We are all born with a natural ability to listen to and appreciate music. How good this natural ability is, will vary to some extent from person to person - with it being dependent on our hearing working properly.
Experience, training, attitude, emotional state will hone this skill / ability.
+1
For me, it was the 'tune dem...' I always did it, but never realised until shown how back in 1981. Works for me to appreciate music through all reproduced audio, although some live music is anything but 'tuneful...'
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way...The time has gone, The song is over, Thought I'd something more to say...
The answer is like most things in life , is it is both .
In the sachs book previously mentioned he argues music is innate to humans like language and it as an auditory , emotional and motoric component to it [ the latter means we listen to music with our muscles , it causes us to dance , tap in time to the music etc .
Baby DQ bears this out , if he hears music especially with a strong rhythm he will stop smile and bounce up and down . His current favorites are the proclaimers 500 miles and AC DC highway to hell . Interesting the velocity of his bouncing is related to the quality of the hifi . NVA amps get a bigger bounce than the TV and the denon amp . Additionally If he hears noise , hair dryers , drills ,sanders then he cries .
This is clearly innate and whilst you can have an innate skill , it is not a skill as it is the same for all humans with normal hearing . Nb , A skill requires degrees of difference so some people are rubbish , okay , good , expert etc .
However , as soon as you introduce knowledge and language in to the equation ,it then becomes a skill as the type , level and quality of knowledge and language will become different and thus what you listen to/for and articulating what you listen to becomes a skill .
For instance a trained musician will concentrate on and listen to things I will not .
An amplifier designer will hear things I will not . Mick jagger when listening to bitter sweet symphony by the verve will hear the fact that it ripped off sympathy for the devil and will make a phone call and pocket all the royalties.
Listening with a skill is clearly better for the purpose of listening pursuant of that skill [ ie composing music, amplifier design , making sure you are not being plagiarized] but is it better per se .
I doubt it , seems to me baby dq can already tell NVA monoblocks are better than a denon integrated and perhaps if we used our emotional , motoric and auditory senses instead of intellectualizing hifi , then more people would have systems they like .
Bit of both. I am a classically trained musician, which helps, but some people are just born tone deaf and/or have no interest in developing hearing skills. Some people have limited hearing abilities, some people have unnaturally strong hearing abilities.
Also, through the years, I have developed an ear for the likes of 'leading edge', 'decay', 'sibilance', 'macrodynamics', 'microdynamics', 'coherence', 'timing' etc., which allows me to critically evaluate HiFi systems. At the same time, it took me a lot of time and money to stop doing this and just enjoy my own system for what it is...
Daniel Quinn wrote:The answer is like most things in life , is it is both .
In the sachs book previously mentioned he argues music is innate to humans like language and it as an auditory , emotional and motoric component to it [ the latter means we listen to music with our muscles , it causes us to dance , tap in time to the music etc .
Baby DQ bears this out , if he hears music especially with a strong rhythm he will stop smile and bounce up and down . His current favorites are the proclaimers 500 miles and AC DC highway to hell . Interesting the velocity of his bouncing is related to the quality of the hifi . NVA amps get a bigger bounce than the TV and the denon amp . Additionally If he hears noise , hair dryers , drills ,sanders then he cries .
This is clearly innate and whilst you can have an innate skill , it is not a skill as it is the same for all humans with normal hearing . Nb , A skill requires degrees of difference so some people are rubbish , okay , good , expert etc .
However , as soon as you introduce knowledge and language in to the equation ,it then becomes a skill as the type , level and quality of knowledge and language will become different and thus what you listen to/for and articulating what you listen to becomes a skill .
For instance a trained musician will concentrate on and listen to things I will not .
An amplifier designer will hear things I will not . Mick jagger when listening to bitter sweet symphony by the verve will hear the fact that it ripped off sympathy for the devil and will make a phone call and pocket all the royalties.
Listening with a skill is clearly better for the purpose of listening pursuant of that skill [ ie composing music, amplifier design , making sure you are not being plagiarized] but is it better per se .
I doubt it , seems to me baby dq can already tell NVA monoblocks are better than a denon integrated and perhaps if we used our emotional , motoric and auditory senses instead of intellectualizing hifi , then more people would have systems they like .
Very good but if Mick Jagger thinks 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' is a rip off of 'Sympathy For The Devil' he should be returning a load of royalties to The Veve. It is in fact a sample of an orchestral version of 'THE LAST TIME' by The Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra. Hence it's not all that obvious to the casual listener.
