Listening to music as an active process

Although I’m a semi-professional musician, most days, I listen to far less music than my friends. I generally work in silence, cook in silence, run in silence. When I do listen to music, usually in the evening, I give it my full attention. Everybody is different, and different kinds of music work well in different contexts, but I can’t help feeling that anyone who doesn’t sometimes listen to music the way I do is missing out. The way I do it is like this: lying on my back, wearing headphones, from an MP3 player rather than a smartphone/computer, usually in the evening in bed, after I have put down my book, but before I will be able to sleep, with, if possible, nothing on my mind. Most good music has a story. Sometimes, a song can have multiple stories, depending on what you bring to it. I like to place my mind on the melody, the the needle of a record player placed in the groove, and stick to it and see where it takes me. Melodies are stories, and I’m a sucker for stories. Song lyrics…