Learning to Listen: Neurological Evidence

As a result of the record/playback process music suffers just as much distortion of one kind or another in the domain of rhythmic expression as it does in the domain of timbre/tonality. Only by attending live performances (preferably acoustic) can a listener fully learn to identify just how far our playback gear distorts the amazing rhythmic and dynamic immediacy and nuance of live music. This way we can identify why some gear sounds more rhythmically alive than others and why some sounds rhythmically dead. Phrasing has everything to do with rhythm and rhythm/timing is were most of the music of a performance is found. When we open our minds up to these possibilities we learn to be more discerning of both musical performance details and the performance of our gear.

Very important remarks....

My own experience about why some gear sounds with a rythmic expression which is sometimes dead is linked to the acoustic control (or the lack of) of the speakers/room... Among the 3 embeddings factors , acoustic is key....

These very subtle dynamics of expression IS music for a musician, and like say frogman , it is where the genius of an interpretation lives...

Like the humor of some musician and frogman put it: " Nobody ever gets fired for having a bad sound".... But music is more than good sound and audiophile experience is more than good gear sound ...

The "musical timbre phenomena" is the sums of tone harmonic body and envelope with this subtle dynamic gesture of the musician lost for the listener when acoustic of his speakers/ room is uncontrolled ....

Then before listening to gear we must know how to listen to music played by a musician, and non amplified one....To sensitize ourself with what is music essence....Music has begun with a body gesture million year ago from a mother to his child....The first musician is perhaps a mother moving his body and/or his tongue in synch with the child body....




«Music before being a sound, or a tone, is a gesture of the body»-Anonymus Smith

«Do you mean listening music and learning to listen is moving my body?»-Groucho Marx in a tango school 🤓

But the brain is also able to put things into the equation that are not there in reality…

All the "gist" and intricacies linked to perception are precisely that there is not a "thing" that is absolutely here and out of consciousness... There is not a "res extensa" for a "res rationis"....And there is not even an absolute object called the brain here and out of consciousness which would create consciousness like my liver system my metabolism ...

We learned perceiving as babies but as adult we perceive our learnings histories as actual meanings and we grow to learn this simple truth...Meaning are more creatively real than "object", more deadly and more potent ...

For example a musical "timbre" is not out there like a table...It is created not only by physical acoustic, but also psycho-acoustic conditions and for "timbre phenomenon" experience, all humanity and personal histories combined participate substantially to his rendition for our consciousness ... Timbre is a meaning first even before being a musical objectively reproduced and conventionally partaked phenomenon...

All that is my opinion ....Take it for a minute to think...




«Did you just say that the thing which are not there are the more real or powerful?»-Groucho Marx 🤓

Thanks for this thread and video OP....