Introduction Thread/Is it possible to hear music differently than others?

As the title suggests, this is my introduction post, though not my first (an unsolicited opinion regarding Pink Floyd CDs). I am a music lover and have been for many years. As a boy, my dad let me listen to his old records, A decision I now lament, since neither him nor I knew how to properly handle records. I've learned since. I had the entire Beatles catalogue on cassette, and then got them all on CD. I'll ramble on more elsewhere.

I feel like, when I listen to music, I hear things most people don't on a casual listen. I'm not sure that its because my hearing is better than theirs (A friend of mine recently had his ears checked, and they're quite normal) so it must be something else. Do you believe some people hear "more" when they listen?

 

Some people pay more attention than others.

 

It's all in the mind. People with trained eyes can pick out minute details better than others. The same information getting to your ears is getting to theirs, it's just that their brain is throwing more of it away.

 

Yes, I can see that would be the case. I know music is subjective, and different disc issues are loved by different people. I've been disappointed in remasters, usually after repeat listenings. I bought one of the Pink Floyd Early Years box set, the '72 one which includes a remix of Obscured by Clouds and Live at Pompeii done in 2016. I loved the Obscured by Clouds at first, but now that the honeymoon period is over, I've come to find it very crushed sounding. Still like the Live at Pompeii disc, though. Blu-Ray sounds awesome, too.

 

Some people actually do not love music, but "use" it as a backdrop for their lifestyles. Not that there's anything wrong with that. There are actually people who listen to the next album just on the basis that they liked the last one...and are totally oblivious to the performer's background, his stylistic growth, his encounters with other well-known musical winners, not to mention ANYthing about that game of musical chairs most call "The Record Business". How can they possibly understand
or comment on the goings-on behind the scenes, if they haven't read the complete music reviews in Rolling Stone?! Why do they even bother to listen!

Didja ever watch a ballgame on TV, "just to see what happens"...then you sat down next to a person who not only thinks he knows what's going to happen, but he's at least partyly right? And he has intimate knowledge of the game, the rules, the history, the teams and players, where they are in there careers, and speculates what might happen to them once they're off the field, or finishing the season, or retiring? And perhaps he's looking at you, thinking, "This dude doesn't know ANYthing about the game - why is he even bothering to watch?"

 

Actually, I would expect each and everyone of us to have our own personal way of hearing music. How one "hears" the musical performance as a whole is largely dependent on this personal focus: a listener who in listening emphasizes vocals is bound to hear it differently than those whose focus is on some other aspect (arrangement, guitars, bass/drums interaction - the list is endless), or whether one listens to the whole or the different parts that make up that whole (there's a difference). I once had a hard time trying to make my wife pick out the bass drum kicks on a certain tune, but she just didn't seem to able to "hear" them - she just heard "drums", and of course that is just as valid a way to hear that tune as mine (or any other way, for that matter). I have often thought that it would be wonderful if one could just for once get to hear a familiar song the way somebody else hears it. We might be in for quite a surprise!

 

Firstly, everyone has physiological differences which contributes to listening differences.

Secondly, there is the way the brain interprets the stimulus it hears.
- people have different levels of interest in how they choose to interpret the music
- people differ in their ability to discriminate detail
- people differ in the experiences they bring to listing to listening - how much they like/are interested in the music, the degree of training they have had (formerly or informally) on listening to music, what they are interesting in discriminating within the music, etc.

 

All interesting views. I do love music, but I'd actually say it runs a little deeper. qwerty, I appreciate the more scientific explanation, but I also appreciate taking a more philosophical view of music. Any experience I can articulate about listening to music has its basis in the neural pathways common to all humans. Maybe the answer is functionally as simple as "pay better attention," but just because someone learns to hear things, it doesn't mean hearing such things provide the same pleasurable experience that it does for me.

It's interesting to think about. And rant.

 

Taking pleasure into the equation makes this question even more complex (and interesting, too). We have to take into account both our emotional and the more cognitive responses; there's the joylike, simple pleasure that a song, a certain melody or a surprising harmonic invention can bring, and then there's the more conscious gratification we get once we filter our listening experience through our cognitive abilities (recognizing instruments, catching references or similarities to other music we have heard, and so on).

 

Everyone hears music differently I think, there is no escaping that.

But it is very important not to think that you are somehow better at listening to music than someone else.

 

Exactly! Or that your pleasure is greater than mine.

 

There are two components to the original question.

The first is audio quality. Unfortunately most don't have educated ears and most have been taught that their opinion is all that matters. So it is usual to get people telling you they like or dislike the audio quality, but very few have an educated ear and can post something telling us about the audio quality.

For example, dynamics are important to me and I can make a pretty good guess at the DR value of a recording just by listening. Most here have got used to compression and can't understand why someone who enjoys dynamics is unhappy with a recording they think is fine.

I'm fine with personal taste being different - if someone enjoys something I don't like I'm not going to say they are wrong. So if someone says a recording is fairly compressed (eg DR9) but they enjoy it I don't mind. But when their ears are uneducated and they can't hear the difference between DR12 and DR9 and so they dismiss the views of those who can hear the difference this annoys me.

In short, on this forum if someone days a recording is really good audio quality then the only thing you know is that this person likes it and you know nothing about it's dynamics, EQ, or anything else which defines the audio quality.

The other factor is understanding the music itself, and here the more you know about the artist, style, history, etc the deeper your understanding.

It's amazing to think that for classical music before recordings most people only heard a piece of music once. It was their knowledge of the style of music and what they had heard before which enabled them to appreciate (or otherwise) the new composition.

 

Of course. And I'm just as good a pilot, surgeon, lawyer, handyman, mother, etc as everyone else too.

Alternatively years of training and practice can give people expertise so that they can appreciate and understand things better than those just dabble.

As an aside, the view that everyone's opinion is equal to everyone elses is one of the things that has led to a world where many people now dismiss the views of experts with consequences to health, the environment, the economy, and much more.

 

Expertise is fine, but sometimes it takes the child in us to see whether the emperor has got clothes on or not.

 

Here I agree.

The educated listener can distracted by the flaws that are obvious to them and those who don't notice these flaws are likely to enjoy it more.

 

I would agree that the quality of the audio, as well as the technical aspects of the recording/mixing/mastering process will affect the way a record sounds. I still know people who use mp3 players, and while it might be fine for them, I stopped using one when I found a format that sounded better to me.

I admit that I'm not formally trained in the nuts and bolts of recording and audio production. If I can tell the difference in two audio recordings, I'd probably only be able to describe it in non technical terms.

I don't think it's a bad thing, even though I'd like to learn more about the technical side. I fundamentally believe that music should be listened to for enjoyment, but it's not a problem for me If someone feels otherwise. I don't believe anyone is superior to anyone else, especially since our senses are extremely subjective.

 

Yes, and it's true that some people really know what they're talking about. I believe that music is an art, and as such is equally as subjective.

Now, there are artists whose job is to make an accurate representation based in observable fact. The quality of their art is objectively higher, since it represents something physically true. Whether or not someone likes that piece of art is subjective, but I don't believe it makes the technical painter a better "artist" than anyone else. In the same vein, Steve Vai is objectively a better technical guitarist than David Gilmour. Of people who listen to both, I'm sure they'd be hard pressed to say that Steve Vai is a superior guitarist, or that David Gilmour is superior. They're both good, but which one is gooder? That's a near impossible question to answer.

Even so, I would rather the actually educated running things than any other group. It's not fair, but damned if it's not the smartest idea.

 

I have to disagree with you quite strongly. Years of trading does not mean you appreciate things better. That is all subjective and you simply can't say that. That is a kind of snobbery and its quite silly to compare it to being a doctor or pilot. Those are objective skills.

People see beauty in vastly different things for a whole load of subjective reasons we will probably never understand. What we don't need is music snobs that set themselves above the 'normal people'. People like that are just boringly annoying.

 

"People hear music differently."
-Steve Vai

And that's very very true.
I'm alaways amazed when I hear someone casually singing a melody from a song... and finding out that this person does not sing exactly the line as it is. But she heard it that way.
Sometimes it's the details that are absent, sometimes it's almost a different rythm....

 

Again the recent view that everyone's opinion is of equal value pushes this view.

But it's possible for an educated person to separate their personal taste from their expertise, and make very informative comments on music they don't like.

Where expertise tends to go very wrong is then the expert moves out of their area of expertise and uses the authority of their expertise to spout nonsense about things they are not expert in.

 

Indeed! The last time I looked there was no curricula available anywhere to become a qualified music listener.

 

There are courses on audio engineering, etc for audio quality, and there are classes available on music appreciation.

Both of these are skills that can be picked up the the amateur who puts in the effort.

 

I acknowledge there is a set of skills one can learn pertaining to music. That skill set can be extremely valuable and insightful. Those skills do not equate to taste, however.

 

I assume you mean 'training'.

I agree, that our appreciation is subjective, and someone with no expertise may enjoy something more than an expert.
And as I wrote before, not knowing much means that obvious flaws may go unnoticed and this makes it easier just to enjoy it.

But when talking to others about music, unless the person is a friend, I couldn't give a stuff whether or not someone likes it. What I want is some information which will assist me in working out whether or not I might like it. An expert in audio quality and in the genre of the music can provide that information.

 

True, but it's still not quite what I'm after. A vet is likely to know more about medicine than the average man-in-the-street, but I still wouldn't trust him enough to operate on me - I'd prefer a proper surgeon.