I love a good listening map! Some of my earliest memories of enjoying classical music are of following along with the transparencies my elementary music teacher shared with us on the overhead projector. Wow…does that sentence date me or what?!

So what is a listening map exactly? Well, to put it simply, it is a pictural representation of a piece of music that is designed to help listeners follow along to a musical selection in both a visual and tactile manner. I guess I could put it into even more simpler terms: It’s a picture of a piece of music.

Star Wars Fans can take one look at this picture and practically “hear” the music as they look at the pictures. This ability to “hear” music in your head is called audiation and this skill is critical when learning to sing or play an instrument in tune and with others. Listening maps are also a great tactile learning aid-perfect for fidgeters and little musicians that need some to do when they are listening to a piece of music.

For my “In the Hall of the Mountain King” listening map, I wanted to focus on the style of the music. The pizzicato sounds like footsteps. The endings of the musical phrases sounded like a musical “boo” so I interjected the trolls. I was also drawn the the swooping sound made by the violins as the music intensified (this piece progressively grows louder and faster).

You can listen and follow along to this original listening map below!

You can create listening maps for all types of music! You can highlight pitch, rhythm and tempo.

You can chose to incorporate music symbols. The possibilities are truly endless!

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