Some of my greatest joy in teaching comes from the sight-singing groups I lead. All a cappella, we concentrate on tuning, not according to any absolute pitch, but as they did it in the old days--until the late Baroque era, at least--just according to where the voices lie.

Not only do I derive great joy from these groups, but so do the people who sing in them, some of whom have had quite a bit of musical training, others not at all. The point is that the essence of melody lies in the tension of linear motion against harmonics and that anyone can learn to tune the harmonics of tones.

Some of these people report back to me that when they tell musician friends that they are taking a class in sight-singing the musicians groan and commiserate: "Oh, you poor thing!" or "Why on earth would you want to do that!"

I blame over-emphasis on the piano, an entirely unvocal pitch source, for these negative responses.

Yesterday my two young four-hand-duo students were struggling over a bar in Schumann's Trauer: a disaster, every time.

What happens in that bar? There is an F#, then an A-flat, and a B-natural. (The piece is in F major.)

I asked them to consider an analogy to such mucking about with the very tones that establish the identity of the key. One suggested it was like having lung surgery.

I'm not sure I would have chosen such an extreme comparison, but he was identifying change to the vital core of the key. For a person with a sensitive ear that would be like walking on a fault line--surely not a pleasant experience.

The question arises whether this young man's ear is too sensitive. I reply with another question: Was Schumann's ear too sensitive?

Better than this it rarely gets: A room full of people, seven with instruments--a motley assortment, and a dozen or so singers, also fairly motley, gathered for an annual reading of Bach Cantata #4, Christ lag in Todesbanden and of Purcell's Funeral Music for Queen Mary--two of the greatest works of choral literature with instruments.

What made it wonderful was the agreement of intention of everyone in the room. No trace of snobbery or pretension (some people in the past had complained that it wasn't professional enough for their standards). This music is all about meaning and it is conveyed directly in the music itself, even without the text.

What was the conversation about afterward? Listening. And, no, I was not even in the room as that topic arose and was being explored.

Yesterday saw a major musical event: the arrival of a new instrument--actually a new, old instrument, as it is a reproduction of an 18th-century natural French horn. What a sound!

On this instrument every single pitch is colored with a timbre all its own relative to the natural overtones of the horn. Some of the tones are downright hilarious, others deeply poignant--very like a voice.

Perhaps that's why Mozart loved it so much. I have the feeling it colored his sense of pitch in all his writing, even for piano solo.

How mechanical we have become in relation to C-flats and such!

You might gather that I consider listening more important than playing. In order to listen--really listen--you must be still. You must unclutter your brain of its own activity and be receptive to what the other is saying or singing.

I could cite many examples of how difficult this is, but none is more moving to me than growing into awareness of the bond that listening has made between myself and my two musical adult children. We are into three completely different aspects of music making yet each of us is completely open to the experience of the other two.

As I grew up in a family in which people did not speak their minds it was natural to assume that listening was irrelevant to everyday life. For me it was reserved for the special occasion that turned out to be a life of music. It still seems like a miracle that this most private pleasure is now the affirmation of my family. If music is the language we speak it has its roots in listening.

First off, apologies for having missed a couple of days. I am surprised to discover this, as it feels as if I am in constant conversation with you.

Principally I have been thinking about the invisible skill of listening. Respect for the voices of others gets high priority in this skill. It presumes that the others have something to say.

In terms of music that is a tricky issue. Getting it right means doing it like everyone else, no? Winning the competition means you do it better and faster, not that you are more interesting--heaven forbid.

Why does a child get "into" music? The next question might be where does a child get into music. Nothing improves familial relations more than privacy. Nothing fosters musical growth more than privacy. There are too many stories of family relationships gone sour over someone's practicing.

No wonder so many kids end up jamming in garages and basements.

Push-button access just doesn't work between people. Perhaps this is why, in my emphasis on familial aspects of music, listening to one another figures as a skill--perhaps a more important skill than playing well (according to some arbitrary abstracted standard).

One of the families from whom I have learned about this includes two children of very different proclivities and needs. They have grown in mutual respect and understanding by respecting one another's musical space. I dare say they have learned this from me: By not imposing an external standard on their activity, I have learned to respect that they each bring their own terms to their need for music. The full concentration that I bring to their playing gives them a working model.

They, in turn, furnish a model to the other families in the group. Nothing simple about it.