“You see, to me, the art of music is listening to it, not playing it. The real art of it is hearing it”. (Keith Richards in Keith:Standing In The Shadows by Stanley Booth)I’ve loved these words of Keith Richards ever since I first read them over ten years ago. And, ever since I first read them, I’ve wondered why I love them.Is it because I listen for a living? Do I feel my work is validated by a great musician’s belief in the importance of listening?I love listening to music but I gave up playing guitar many years ago when I realized I would never be good at it. Do I feel Keith is saying that I can have just as deep and rich an experience of music by listening to it as a more musically talented person can have by playing it?In the last few months, I’ve been learning to sing bluegrass harmony. Each time I move on to the next song on the instructional CD, I find I can’t hear the notes of the harmony line. Each time, I’m ready to give up because I feel like I’m never going to hear them. I tell myself I should be content with appreciating the elements of music I hear easily--melody, rhythm and timbre--and give up on trying to hear the harmony.But it’s not in my nature to give up on things. So, each time I become discouraged, I decide to just listen to whatever track I'm working on over and over again and to keep listening even when I'm not making any progress. I just listen. I don't strain to try to hear the harmony notes. I just listen and hear whatever I hear.Eventually, I start to hear some of the harmony notes. At first, I hear only a few of them. With repeated listening, I hear all of them.Through this process, I've discovered two things. I've found that, as soon as I can hear the harmony line, I can sing it. No further effort is required.And, once I can hear the harmony, I don't have to listen for it anymore. I just hear it. It's just there.No matter how many times I experience it, this process seems magical to me. Something that wasn't there is suddenly, unexpectedly there. The fact that it actually was there all along but that I couldn't hear it and that then, suddenly and inexplicably, I could, makes it feel even more magical to me.In a recent New York Times article (Jonathan Alpert, “In Therapy Forever? Enough Already”, April 21, 2012) the author, a psychotherapist, writes, “If a patient comes to me and tells me she’s been unhappy with her boyfriend for the past year, I don’t ask, as some might, ‘How do you feel about that?’ I already know how she feels about that. She just told me. She’s unhappy....My aim is to give patients the skills needed to confront their fear of change, rather than to ask how they feel”.Sometimes, this straightforward, uncomplicated approach to emotions is exactly what a person needs. She's singing a familiar melody and just needs help learning a few of the words. More often than not, however, it's really important to listen for the harmony line. What, exactly, is this woman’s unhappiness with her boyfriend? Is she bored, disappointed, hurt, angry? If she's angry, what is she angry about? Why does she get angry when her boyfriend is late but not when he doesn't return her texts? Why does her anger contain a tinge of sadness?Keith Richards' reverence for the musicians who influenced him--Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Chuck Berry-- is well known. A Keith Richards psychotherapy treats each individual with reverence by listening and listening and listening until we hear. 5.12.12