Concentration

@wsrrsw nice pull on Tom Tom Club. 

Also, I really had to train myself to stop listening to my system. To stop see if there's any deficiencies or something's off or if the balance is off or if maybe this tube is hissing or whatever. For a while that just wrecked listening for me. I was concentrating so much on the system that I forgot about the music much of the time

@rvpiano lets say you’re in a Carnegie Hall or in a Lincoln Center. You’re listening to your favorite symphony. What do you concentrate on? How do you perceive and comprehend music? What do you listen to - sounds, music, performance or all of it at once?
I can tell you that when I’m at a live performance listening to an orchestra I pay attention to sounds just as much as I pay attention to music and performance. Same at home. The only factor is that the recorded music relies on your quality of your equipment and room acoustics. And your system will either do sounds well or convey emotions or in cases of exceptional synergy it will do all of the above. It also depends on your mood and mindset.

@audphile1 

when your in Carnegie Hall of course you’re listening to both.  But when you’re home and listening to your stereo you’re indulging a hobby which involves sound for sound’s sake.  Quite different from a Carnegie Hall experience.

@hilde45 

what do you think of my observation of the difference between classical music listening and other types of music regarding this dichotomy?

I assume you mean this:

As I’ve said, those who listen to classical music generally have to concentrate a little more on to what is going on in the music.  I believe that rock, pop and the like is detected more viscerally and instinctively than classical.
People feel the music rather than think about it.  Of course classical music lovers also feel the music, but there is an added element to their listening.

It’s a hard question. Classical compositions appeal at multiple levels -- they have to, because composers at that time were, in large part, composing music for the public. They had to make a visceral connection. That’s why even the non-classical listener knows the tunes to many compositions.

If you’re talking about contemporary classical (e.g., say, Morton Feldman) there is often a lot of texture and experiments with sound textures in their work; one might even argue that this type of classical is even more reliant on listen to the sound aspect as much as the music -- or even pushing the listener *not* to radically separate them.

I don’t think the types of music are as revealing as trying to typify different kinds of listening. This is what I mentioned below (regarding background listening, performance listening, reverie listening, and regressive listening).

Let's think about each type of listening for a moment. I guess that the type of listening you're thinking about for classical is some kind of combination of "performance" and "reverie" listening.

Background Listening: Sound serves as an accompaniment to other activities. Think of music playing in a coffee shop, while you're working, etc. But even background listening subtly shapes our experience and mood.

* Performance Listening: This involves a focused and intentional engagement with a musical performance, e.g., at a concert, with the music as central. The listener is actively trying to follow the structure, melodies, harmonies, and overall development of the piece, often with an awareness of the musicians' skill and interpretation.

* Reverie Listening: Music such as ambient music encourages a state of "reverie listening," a more open-ended and reflective engagement. The music spurs internal thought, imagination, and contemplation. One isn't necessarily dissecting the music analytically, but allowing it to initiate a flow of associations, memories, or reflections. Music creates a space for introspection without demanding rigid, focused attention.

Regressive Listening: This describes listening that is not truly engaging with the music itself but rather with its social function or the prestige it confers. It's driven by external factors— to be seen as cultured, fit in with a certain group, etc. It's a pseudo-engagement where the listener is concerned about what the music does for them socially, rather than its intrinsic artistic qualities. 

What @sns has been saying -- and which Lysaker says in his book -- is that "sound" vs. "musical content" doesn't admit of a clean divide. In other words, they are not mutually exclusive. One can (and often does) shift between attending to acoustic details and semantic content. 

Lysaker offers the concept of "prismatic listening," which suggests a way of engaging that continually shifts attention between both the "sound" and the "music" (or broader conceptual meanings). This way of listening recognizes that no single approach can fully grasp a work -- there is an interplay between raw sonic experience and the ways we construct meaning from it.