Stereophile has had a number of articles and even series of articles related to this over the years. Its a fascinating subject. Its attractively simple to put it down to hearing damage. An awful lot musicians do have hearing loss from all the high volume.
But it can’t be put down to hearing loss, or even hearing ability. Lots of people who hear perfectly well are nevertheless bad listeners. And vice versa. I had a guy one time tell me it was a waste of time asking him to sit in the sweet spot. "I’m wearing two hearing aids!" he told me. Then 5 minutes later he was telling me how impressed he was with the imaging.
So its not hearing per se, but listening. Unlike hearing, which is physiological (your ear either registers sound or it doesn’t) listening involves interpretation. Its a skill. The significance of being a skill: skills can be learned. More to the point, skills tend to need to be learned. They don’t tend to come naturally.
Unlike music. This is where the old Stereophile articles were really fascinating. Because they seemed to show that at least some people who are musically talented appear to listen or maybe even hear things differently than the rest of us.
Like, there was a whole series for a while on musicians and their systems. Every single one of them loaded with millions, connected with all the top engineers, could have whatever they want. Yanni as I recall had a monster megawatt Martin Logan system. Tony Bennett a little mid-fi console in his Manhattan flat. More often than not it was a meager or budget stereo. Yanni was sort of the exception. Quite a few of them seem not to care.
For me what I hear is what I listen to, and I relax and focus and do everything I can to follow and absorb. Darken the room, close the eyes, try and see with my ears. But it seems that for a lot of musicians what they hear affects them quite a bit differently. They don’t so much follow as interpret, as if all they need is the barest of bones and they fill out the rest in their mind. When the music is in your head, what do you need with hearing? Bach was deaf!
But it can’t be put down to hearing loss, or even hearing ability. Lots of people who hear perfectly well are nevertheless bad listeners. And vice versa. I had a guy one time tell me it was a waste of time asking him to sit in the sweet spot. "I’m wearing two hearing aids!" he told me. Then 5 minutes later he was telling me how impressed he was with the imaging.
So its not hearing per se, but listening. Unlike hearing, which is physiological (your ear either registers sound or it doesn’t) listening involves interpretation. Its a skill. The significance of being a skill: skills can be learned. More to the point, skills tend to need to be learned. They don’t tend to come naturally.
Unlike music. This is where the old Stereophile articles were really fascinating. Because they seemed to show that at least some people who are musically talented appear to listen or maybe even hear things differently than the rest of us.
Like, there was a whole series for a while on musicians and their systems. Every single one of them loaded with millions, connected with all the top engineers, could have whatever they want. Yanni as I recall had a monster megawatt Martin Logan system. Tony Bennett a little mid-fi console in his Manhattan flat. More often than not it was a meager or budget stereo. Yanni was sort of the exception. Quite a few of them seem not to care.
For me what I hear is what I listen to, and I relax and focus and do everything I can to follow and absorb. Darken the room, close the eyes, try and see with my ears. But it seems that for a lot of musicians what they hear affects them quite a bit differently. They don’t so much follow as interpret, as if all they need is the barest of bones and they fill out the rest in their mind. When the music is in your head, what do you need with hearing? Bach was deaf!