Programmatic listening

While listening to music, many listeners imagine certain situations or visualize certain scenes -- such as rolling waves, mountain vistas, city streets, and so forth. In programmatic listening the listening experience is dominated by such forms of non-musical referentiality. Musical works that are overtly programmatic in construction may be assumed to enhance or promote such a listening mode. However, programmatic listening may arise even in the case of ostensibly non-programmatic works.