear in Music,” is, in fact, a summary of its content:
1. What was that? is a question you might ask when you just missed something. Both hearing acuity
and paying attention are relevant prerequisites that are often assumed in music listening
instruction.
2. What was that? is a question you might ask to identify a musical element, a performer, an
instrument, a piece, or a style. This is the area on which most vocabulary and description
objectives are focused.
3. What was that? is a comment with judgmental overtones, either positive or negative.
Regarding the first question—What was that?—we know that most listeners are not hard of hearing,
although it is certainly worth an auditory examination if there is any doubt. Nonverbal measures have
shown that a normal infant’s hearing apparatus is functional from the first months of life. Infants respond
to loudness, timbre, rhythm patterns, pitch, and style, making fine discriminations that function in
learning and communication. In the past several decades, researchers have gained a great deal of
knowledge about older listeners as well as infants through the use of nonverbal assessment techniques.
Nonverbal measures have been used in music research to study emotional response, preference,
discrimination, and conceptualization in situations where verbalization was deemed an insufficient
dependent variable due to lack of knowledge of appropriate terminology; interference of writing or
speaking with the listening task; or populations for which verbalization is not possible. Before launching
into a more comprehensive discussion about music description, the following caveats need to be made:
1. Music description is not good evidence of hearing acuity.
2. It is occasionally good evidence of what people perceive.
3. It is often good evidence of what people know.
4. It is usually good evidence of what people want to tell you.
The content of music description is mediated by attention, perception, knowledge, and language skills,
but it alone does not define, explain, or represent those domains. The earlier example of erroneously
concluding that children were incapable of perceiving or conceptualizing pitch because they did not
apply the terms “high” and “low” could only been drawn in an era that placed priority on verbal
measures for nonverbal (i.e., listening) behavior. The often cited adage that “children can hear more than
they can verbalize” is supported by the results of numerous studies using nonverbal assessment tools.
Where does that leave us in a discussion of music description and verbalization? If we accept the fact
that listeners cannot reliably describe their perceptions, of what value is music description? I suggest that
the study of verbalization about music provides a fertile field of information about listening and its
relationship to the listener. Interactions among content knowledge represented by vocabulary,
communication through the use of various forms of language, focus of attention on salient musical
elements, and description of personal reaction are at the center of music learning and experience. Various
hypotheses about the interdependence of language and perception, or at least world view, have been
made by psycholinguists and educators since the early part of last century. For example, the Whorf-Sapir
hypothesis of linguistic relativity was developed in the 1920s, basing its evidence on the study of
American Indian languages and cultures. The comments of linguist Edward Sapir, quoted in a 1939
publication by Benjamin Whorf, provide a brief explanation of the theory:
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily
understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of
expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without
the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of
communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the “real world” is to a large extent
unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. … We see and hear and otherwise experience
very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of
interpretation. (Carroll, 1956, p. 134)

Criticized for its tautological reasoning—that is, cultures think differently because they speak
different languages, and we know this because of verbal evidence—the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis fell out
of favor as the 20th century progressed, yet there continues to be some support for the idea that language
affects conceptualization (see Gardner, 1987). Pulitzer prize winning author Annie Dillard offers more
personal, less theoretical, testimony to the relationship between verbalization and perception in her book
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: “Seeing is very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to
what passes before my eyes, I simply won’t see it. … if I want to notice the lesser cataclysms of valley
life, I have to maintain in my head a running description of the present” (1974, pp. 30–31).
The interdependence of language (including vocabulary), attention, and listening provides one
possible rationale for music description as a component of music learning. Learning words directs
attention and allows students to form concepts consistent with those held by other members of their
musical culture, even though vocabulary development is sometimes unfortunately presented as an
isolated, nonmusical exercise. In learning vocabulary, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. For
example, the term allegro is defined as “fast but not very fast.” Then ensues the inevitable admonition
that allegro does not describe tempo but the character of the music, in this case “cheerful” (Blom, 1971).
The English translation of allegro is the least important part of this discussion. What matters is that
knowing the term allegro opens up a world of possibilities in understanding music: (a) Music evokes
mood or emotion; (b) Rate of the recurring beat, tempo, is something to be considered in musical
analysis, performance, or composition; (c) There might be a relationship between “fast but not very fast”
and cheerfulness; and (d) The way we write music has historical roots, e.g., we continue to use traditional
Italian terms. Vocabulary study isn’t limited to memorizing definitions—how many of us have studied a
foreign language only to be stranded at some distant train station with no means of
communication?—vocabulary study is about the understanding and expression of ideas. If we think that
viewing art and eating food from a different culture can develop understanding and even tolerance, how
much more could learning the means by which people describe and discuss their perceptual world inform
our understanding?
A second, more practical, rationale for the inclusion of vocabulary and description objectives in the
music curriculum is that a great deal of music time is spent in verbal behavior. Observational studies
documenting the use of music instructional time have shown that anywhere between 30%–100% of class,
lesson, and rehearsal time is spent in teacher talk or group discussion, with most public school classes
and private lessons hovering around 30%–50% (Forsythe, 1977; Goolsby, 1996, 1999; Kostka, 1984;
Madsen & Geringer, 1983; Moore, 1981, 1987; Orman, 2002; Wagner & Strul, 1979). While not all of
this verbal behavior is content specific, these data suggest that the ability to participate in meaningful
musical dialogue through both receptive and expressive language is an inherent goal in most music
curricula. Beyond formal schooling, discussion of shared events seems to be a recognized outcome, if not
objective, of arts experiences. For example, as he was being honored by the Film Society of Lincoln
Center in 1982, the late film director Billy Wilder remarked that “… if you can entertain them for two
hours and have them talk about the picture for 15 minutes after they leave, I’m satisfied” (“Billy Wilder,”
2002). Most artists and educators would not substitute verbal description for direct music experience, yet
there is widespread acceptance that talking about music and one’s response to it can be a satisfying and
informative corollary.
A final incentive for music description in the classroom is the publication of the National Standards in
which opportunities for music description are recommended in grades K–8 (Consortium of National Arts
Education Associations, 1994). These fall under Content Standards 6, “Listening to, analyzing, and
describing music,” and 7, “Evaluating music and music performances.” Specific achievement standards
suggest that children in grades K–4 should “demonstrate perceptual skills … by describing aural
examples of music of various styles, representing diverse cultures” (Standard 6b), and “use appropriate
terminology in explaining music, music notation, music instruments and voices, and music
performances” (Standard 6c). They should also “explain, using appropriate terminology, their personal
preferences for specific musical works and styles” (Standard 7b). Children in grades 5–8 should learn to
“describe specific music events (e.g., entry of oboe, change of meter, return of refrain) in a given aural
example, using appropriate terminology” (Standard 6a). The examples of description given for fifth
through eighth graders in this achievement standard are interesting in that they specify attention to
temporal aspects of music, using such words as “entry,” “change,” and “return.” The issue of temporal
language will be addressed later in this paper.
In summary, we have at least four possible bases on which to include music description in the
classroom and in the research agenda: (a) testable theories and hypotheses that listening and describing
are interdependent and, perhaps, mutually enhancing; (b) testimony from writers and listeners about the
interaction between verbalization and focus of attention; (c) direct observation of the priority of verbal
behavior in music classes and arts events, and the resulting educational need to facilitate participation in
informed discussion; and (d) published national standards for the inclusion of music description in the
education of American children in grades K–8.
The remainder of this paper will summarize key issues related to the questions “What was that?”,
“What was that?”, and “What was that?”, including lexicon and development of music vocabulary, focus
of attention in music description, and types of language and style of writing used in describing music.
Lexicon and Vocabulary. First graders enter school knowing some 5,000 words and add about 3,000
words per year thereafter (Chall, 1987; Nagy & Herman, 1987). Many of the words they know are
concrete labels, names for things, or nominals. Included in their lexicon are words that are applied to
music, but which are not be reserved exclusively for music. Verbs such as “play,” “move,” and
“practice”; modifiers such as “long,” “soft,” and “high”; and nouns such as “horn,” “sound,” and “tune”
are used by the young child in describing general life experiences as often, or more often, than they are in
talking about music. In fact, one study found a correlation of .82 between the words that first graders
used in music interviews and those in the general first grade lexicon (Flowers, 1998). Nevertheless, it has
been observed repeatedly that youngsters have a limited technical vocabulary with which to describe
music (e.g., Hair, 1987). Early music listening and description objectives center on identification, that is,
naming things, sounds, and properties of sounds. Given the existing lexicon of the primary school child
and the rapid rate of learning new words through direct or incidental learning, identification seems to be
an appropriate music objective. However, we need to keep in mind that music vocabulary does not exist
as a separate lexicon for the young child, nor is the child unable to recognize sounds and their properties
just because she or he is unable to name them. One area that demands special attention is that of
polysemous words—words that have more than one meaning and need to be clarified through direct
instruction in a particular subject matter. The classic example is “high” and “low.” While we may
describe the problem of labeling pitch contrasts according to the prevailing paradigm of the day,
educators have known for years that these terms are problematic for young children. For example, Alice
Hitchcock wrote a master’s thesis at the University of Minnesota in 1942, entitled “The Value of
Terminology in Children’s Descriptions of Changes in Pitch Direction.” She found that high/low were
the least useful terms for children in describing pitch. Other word pairs such as light/heavy, light/dark, or
big/small worked better for them. Several cross-cultural studies have shown that children perform better
when word pairs are not polysemous and when word pairs are used consistently (Costa-Giomi &
Descombes, 1996, 1997; Flowers & Costa-Giomi, 1991). It would be wrong to assume that pitch is a
more difficult discrimination for young children than duration just because high/low is a more confusing
word pair than is long/short. Knowledge about children’s abilities in making musical discriminations,
their existing lexicon with its benefits (prior word knowledge) and hindrances (intentionally or
unintentionally polysemous words), and the rapid growth in vocabulary throughout the elementary
grades should inform our approaches in teaching children how we conceptualize and label musical
sounds.
As listeners advance in age and knowledge, so does their word frequency in describing music. One
might assume that an enhanced music lexicon and its application to specific excerpts would produce
more informative descriptions, but that assumption is only partially supported by research. Many years
ago, I compared written descriptions of college undergraduate and graduate students, finding that these
two groups used about the same number and type of different technical music terms, but that the graduate
students used them significantly more frequently (Flowers, 1985). Numerous subsequent studies have
confirmed that word knowledge and frequency of its use increase with age and music experience.
Further, it is not surprising that children’s oral descriptions are wordier than their written descriptions, a
ratio of about 3–5 to 1. Adults write longer and more specific descriptions than do children; and students
at each successive grade level, kindergarten through upper elementary, write or speak more words than
those at the previous grade level. However, there is only a low correlation between word count and
musical content as determined by whether an expert reader can identify an excerpt that the child is
attempting to describe (Flowers, 2000; Flowers & Wang, 2002). Children do improve in writing
identifiable descriptions over the elementary school years, but number of words alone is not a good
predictor of how well their descriptions portray the music to an outside reader. We know that students
learn to apply music terminology most effectively if it is learned in a musical context (Cassidy & Speer,
1990; Flowers, 1983). They may use music words more frequently by just memorizing definitions, but
meaningful use of terms is learned through listening. Furthermore, young students need prompting to
apply what they know. For example, in one study, third and fourth graders failed to use their new music
vocabulary just two minutes after they had demonstrated their knowledge in a different context.
(Flowers, 1984). In another study, fifth and sixth graders increased dramatically in certain types of
description on the day they were introduced, yet the fifth graders were different from a control group in
only one type, musical elements, in a culminating writing assignment at the end of the week. The sixth
graders were not different from a control group in any type of description (Flowers, 2000). In summary,
we can conclude that effective music vocabulary instruction occurs not in isolation as memorized words,
but in conjunction with listening examples. Even when children have learned new words, they will need
opportunities and reminders to use them. And as they do, it is important to keep in mind that the
effectiveness of music description is not determined by size of lexicon or verbosity alone, but by focus
on salient elements.
Focus of attention, categorical description, uniqueness and redundancy. In an open-ended description
assignment, listeners may or may not choose to write about what others would consider the music’s most
salient elements and, in fact, they might not even describe the musical characteristics to which they are
responding aesthetically or emotionally. For example, timbre—naming instruments—is by far the most
frequent type of description. However, according to Madsen and Geringer’s attention research (Madsen
& Geringer, 1990; Geringer & Madsen, 1995/1996), timbre has a low or inverse relationship to
emotional or aesthetic response. What governs written descriptions if not the same characteristics that
engage our listening attention? A few generalizations can be made: First, while people may listen to
music holistically rather than analytically, it is just too laborious to write down everything that is heard or
noticed in a piece of music. Instead, inexperienced listeners, or perhaps inexperienced writers, tend to
choose a category or a class of description and stick with it throughout. Naming instruments is common.
Mentioning tempo, dynamics, and sometimes melody is also fairly common. Children tend to describe
musical elements for which they have vocabulary and disregard other characteristics. When a category of
musical elements is not selected as the means of description, the use of figurative language—including
metaphor, simile, and emotional association—is often the solution. Beyond that, listeners resort to
preferences, that is, “like it” or “don’t like it.” What is interesting is that when a category or means of
description is selected, there isn’t much flexibility for the young or inexperienced listener. I learned this
in a study in which children described eight brief music selections that had been recorded to highlight
contrasts in tempo, dynamics, and articulation (Flowers, 1984). A typical response to the eight pieces
was this:
1. piano
2. piano
3. piano
4. piano
5. piano
6. piano
7. piano
8. piano
There was no question that the children could hear the selected contrasts plus much more, but many
limited their written responses to a single category of identification. In comparison, college
undergraduates showed more flexibility by mentioning other musical elements as well, or by mixing in a
few metaphors with their descriptions of analytical elements. They used more categories, not just more
words.
Not only do older listeners use more categories, but they also integrate more relational language into
their descriptions. In fact, children’s descriptions are remarkable in their lack of such language. Given
that music exists in time, and that the real interest is not in static events but in change through sound, one
wonders if a series of verbal snapshots is sufficient to describe the character of a piece of music.
Temporal language includes such phrases as “at first,” “again,” “repeating,” “still,” “after,” and “all of a
sudden”—words that we use to describe form. Comparative adjectives, such as “louder,” “faster,” and
“higher,” also suggest a relationship with previous sounds and are included as temporal references.
Interestingly, the development of temporal language occurs in early childhood sometime after the flurry
of learning object names, and it seems that there is a parallel in sequence of learning in music
description: Identifying by name comes first, then referring to multiple semantic categories, and finally
adding relational—including temporal—language to the description. The development of music
description across age and experience is surprisingly similar to the language learning process of the
young child. I would suggest that listening and describing are learned in tandem, expanding from simple
labeling to multitasking through time.
Finally, there is the issue of uniqueness and redundancy. At the conclusion of one study, I conceded
that if the children’s descriptions were any indication of what they had heard, it was no wonder they said
“that music all sounds the same to me” (Flowers, 1988). Knowing that they would describe music using
their musical and general lexicon, and that they probably would limit their descriptions to one or two
categories, I looked to see if there were any words used by more than just a few students in describing
particular excerpts. Then, I compared excerpts to see if there were shared terms that were applied
uniquely to individual pieces. In fact, for children, there were few. The only shared word used by
children to describe uniquely the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony was “funny.” The
second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony 9 was “loud” and “exciting.” The children had no shared
words that were applied uniquely to the English horn solo in Dvorak’s New World Symphony, or to the
slow movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony 4. College undergraduates did better. The Mendelssohn
was described by “light, run-, happy, energy, violin, lively, and enjoy”; Beethoven by “good, pace,
move-, and symphony”; Dvorak by “beautiful, peaceful, beginning, and soothing”; and Tchaikovsky by
“solo, background, flute, and clarinet.” Typical characteristics of description may be seen in these few
shared but uniquely applied words—references to instruments, adjectives, emotional associations,
metaphors, and judgments. There was even relational language used by the undergraduates, “beginning”
and “background.” The character of the pieces was described in a style consistent with Hevner’s
adjective lists developed nearly 70 years ago (Hevner, 1935). However, for children, choice of words
was more idiosyncratic than for adults. The adults shared a common lexicon, and they exhibited more
agreement in using words to describe specific pieces of music. It seems that acculturation, in addition to
lexicon and categorical focus, is an issue in describing the character of music.
The “unique-redundant” project eventually led to a series of studies in which children and adults
listened to six music selections and attempted to describe them so that someone who had never heard the
music would know what it sounded like (Flowers, 1996, 2000, 2002). The effectiveness of their
descriptions was determined by randomly ordering their six descriptions, then asking experts—music
teachers—to match description to excerpt. It was a hard job. The purpose was to encourage thoughtful
description with attention to salient characteristics of the music, not just anything that came to mind. It
was intended to foster uniqueness in description, and to promote application of the music and general
lexicon in listening and describing. The outcomes of these studies were remarkably consistent, even with
different populations and music selections. In general, primary grade children’s descriptions were
matched around 30% of the time; upper elementary children’s descriptions matched around 40–50% of
the time. College nonmusic majors’ descriptions were matched at a rate of 70%, and music majors’ were
matched 92% of the time. It is easy to see that age and experience make a difference in how listeners
describe music in a way that is meaningful to someone else.
In summary, the characteristics that contribute to effective verbal communication about music are: (a)
size and content of the music lexicon developed through direct listening experiences, (b) flexibility in
describing multiple aspects of music by using different semantic categories, (c) attention to relational
language, especially temporal language, (d) shared (common) vocabulary, and (e) agreement about
metaphoric and emotional associations.
Styles of Writing. Writing about music has many purposes and outcomes. A good English teacher
might ask, “What is the purpose of your essay?” and “Who is your intended audience?” Is the purpose to
tell what people hear or know?—a dependent variable? Is it to focus listening attention?—an independent
variable? Is it a means of stimulating social interaction? Promoting a product? Fostering critical
thinking? There are many real-life models for music description, including program notes, music
criticism, concert reports, technical analyses, personal reflections, and even poetry. Each writing task
focuses attention in a different way, from the objective “out there” to the subjective “in here,” sometimes
with blurry distinctions between the two.
Barbara Zuck, music critic for The Columbus Dispatch, discussed the difficulty of describing Roger
Sessions’ music in her review of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Symphonies 4 and 5:
“What does it mean when music moves writers to stumble through their vocabularies? At the least, it
means that the music in question is not easily classified or easily grasped on a single hearing.” She
continued on the nature of description in general:
 Critics writing about music are constantly challenged to establish meaningful, understandable ways of
discussing this nonverbal art form. Journalists, in particular, search (at least ideally) for a vocabulary that
neither depends upon technical jargon nor falls back upon personal emotional responses. Frequently, what
remains are hosts of adjectives ranging from impressionistic to those ascribing human characteristics to
sound. (Zuck, 1987)

Apparently, the choice of how best to represent music through language is not easy, even for a
knowledgeable listener who is also a professional writer.
Table 1 shows examples of how a scientist, a nature writer, and a poet have written about the topic of
photosynthesis. In the first case, we notice the use of a highly specialized, professional language and
notation, describing a physical process. In the second, there is use of the general lexicon through which
observation and personal reaction combine to focus attention on the changes of early spring. Finally,
there is Robert Frost’s famous poem, in which the changing seasons are used as a metaphor for the
promise and fall of humanity. These styles of writing do not preclude one another, nor is one better than
the rest given its intended function. I would conjecture that the longest description—the scientific
one—took the least amount of time to write, and that the poem took the longest but, of course, there is no
way to know that. I would also add that it probably was not difficult to describe photosynthesis once it
was understood. However, understanding it as a chemical process surely took many years of scientific
research. Nevertheless, all three writing samples represent the process of discovery, albeit by different
modes of inquiry. Describing music is no different. Writing about music serves many purposes and
audiences, ranging from technical analyses, to communication about content and perception, to
emotional expression.
Conclusion. There is room for many types of description in music—not just room, but need and
potential benefit to both writer and reader. Through the interaction of music and words—that is, the acts
of listening and describing—we can communicate what we hear analytically, metaphorically, and
emotionally. And through the use of language, we can focus attention and acculturate young listeners.
We can gain their basic attention—What was that? We can help them focus on certain musical
characteristics and identify what they hear—What was that? And, perhaps, we can even put a positive
spin on the phrase—What was that?
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