對於非音樂專業出身的人來說，聽古典音樂更多的時候像是在聽熱鬧，不一定聽懂了，但絕對不能表現出來，或者是乾脆避而遠之，反正聽不懂大不了不要聽。
但是「聽懂」音樂這件事情，從來不是古典音樂存在的意義。古典音樂並不是用來區分受過音樂教育的菁英階級，或者是一般聽眾，更不是拿來考驗聽眾的音樂知識。
在德國作曲家孟德爾頌(Felix Mendelssohn)與妻子親戚的往來書信中，有一段話非常確切地解釋了如何「聽懂」音樂這件事情。
這封書信是孟德爾頌回覆給妻子的親戚Marc-André Souchay的一封信。在上一封信中，Marc-André Souchay詢問了孟德爾頌關於每一首無言歌(“Song Without Words”)的意義。
孟德爾頌回復他說﹔
音樂有太多可以說了，卻只有很少的部分能表達。我認為言語不足以用來表達，如果能夠透過言語來表達音樂，那便沒有我的事了。
大家常常抱怨音樂太籠統了，不像文字那樣好理解，但對於我來說卻恰恰相反，文字–不管是完整的句子，或是單獨的詞語–太模糊了，而相比之下，真誠的音樂能比文字更好的使靈魂飽滿。文字對我來說，太絕對了。我試著透過文字表達我的想法，但總是有一些不盡人意的地方，我想你也有這種感受。但這不是你的錯，都是詩詞限制了你的想像。
如果你非要問我對於無言歌的想法，那我會說就是歌曲本身。就算我心中對某一首曲子有個定義，或詞語來形容，我也絕對不會告訴任何人，因為每個人對同一個字的定義或感受都是不一樣的。但是音樂本身能夠在每個人心中喚起同一種感受或想法，但不同的人卻不一定對同樣的感受能有同樣的形容，因為每個人對詞語的理解不一定都是一樣的。(非專業翻譯，或許和原文有一些出入，所以最後附上英文翻譯)
我們總想著給音樂下定義，但換個方向思考，孟德爾頌說的也沒有錯，子非魚，焉知魚之樂? 我們聽到的是相同的音樂，但我理解的高興和你認知的開心或許是一件事情，又或許我覺得它們有微妙的差別。退一步來說，同一件事情，不同地區有不同的說法，pool/billiard，台灣叫撞球，香港叫桌球，大陸叫檯球。就像是前些天我朋友說想去打桌球了，我還以為他說的是乒乓球。
同一個物件都有不同的說法，更何況是比物品更模糊的感受呢?
所以要怎麼聽懂音樂? 其實你在聽的當下，你是享受的，那就是最重要的了。但是，雖然每個人的言語表達不一樣，不代表不能互相交流。其實聽完一首曲子後，我很喜歡和朋友們討論音樂，你會發現，對方的形容和你簡直十萬八千里遠，但現在你知道了，這不是因為誰聽懂了，誰沒聽懂，而是對詞語的認知不一樣而已。
To Marc-André Souchay (Berlin, October 15, 1842) ... There is so much talk about music, and yet so little really said. For my part I believe that words do not suffice for such a purpose, and if I found they did suffice, then I certainly would have nothing more to do with music. People often complain that music is ambiguous, that their ideas on the subject always seem so vague, whereas every one understands words; with me it is exactly the reverse; not merely with regard to entire sentences, but also as to individual words; these, too, seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so unintelligible when compared with genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words. What the music I love expresses to me, is not thought too indefinite to be put into words, but, on the contrary, too definite. I therefore consider every effort to express such thoughts commendable, but still there is something unsatisfactory too in them all, and so it is with yours also. This, however, is not your fault, but that of the poetry, which does not enable you to do better. If you ask me what my idea is, I say—just the song as it stands; and if I have in my mind a definite term or terms with regard to one or more of these songs, I will disclose them to no one, because the words of one person assume a totally different meaning in the mind of another person, because the music of the song alone can awaken the same ideas and the same feelings in one mind as in another,—a feeling which is not, however, expressed by the same words.[58] Resignation, melancholy, the praise of God, a hunting-song,—one person does not form the same conception from these that another does. Resignation is to the one, what melancholy is to the other; the third can form no lively idea of either. To any man who is by nature a very keen sportsman, a hunting-song and the praise of God would come pretty much to the same thing, and to such a one the sound of the hunting-horn would really and truly be the praise of God, while we hear nothing in it but a mere hunting-song; and if we were to discuss it ever so often with him, we should get no further. Words have many meanings, and yet music we could both understand correctly. Will you allow this to serve as an answer to your question? At all events, it is the only one I can give,—although these too are nothing, after all, but ambiguous words! translated and produced by The Project Gutenberg [58] Goethe also says, in the fourth part of ‘Dichtung und Wahrheit,’ “I have already but too plainly seen, that no one person understands another; that no one receives the same impression as another from the very same words.”
