Many guitar players neglect their Listening skills. Please, don't be one of them.
View the full lesson at Mindful Listening for Guitar Players | JustinGuitar
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I used to allocate 10-15 minutes at the end of my day for this. I still do it occasionally but I only listen to live recordings when I do it now. Sometimes the fades and layering in studio recordings can be a distraction and unrealistic.
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I am commenting on this just to bring this thread in the ālatest unread threadsā on the forum because I think this is one of the most important lessons Justin has published since his āThe Most Important Guitar Lesson You Ever Needā video. (Mods, feel free to delete this post if it doesnāt add anything to the discussion.)
Being (one of) the youngest regularly active member(s) of this community (at least on the old forum, now thereās lots of new people here!), I find it fascinating how music moved into this background thing even in my relatively short life. A lot of my friends only know singles and Spotify playlists (nothing wrong with that) and the art of putting an album tracklist together seems to be going away.
So why all this āback in the old daysā rambling? Because Justin is so right in this lesson! I am 100% sure exactly the active listening immensly helped me becoming a decent musician and not just a guitar player. Or as they say it, I learnt how to serve the song:
About ten years ago, I properly discovered Pink Floyd and I spent the next two years listening to The Wall every evening and doing nothing else. There was a few occasions when I mixed it with Animals, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Final Cut but it was 90% The Wall. Few years before that, I did the same with Guns Nā Roses debut, Appetite for Destruction and Metallicaās Black Album. Most recently, I finally gave Toto a proper listen and spent a few months on Toto IV. The result was the same for all of them, I am able to āmentally isolateā single instrument/sound effect/production element in a song and make my own interpretation what it gives to the music and how to try to implement it in my own compositions.
Okay, back to listening now 
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After watching this video earlier today, a song Iād not heard before came up in my social media feed. Instead of having it play in the background while continuing to scroll, I closed my eyes and listened to the song mindfully. It really added to the experience. Iāll be doing that to albums now.
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This is something I always used to do in my younger years even before I started to learn the guitar. Also something that has since gone by the wayside after picking up the instrument. How dumb is that? lol
Well itās definitely time to go back and not just hear the music but to listen.
Thanks Justin
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When I was a youngster, I only had a few albums - The Jam, later on Pink Floyd and similar - and each one was planned, saved for and loved. Streaming is great, and opens up so much, but there are downsides. Great lesson, Justin!
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Hey Justin, very happy to hear that we not only share our guitar journey , but also the meditation journey. Glad you also get that much out of it 
Thanks for your guidance.
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This takes me back to the first listening I did. My older sister had a bunch of R&B albums and 45s.
I was probably 8 or 9 and was so drawn in to the layers of vocals, horns and the locked in rhythm section. So good.
Thanks Justin. Iām definitely going to check out Victorās book.
Best to all.
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Where can I find the mentioned Spotify playlist? Or can I please just get a link?
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Fantastic message, Justin. I am a 71 year old Woodstock attendee picking the guitar back up after many years. Spent years in an ashram meditating two hours a day. The first book I bought when starting playing again a year and a half ago was Zen Guitar My next will be The Music Lesson. I sure wish I still had the red Strat that I pawned in 1969 to pay tuition!!!
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I can identify with Justinās commen t about listening to a new record when we first bought it. I can remember the first thing I did when I got a new record was to put it on the turntable (yes - this was in the days of vinyl), then sit and listen to it all the way through on headphones.
Recently Iāve noticed that when music is playing, Iām listening out for the guitar parts - especially when itās not a guitarists record. So maybe Iām getting back to that approach in my own way.
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I have to agree with you about people not really listening to music like they used to in the past. Way too many distractions these days, what with their phones and other stuff trying to grab our attention. I used to enjoy just sitting down and getting lost in the sounds of a new LP that I had just bought, donāt do that much anymore.
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I used to listen to music like this all the time. Especially with headphones. That was before I became an adult!
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Excellent lesson. Music is a huge part of mental health and thereās a growing body of research on the positive effect of mindfulness. For anyone who would like to explore the mental health aspect further, I can wholeheartedly recommend the book āthe happiness trapā by Russ Harris. It was a game changer for me. Itās a great introduction to acceptance and commitment therapy (a very well studied alternative to CBT, that further explores mindfulness principles)
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Justin, I love that you made a lesson on this. I started doing āmusic mindfulnessā on my own a couple years ago and never knew of anyone else who did this or had a name for it. I use it to wind down at the end of a long day or to just calm myself if Iām feeling overwhelmed. I do something similar to what you described - I think of it as āzooming in and outā on various aspects of a song. I particularly love doing it with orchestral music/film scores - I will spend 10-15 seconds focused on the string section, zoom out, zoom back in on trumpets or winds, zoom out, find another aspect to zoom in on, and so onā¦for the duration of the song. I like to do it with the same songs over again and you notice more about the song each time. It is tempting to grab your phone and scroll through Instagram while listeningā¦but I am always glad when I resist. I donāt usually do full albums but that is a great idea that I will try sometime. Thank you for making this video so that more people can experience the peace and beauty of listening fully to music!
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Interesting comments Justin. Iāve long thought that the younger generation are becoming so distracted, so easily now and it is a problem that we all should be concerned about. Mindful listening, just playing a piece of music you love without distraction, just lying back and really listening to the music is one of lifeās great pleasures, and something we all should try to do more of.
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Good thinking, really paying attention to music can open your eyes to new things and make emotions come out and I think it really is just more about enjoying it. I have noticed how the new generation is more distracted when listening to music but there are still more people listening to music now than ever and if you keep practicing and getting better you will catch their attention one day.
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This is such a great lesson, and a reminder why I love Justinās course so much. I canāt remember a time in anything even close to ārecent historyā where I listened to any music and do nothing else. Iāve practiced mindful meditation for the past several years but never thought about putting on some music and giving it the same type of presence.
This one is sticking with me ā¦
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Justin - I canāt thank you enough for recommending Victor Wootenās amazing book, The Music Lesson. Itās a double bonus for me since Iāve been playing/studying bass guitar for about 1.5 years in addition to guitar. This book should be required reading for any aspiring musician since it fills in the āif it feels goodā gaps that you regularly promote that arenāt taught in most music courses. It also reinforces the fact that youāre an extraordinary teacher since you routinely incorporate and emphasize many of the 10 elements of music in your lessons that are either omitted or not emphasized in most courses. I feel very fortunate to have chosen, and committed to you, as my guitar teacher.
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I remember talking with a friend once about vinyl records and turntables. Something I said which he surprisingly agreed with was that I donāt think that I wouldāve ever gotten into jazz music if I didnāt own a turntable.
When I first bought my turntable, I noticed right away how wrong it felt to put a record on and enjoy the analog nature & sound quality for 20 seconds and pull my phone out to scroll through Instagram. It made me think about how we donāt dedicate the same attention and thoughtfulness to music as we do films. Music is often something that fills the silence and occupies the background.
Not everybody uses a turntable this same way, but I started to treat listening to albums as an activity in its own right; I would consciously go out of the way to treat listening to my records similarly to how most people would regard an interesting film.
What I learned was that mindful listening expanded my relationship with music and deepened my appreciation of it. I started to explore more music and found greater appreciation for a wider array of genres.
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