This seminar course examines two music-related subjects highly relevant to most modern lives in the twentieth century and onward: the singing voice and the music listener. It will explore their reciprocity within the context of Western art music (opera, lied, mélodie), popular music (blues, enka, cover versions), and folk and traditional music (talèdhèk in Java, kunqu in China, katajjaq among the Inuit) from various perspectives based on excerpts from selected texts by music scholars and cultural critics such as Roland Barthes (on the grain of the voice), Judith Becker (on deep listeners), Lori Burns (on vocal expression), Kate Heidemann (on vocal timbre), Lawrence Kramer (on songfulness), and Christopher Small (on the art of the theater). It will guide students to reflect on the social and cultural aspects of the singing voice and the music listener in their personal, artistic, and/or professional lives. It also aims to lead students to recognize how the singing voice and the music listener have been inseparable from the material and aesthetic conditions that give rise to particular perceptions, practices, and values.