Why this course

This course begins with a simple idea: seeing and listening are both acts of attention.

We are extraordinarily good at recognising things quickly, but recognition is not the same as observation. We often see what we expect to see rather than what is actually there.

Seeing With Your Ears introduces you to a different way of looking, one based on attention, discrimination and relationships. By connecting music and visual perception, the course invites you to slow down, notice more, and become more aware of how individual elements relate to the whole.

You do not need to be an artist or musician to benefit from this way of seeing. The exercises are designed to develop perception itself: the foundation beneath drawing, painting, looking at art, listening to music and engaging with the world around you.

By completing this course, you will begin to:

• notice details and relationships that you might previously have overlooked
• distinguish observation from recognition and interpretation
• become more attentive to form, value, colour, space, movement and light
• understand how visual elements relate to one another rather than seeing them in isolation
• develop greater patience with ambiguity and uncertainty
• listen to music with greater awareness of melody, rhythm, harmony, timbre, dynamics and phrasing
• make more deliberate observations before forming conclusions
• strengthen the perceptual foundations that support artistic practice
• become more conscious of how attention shapes your experience of the world

This is not about seeing more simply for the sake of collecting information.

It is about learning to notice differently.

Course details

Format: Short lessons combined with practical observation and listening exercises

Approach: Experiential, observation-based learning

You will work with: Music, visual material, guided exercises and examples from art

Focus: Attention, perception, discrimination, relationships and interpretation

No previous artistic training required.

The course is designed to be experienced, not simply watched. You will be asked to pause, listen, look and notice for yourself.

Who this course is for

Seeing With Your Ears is for you if you:

• want to become a more attentive observer
• are beginning to draw or paint and want to strengthen your perceptual foundations
• already make art but feel that your technical skills are developing faster than your ability to really see
• want to understand how musicianship and visual perception can inform one another
• are interested in looking at art more deeply
• want to listen to music with greater attention and awareness
• are curious about perception, attention and how we experience the world
• simply want to slow down and become more observant

You do not need to be able to draw. You do not need to play an instrument. And you do not need any prior knowledge of art or music.

What you need is curiosity, and a willingness to pay attention.

What you will explore

Module 1: The Music You Cannot See
What can music teach us about seeing? We begin by exploring attention, perception, and the relationships we hear in music, and consider what happens when we apply that kind of listening to the visual world.

Module 2: Listening for Structure
Music is not a collection of isolated sounds. It has structure, relationships, rhythm and movement. You will explore how this way of listening can transform the way you notice structure in what you see.

Module 3: Translating Sound into Vision
How might rhythm, dynamics, tension, silence and phrasing become visual ideas? Through practical exercises, you will experiment with translating what you hear into what you see.

Module 4: The Portrait Beyond the Face
A face is immediately recognisable, but recognition is only the beginning. We look more closely at relationships, proportion, light, gesture, expression and presence, moving beyond the generic idea of a face towards the particular person in front of us.

Module 5: Seeing the Invisible
The final module brings the ideas together. What happens when observation becomes more precise? How do attention, memory, expectation and interpretation influence what we perceive? And what becomes possible when we learn to look before deciding what we are seeing, and listen before deciding what we are hearing?

Module 6: The Artist as Listener
In this final module, we bring it all together.

About the Instructor

I am a classically trained artist, musician, art historian and cultural philosopher. My teaching brings together technical skill, perceptual awareness, and historical insight, so you don’t just sketch, draw and paint; you learn to see, listen and connect with the living tradition of art.

Course Instructor

Karin Merx Author

• Before starting this course you must complete the required prerequisite course: Learn to See Like an Artist – The Discipline of Seeing: Observation as an Artistic Practice ™