"If you're listening just to the violins the whole time, or just the drums, you'll miss the beauty of the entire piece; you'll miss the aesthetic experience the piece can offer if you just listen."
To an extent, I agree. Especially as a musician, it's very easy to concentrate on a specific instrument, or a specific person--whether for their technical mastery, musicianship, showmanship, attractiveness, etc. Often, we can be absorbed by a specific element of a piece of music, but is this a bad thing?
Music is layered so that certain aspects are more important than others. For example, the woodwinds may present a melody that is more poignant than the underlying accompaniment in the strings. Naturally, you focus on the woodwinds. Within this macro style of listening (for the aesthetic experience), you are using--consciously or unconsciously--a micro style of listening. As the music shifts its focus via instrumentation, you shift yours as well. This still falls under the macro umbrella--you go where the music takes you.
When you listen in a micro fashion, you may be focusing on the timpanist for the entirety of the piece, or listening to the viola section during their accompaniment, then the melody in the flute, back to the viola and off to the quality of the percussionist's snare drum roll. While you have been skipping through this symphonic meadow like an A.D.D. kid trying to catch butterflies, you've been missing it.
Time to counter:
When you listen to Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony for the twelfth time, it's time to start listening in a micro fashion. You've already experienced the initial "Wow!" of the piece, it's time to go further up and farther in. You'll find that listening this carefully enhances your appreciation for the performers and more importantly the music and more importantly still, the Creator of the music.
Ah, now we've come to it.
How does this macro/micro style of listening apply to faith? Well here I am again, trying to use a dualistic analogy from real life experiences to defog my understanding of faith, God and the rest. The answer of course, isn't one or the other. How un-gray of me.
I've been lucky enough to experience the beauty of God, naturally (without looking for it, macro)--through other people, nature, etc. His beauty never gets old like some pieces of music though, because the melody keeps changing, the instrumentation is recycled and my ears mature (it can be hard to hear though...). However, it's important too, to listen for something (micro). Trumpets won't always fanfare God's in work in my life; it's the soft, elusive melodies that can carry the strongest messages, which can also be the easiest to miss.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to find the time and place where I can try and hear this melody. We're so loud. If I could stop trying to catch the butterflies for one minute and just listen, I might find a new favorite song.
