In a presentation at the Society for Music Theory 2002 Conference, 2002, David Huron proposed 21 listening modes:
- Distracted listening
- Tangential listening
- Metaphysical listening
- Signal listening
- Sing-along listening
- Lyric listening
- Programmatic listening
- Allusive listening
- Reminiscent listening
- Identity listening
- Retentive listening
- Fault listening
- Feature listening
- Innovation listening
- Memory scan listening
- Directed listening
- Distance listening
- Ecstatic listening
- Emotional listening
- Kinesthetic listening
- Performance listening
and he concludes: “This list is not intended to be exhaustive.”