2. misc-audio
  3. 169053-121242

Learning to Listen: Neurological Evidence

Neurological evidence indicates we not only learn to listen, but actually tune our inner ear response based on neural feedback from the brain. We literally are able to actively tune our own hearing.  

When we listen for a flute for example, this is more than a conscious decision to focus on the flute. This creates neural impulses that actively tune ear cells to better hear the flute.  

This whole video is fascinating, but I want to get you hooked right away so check this out:  
https://youtu.be/SuSGN8yVrcU?t=1340

“Selectively changing what we’re listening to in response to the content. Literally reaching out to listen for things.”


Here’s another good one. Everyone can hear subtle details about five times as good as predicted by modeling. Some of us however can hear 50 times as good. The difference? Years spent learning to listen closely! https://youtu.be/SuSGN8yVrcU?t=1956

Learning to play music really does help improve your listening.  

This video is chock full of neurphysiological evidence that by studying, learning and practice you can develop the listening skills to hear things you literally could not hear before. Our hearing evolved millennia before we invented music. We are only just now beginning to scratch at the potential evolution has bestowed on us.


128x128millercarbon

Showing 2 responses by femoore12

femoore12's avatar
femoore12
683 posts
 
I am rather new to this forum, but I honestly don’t understand why this topic seems to be so controversial. If you have ever learned to play an instrument, learned to read music, learned how to sing in a choir, learned how to harmonize with other voices, then this topic becomes very academic. You can and do learn how to listen for specific instruments, voices, harmonies, melodies, rhythms, etc. People with music training tend to have an easier time in identifying instruments and voices when listening to music. Most people have the ability to learn this with the possible exception of my father who was completely tone deaf (and he never learned how to sing in tune). It just takes time and the desire to learn.

I do apologize for any grammar mistakes, poor spelling, and if my comment seems rude. I am suffering from jetlag and the coffee just isn't helping.

Thanks!
femoore12's avatar
femoore12
683 posts
 
@hilde45
 At some odds with your very valid point is that there are musicians who often don’t have very good systems or care very much about sound quality in audio systems. That may merely be because they just don’t care about audio quality sound -- which would be weird -- or that they listen in some other way. But the notion that if one is a musician they already know how to listen as an audiophile is contradicted in a lot of cases, and that presents a puzzle.
I agree with your comment. My brother is a classically trained opera singer (since retired) and he never owned any audio systems that would be considered audiophile quality. He systems were always the most basic that were available. He always told me that reproduced music never came close to the real thing. I don’t have the years of stage experience that he had nor the formal training, but I will admit my home system doesn’t replicate the sound that I found myself immersed in while performing on stage. I am not trying to replicate that level of immersion at home (since I think it’s impossible), but I do consider my system successful if I can see the sound.

Thanks!
More to discover