[John2e]

Can critical listening be taught and refined ? Opinions

 

[bigshot]

You can certainly appreciate music better by having a basic understanding of how music is constructed and the story of the musicians who made it. I've also found that listening to more and varied types of music increases a listener's frame of reference and makes them understand music better.

 

[John2e]

You can certainly appreciate music better by having a basic understanding of how music is constructed and the story of the musicians who made it. I've also found that listening to more and varied types of music increases a listener's frame of reference and makes them understand music better.

Yes agreed .

But what about picking out a single voice in a choir or distinguishing a particular hall from a live recording?

 

[Speedskater]

Listening to what?
a] the music.
b] how the musicians play the music
c] the recording technique
d] the playback sound system

 

[John2e]

Listening to what?
a] the music.
b] how the musicians play the music
c] the recording technique
d] the playback sound system

E) All of the above

 

[Whitigir]

Yes agreed .

But what about picking out a single voice in a choir or distinguishing a particular hall from a live recording?

E) All of the above

Based on experiences, Human body, they adapt, and evolve, just like a martial artists vs a regular guy, or a gymnast vs a normal being. Once you are trained over and over in something, your body will adapt, and so does your brain and everything else. Even though such things as talents and gifted do exists, any human can train to an extend to surpass untrained people, and in the same instance, training and category, the one with gifts and talents would stand out more. It applies in every thing

Having talents and not training for it = wasted

Training for it but have no talents = just barely surpass regular folk, we call it skills

Each human being is uniquely gifted in someway, but the instances to acknowledge, expose oneself to one own talents or to seek for it is extremely rare. Beside, there are personal interests, and that is why the talented people such as Lebron are the very few, who happened to have talent in baseball, then grown up in a country with the sport culture, exposed himself to it, and loving it, to result in an extreme talented player - very very rare

 

[bigshot]

But what about picking out a single voice in a choir or distinguishing a particular hall from a live recording?

If you're talking purely about technical aspects of sound reproduction, that depends on the quality of the engineering of the recordings primarily, and secondly the ability of your equipment's ability to reproduce it. You can't train your ears to hear better. I know a lot of people in audiophile forums invest a lot of ego into their ability to hear a gnat hair hitting a pillow at a hundred paces, but if you sent them to an audiologist for a checkup, they would test normal. You can't teach yourself to hear better. That would be like learning to fly by jumping of a higher height a foot higher at a time. You can teach yourself to have better taste in music and better understanding of the communicating power of music. That is MUCH more valuable than pretending to have Superman x ray hearing in an internet forum. Stuff like that is just plain lame.

That said, I can recognize a particular conductor, recording venue and orchestra by their sound. But I didn't train my ears to recognize that. I trained my brain by listening to the work of a lot of conductors and orchestras and analyzing and thinking about what their distinctive style was. Train your brain by thinking about music. Listen to more and better music. That's how you get there.

 

[Strangelove424]

They say the biggest problem with hifi is that a lot of folks are actually listening to their systems, but I think it's even worse than that, I think they're listening to themselves. "Golden ears" have become so important. There's some test online that determines if you have them or not. It gives you samples of distortion, different barely audible frequencies. If you can hear them, you get a golden prize jpeg at the end of your test and a great reason to feel good about yourself. But feeling the music? I don't know if it translates.

 

[John2e]

When listening to "Angie" by the Rolling Stones with a few friends many years ago, I noticed the track of Mick whispering the lyrics through most of the song. You can hear him distinctly whisper Angie at a certain point in the song but he also does it in the back ground very softly through out most of the song (it is barely audible ). When I pointed this out to my buddies, some where able to isolate the track and follow it while others though us crazy. All of us were around the same age and nobody has had any issues with hearing. What is also weird is there are times when I am unable to isolate it (always on the same equipment)

 

[John2e]

But I didn't train my ears to recognize that. I trained my brain by listening to the work of a lot of conductors and orchestras and analyzing and thinking about what their distinctive style was. Train your brain by thinking about music. Listen to more and better music. That's how you get there.

I would think listening does not only involve the ears the mind is also a big part.

If a tone is below the threshold of audibility there is nothing we can do to strengthen the ear so I am looking at the brain side of it

For me there is a difference between hearing and listening

I can always hear my wife but sometimes, I don't listen to what she is saying

 

[John2e]

They say the biggest problem with hifi is that a lot of folks are actually listening to their systems, but I think it's even worse than that, I think they're listening to themselves. "Golden ears" have become so important. There's some test online that determines if you have them or not. It gives you samples of distortion, different barely audible frequencies. If you can hear them, you get a golden prize jpeg at the end of your test and a great reason to feel good about yourself. But feeling the music? I don't know if it translates.

This would be a test of hearing not of listening test

A listening test might ask how many guitars are playing now

 

[WoodyLuvr]

For me there is a difference between hearing and listening

I can always hear my wife but sometimes, I don't listen to what she is saying

That you actually put that in writing proves that you are a very brave soul!

 

[Slaphead]

They say the biggest problem with hifi is that a lot of folks are actually listening to their systems, but I think it's even worse than that, I think they're listening to themselves. "Golden ears" have become so important. There's some test online that determines if you have them or not. It gives you samples of distortion, different barely audible frequencies. If you can hear them, you get a golden prize jpeg at the end of your test and a great reason to feel good about yourself. But feeling the music? I don't know if it translates.

I totally agree. There's an oft said saying that audiophiles use music to listen to their gear, but music lovers use their gear to listen to music. The truth is that most of us on this forum are probably somewhere inbetween.

In answer to the OP's question of whether it's possible to pick out a single singer in a choir, well for most mere mortals it's probably only going to be possible if that particular singer is out of key, otherwise probably not. You could make a good guess as to how many people are in the choir up to a certain point but beyond that it'll just sound like more singers.

The most important thing that you can learn with critical listing is to be able to musically dissect a track in your head, and that means to hear all the different instrumentation doing their thing, and how it contributes to the music - the melodies, counter melodies, harmony, different aspects of the rythms etc. An audio system that makes that easier is generally the better system. Everybody can do this with a little bit of concentration.

It really doesn't matter if you can't hear the rat scuttle across the floor in the middle of Beethovens 9th, all that matters is that you enjoy the music in the best way for your ears.

 

[Whitigir]

Now, to answer the Op question bluntly. If you find it hard to pick out a play or choir, your system is insufficient, period

 

[castleofargh]

observation can be trained. you don't develop Xray vision and Daredevil's hearing but of course it can be taught like anything else. if it's about recognizing something, the obvious first step is to listen to a lot of music containing that cue in situations where it is noticeable, to really get used to the pattern.
what can help is being slightly obsessed with something. ^_^ I couldn't name half the instruments in some of my favorite albums, because I never cared about that and never played one for more than 3 weeks. but I'm always one of the first to complain about small audible background noises, or some spike at 10khz. we find such spikes on so many headphones and IEMs, but I absolutely hate how it sounds in my head. so of course I look like a pro when the 10khz question arises, but only because I am obsessed about it.
another obvious aspect of training is the damn lingo. that can't be innate.

on a side note, I really hate ideas like "your system is insufficient". it's not total nonsense because of course for some cues, a specific system might mask them or attenuate them. like testing something in the sub frequencies with a Grado might not make for the easiest listening test.
but in practice when you read such a statement, it's way too often some elitist bollocks excuse where we could still notice whatever they discuss with an iphone and a porta pro(if it's not placebo of course). dunno if we can call that training, but I've become rather sensitive to such statement ^_^.