It can be like a bolt of lightning all at once in the moment, or it consists of good intuitive guesses and thoughtful references to past experience. Raw listening has no past or future. It has the potential of instantaneously changing the listener forever. It is the roots of the moment. None of us who compose and improvise music can claim credit for inventing music.
Music is a gift from the universe.
Those of us who can tune to this gift are fortunate indeed. We are interacting with a powerful resource and sharing with billions of musicians who have preceded us, who are simultaneous with us and who will succeed us. We can help others to learn to listen and participate by listening as a lifetime practice. As musicians we listen to make finer and finer distinctions in tone, sound and rhythm. It is the slightest nuances that accumulate and refine one's aesthetics.