Stop, Look and Listen
A note on how I’m learning to listen.
By Clay Hipp
“Stop, look, and listen.”
This basic warning now seems a cliché.
It seems to have originated with a railroad engineer, in an effort to make crossings safer. It has migrated and morphed and was taught routinely in grammar schools across the nation.
What if we brought it back in a much larger context—and made it a theme for a general cultural revival of the American Dream?
What would it require…of each and every one of us?
For me, the essential task is listening.
Stopping and looking are hard enough, but they are “physical” activities that require little thought. They are simply commands, delivered in an authoritative voice—the kind we heard each week in Hill Street Blues.
As the station sergeant dismissed all the “beat cops” on their morning rounds, he would stop them at the door by yelling:
“Hey, hey…be careful out there!!!”
Now, that was certainly a necessary and prudent thing when all manner of dangers lurked around every corner—and each policeman was fully aware of them.
But what of us?
By now, we are clearly aware of the imminent dangers to our democracy—but only when we actually stop from our busyness, listen to what has been said, and pay attention long enough for it to sink in.
Then, and only then, do we begin to reflect on the content, the ideas, and their implications—and pause…
…to ask:
What should I be doing with my time, my life?
That little soliloquy came about because of this.
My three weeks of creating, listening to, and posting Words That Sing has been an eye-opening experience—more clearly, an ear-opening one.
The major point is that, despite the fact that I have lived with most of these songs for a long time—and listened with great pleasure—I really did not “know” them at all.
Now, I like to think of myself as someone who appreciates both the music and the poetry.
How could I have been so mistaken?
Some time ago, when I began trying to write a fairly long “tome” about the songs and their writers, I was looking at them quite critically.
I needed to discern their “quality” in order to curate among the hundreds of possible pieces and assess their appropriateness for the text.
I was going to divide them into categories such as wisdom, love, wonder, and storytelling—and had to be very “critical” in choosing.
In other words, I knew them fairly intimately…
—or so I thought.
For the show, I had to become a better listener—mostly to discover their essential “messages,” rather than just how good they were.
(Had I been so superficial?)
I truly believe that I have become somewhat successful at this task.
And yet…
When I sat and truly listened to the show the next day, I became the audience.
I learned—just as I hoped you would.
Honestly, at one moment I thought, Who did this?
At another, a tear rolled down my cheek.
Please think of this only as admiration for the things these artists discerned and conveyed.
I felt honored to, in some way, channel them.
I was also reminded that, for some months now, I have sat early in the morning in the presence of other musical pieces—without words.
I listen to aid in becoming more mindful and less “rational.”
I want to enter the larger world with more of a mental clean slate.
At the beginning, these were just pieces from my past that I considered calming and peaceful—and, of course, beautiful.
Day after day, week by week, my listening began to result in less “thinking.”
Distracting thoughts and ideas could be let go with more ease.
It was a pleasing thing.
One might think (as indeed I might have) that the musical compositions would “wear out their welcome,” as the “old timers” might say—and that I would need to find replacements.
They did not.
And I did not.
Quite to the contrary, something entirely different began to take place.
Without even realizing it, I began to follow the rising and falling of the melodies—and their “conversations” with the other lines of music in creating harmony.
I began to try to identify the various instruments.
In one ten-minute piece, I discovered that it was made up of three related sections—and that the beginning and end of each section was noted not by a pause, but rather by a tiny solo announced by a particular instrument (a flugelhorn!).
I identified the main theme and followed it from horn to horn.
I noticed, at some point, that the most dramatic part at the center was made more so by the entrance of timpani in the background.
This critical “entering” of the piece, on my part, has induced greater pleasure.
Now, I should note here that I have no formal training in music.
(I do have a pretty good ear, having sung in choral groups, and I have listened with great appreciation to complex classical music.)
But here, I am reporting a phenomenon discovered entirely by listening more deeply—and, as a result, analyzing the experience.
Now things will get a little more serious.
I should not have been surprised about my own “listening” deficit.
Poor listening skills are a rampant issue.
And mind you, I am not talking just about deep listening, but rather no listening at all—or, at best, very shallow listening.
It is about our constant distraction.
There is sound, noise, everywhere.
It tends to drown out everything—including our very own thoughts.
As a consequence, we simply stop paying attention—to the natural world around us, or the people sharing the very same place.
“If we stop paying attention, then listening is a lost “commodity.”
Everything is merely a blur.
How can we maintain relationships—even very close ones—our children, our mates, our friends, our colleagues, and, in our current, broken world…our “enemies”?
When our fellow citizens are also enemies, the game is almost over.
The deal is up.
Democracy crumbles—and “freedom of speech” is of no avail when we fail to use it for the “good.”
I started with music because it is, in effect, another language.
I have come to understand that when I listen deeply to it, I am engaging in a form of translation.
I am deciphering musical ideas in the act of understanding the mind of the composer—and, at the same time, learning another form of communication.
Which gives me another “glimpse” of the world beyond myself.
Then it—and the people in it—are more real.
And worthy of my greater attention.
The late, very fine writer Frederick Buechner wrote a little book named Listening to Your Life.
He tells intimate stories of his life as examples of why we can learn just by remembering.
I highly recommend it for its wisdom and depth of meaning.
A confession: sometimes I feel like I come across as a professor—but this is so far from the truth.
I’m not here to teach.
I’m here to learn.
Because the person I am often speaking to in these reflections…is myself.
This website is a place where I am trying to tune into something.
To move away from distraction—and toward the act of being whole heartedly present and attentive.
If music has taught me anything, it is this:
The deeper you listen, the more there is to hear.
And maybe….
this is true of our lives as well.