how do you hear music?

[robin]

very interesting question
i spend a huge proportion of my time listening to and thinking/talking about music,but i have no real understanding of how it works whatsoever-i basically hear it as pure sound
i mean i know what a guitar sounds like (sometimes) and what the rhythm is and so on,but i dont know anything about notes,chord sequences,etc
but a lot of people i talk to who have some formal of understanding of music assume i do to based on my enthusiasm,and are amazed i get so much out of music without understanding it...
people even refuse to believe i dont know complicated musical theory and insist on talking to me as if i did sometimes...

aphex twin provides an interesting example of ways of hearing music-i went through a phase of listening to sawII nearly constantly a while ago,and was playing it for a mate of mine who had neverf heard it...
i knew there was something special about the album in that there was loads of music like it but nothing quite like it,if you know what i mean,but i couldnt explain what it was
my mate heard it and instantly started analysing it in terms of sequences of notes,tones.half tones,and various other terms i didnt understand...
anyway,he seemed to be as impressed as i was,but for different reasons (or the same reasons expressed differently i suppose)


so yeah,i get a lot out of music,but i never really know why...
i also think sawII is orange by the way,or at least part s of it
it might be to do with the cover-i associate loveless visually with the colours on the cover

 

[egg]

A useful way of coping with really dull or, to my ears, awful music that I might be exposed to against my will.

Natasha Bedingfield?

 

[egg]

i also think sawII is orange by the way,or at least part s of it
it might be to do with the cover-i associate loveless visually with the colours on the cover

me too - used to be making compilations or doing mixes and thinking 'no i can't play that next it's not green'. then realised it was just the cover art. but i still couldn't bring myself to put it on!

do you find SAW85-92 black & white?

A lot of my favourite sounds are orange. A lot of SAW II is orange for me. Rhythms tend to be transluscent grey shades. Bass is a dark space with faint shades running through. Dirtier basses have rough colourful edges. I'm not synaesthetic, I don't think. I mean my world isn't awash with sound-colours that impede my daily activities. But in my mind sounds do have distinct shapes and colours.

i'd love to hear more about this colour/sound stuff... new thread anyone?

 

[turtles]

i'd love to hear more about this colour/sound stuff... new thread anyone?

Mentioned upthread, this is an instance of synaesthesia, which is a well documented phenomenon of people experiencing sensations from one sensory modality (such as vision) when actually percieving things in a different sensory modality (such as sound). Also includes stuff like people who "see" specific colours associated with letters or digits.

Actually, I lie. I'm not 100% sure that this counts as synaesthesia or just some sort of chromatic associations with certain sounds. If you wanted to you could probably call it synaesthesia, I don't think the definition is that set in stone, and besides, it's all in your head so people can't really contradict you.

But yeah, what always pissed me off was Massive Attack's Mezzanine, which had this really nice black and white dark metalic cover that totally fit it, but then the CD was a light orange! Mezzanine was so not orange.

 

[Mika]

Auditory Space

I think that there should be a strong differentiation kept between academic/classic training, and the forms of appreciation that Simon is referring to. That is, it's not necessarily about recognizing the chords, notes or tunings of a particular arrangement, but about distinguishing the structure of an auditory space.

This is strongly the case with electronic/rave/dance records and so on. My personal experience has involved hanging around with a friend who had the ear for it already as a DJ - he would say "I love the way the hi-hats sound here", or refer to "that kick-drum bit there" and so on... before I knew it, boom-boom-boom was labelled in my mind as kickdrum, that section where I seemed to be gliding or soaring before, was now that "bit where those huge synthy strings come in", etc.

Exactly as Simon describes, it was like putting a lens in focus - seeing that structure in front of you, the clicking rhythms and shifting bass far below - the vocals punctuating, weaving between and bouncing off certain angles to create grooves and so on...

Personally, I think this kind of knowledge enhances any appreciation of music. I remember a time when I couldn't really hear distinctions between House, Techno or D'n'B; I really wouldn't want to go back...

 

[puretokyo]

But yeah, what always pissed me off was Massive Attack's Mezzanine, which had this really nice black and white dark metalic cover that totally fit it, but then the CD was a light orange! Mezzanine was so not orange.

Agreed! Being very visually oriented, my perception of music often relates a great deal to the appearance of the artifact - colour being a very important part of that! Inappropriate or poorly done cover art can really fuck up a good piece of music. Classic LPs tended to get fairly close to their contents. Most interesting in my view is where the artist/designer is unaware of the music but makes an ideal cover - case in point being Unknown Pleasures, one the best covers ever and perfect for the album, but designed prior to hearing the music!

 

[Backjob]

Number of things I'd pick up on from upthread:

1.) Whoever was talking about different reactions to diff types of music

Like if it's anything with a beat, I picture a club dancing and myself dancing to some extent or at least have a sense of how my limbs and muscles would move to it. It's totally unconscious and is why I find it very hard to listen to music that I wouldn't want to dance to. This is the basic reason why, despite having enjoyed listening to other people's IDM records (especially under the influence) I could NEVER actually own any of the stuff for home listening.

Whereas if it's narrative-based, and doesn't have much of a rhythm at all, I find music very hallucinatory. I can't put on Joni Mitchell without seeing alpine fields and sunlight, or Townes van Zandt without thinking of International House of Pancakes waitresses.

And finally if it's mc based, I'm always caught up in the persona of the rapper, like they're in the room with me and I'm studying them from every angle, the person is totally inseperable from the music. Like when Method Man does his on the beat off the beat thing, I see him weave from side to side, like he's going to fall over, or when Dizzee adds that extra bite to his consonants it's like he's flicking them out of his mouth with a snap of the neck. Nas is like this little guy all up in your face spraying you with spit but with really mesmerising eyes. And like, the more you know them, the closer they are. So Biggie or Dizzee or Pun will feel like they're right next to you, arm around you, but if it's some new southern dude like Scrappy or TI I see em walking down the other side of the street with their boys, and you can hear what they're saying but you're not part of it....

2.) Drugs

You know sometimes how you have a smoke and reach some unbelievable higher level of music appreciation where you hear and appreciate every note and it's amazing? And that half the time when this happens, it happens when a shitty song is playing? That fuckin sucks.

2.)a Drugs

Do they actually make you dance better? Is there any possible objective proof?

 

[Rambler]

I think that there should be a strong differentiation kept between academic/classic training, and the forms of appreciation that Simon is referring to. That is, it's not necessarily about recognizing the chords, notes or tunings of a particular arrangement, but about distinguishing the structure of an auditory space.

This is strongly the case with electronic/rave/dance records and so on. My personal experience has involved hanging around with a friend who had the ear for it already as a DJ - he would say "I love the way the hi-hats sound here", or refer to "that kick-drum bit there" and so on... before I knew it, boom-boom-boom was labelled in my mind as kickdrum, that section where I seemed to be gliding or soaring before, was now that "bit where those huge synthy strings come in", etc.

Exactly as Simon describes, it was like putting a lens in focus - seeing that structure in front of you, the clicking rhythms and shifting bass far below - the vocals punctuating, weaving between and bouncing off certain angles to create grooves and so on...

Is what you describe really that different from naming chords and so on? What I mean is that the listening skills required to say 'that's a kickdrum', 'that's a breakdown', 'that's the Amen break', 'that's drum and bass' are exactly the same as the those required to say 'that's a diminished seventh chord', 'that's a fugal episode', 'that's a Scotch snap', 'that's a gavotte'. In both cases it's simply a matter of someone demonstrating to you what those things are, and then you learning to recognise them. Now, I agree that there's a difference between criticism that is overly academic and gets pointlessly bogged down in theory, and criticism that allows for some subjective reaction to the music, but I don't think that what we're talking about here is where that difference lies.

I may be missing something though, so I'd like to hear what you think.

 

[owen]

what a great thread! my tuppence worth-

i like the suggestion that recognising an amen break is akin to recognising a semitone or something, as its quite flattering as i have no idea whatsoever about the latter. i don't know if rhythmic analysis is as complex as of harmony and all the stuff that involves funny symbols on paper, but i spose that's an unwarranted inferiority complex

i got some schoenberg stuff in the january sales. i've listened to it a few times and at first i was listening for the radicalism, the atonality and dissonance that was supposed to be in there, and couldnt really find it. then i listened to it while reading the lyrics (it was 'pierrot lunaire') and it worked really well, i think at least in part as an emotional thing...which is not how i would ever listen to a pop record (at least since my days as a manics fan at 14 )

i went to see a production of don giovanni recently and found it totally unlistenable. just couldnt react to it in any way at all as music, i was very disappointed in myself...just left totally cold...maybe cos it was so unlike my usual experience of music, wasnt designed to be listened to in the way i'm accustomed. oh and the singing!

 

[robin]

the visual thing is interesting,seems to be quite common
another selected ambient works two situation i just remembered-sitting in a friends house having a few joints towards the tail end of some sort of family party,so as well as the people we normally sit around with there was a cousin and a neighbour,both girls a few years younger than us...
from conversation neither of them seemed particularly into music
anyway,sawII was on in the background,and without attention being drawn to it,the two girls started talking about the images the music created in their mind...both had extremely vivid visual associations as each track came on-mostly dreamlike "its like walking through a field but all the trees are tinged with purple sort of stuff...
i thought it was interesting the reaction from two people who had never heard the music before-or even that type of music...
i gather aphex twin compared the album to being on acid in a huge empty power station,which probably isnt that far off

also,i thought the same about the massive attack cd
one situation where the power of suggestion didnt influence my visualising music is minus orange by richie hawtin (or maybe orange minus-whichever one doesnt sample that track from ferris bueller's day off)
this is one of the most clear visual associations i have with a track-its clearly static,like on a detuned tv,rising and falling in towers,sort of like on a graphic equalisers

anyone else associate anything with this track?

 

[hint]

i like the suggestion that recognising an amen break is akin to recognising a semitone or something, as its quite flattering as i have no idea whatsoever about the latter. i don't know if rhythmic analysis is as complex as of harmony and all the stuff that involves funny symbols on paper, but i spose that's an unwarranted inferiority complex

with something like a well-used break I think it goes beyond just the rhythm. you're tuned into far more than perhaps you give yourself credit for. I'd even venture as far as to say that you probably wouldn't recognise the amen's rhythm if it were programmed or replayed with very different drum sounds at a very different tempo. it'd still be the same rhythm though.

what you recognise when you "spot" an amen break is a drumkit, a drummer, some mics and a producer.... a moment in time, in a studio, many years ago. sure - it's very different to spotting a Cm7 chord, but involoves a similar level of natural recognition / (subconscious) learning.

 

[luka]

yeah the visual associations thing is another good one. another way of respoding to music. i'm profoundly unvisual so it's completely alien to me but there's a great r.crumb strip where he draws the images created in his head by certain songs like mary wells 'my guy' and so on. i find it pretty fascinating, (and jealousy inducing) images being created by sounds.

aldous huxley talks about not having that visual thing in doors of perception, i could relate to that. feeling like you're missing out. i didn't hallucinate when i took hallucengencs.

its that thing where they say some people are visual, some people tactile, some people this and some people that. i'm actually none of those things. so count your blessings, your heads sound like fun places to be!

 

[Rambler]

I'd even venture as far as to say that you probably wouldn't recognise the amen's rhythm if it were programmed or replayed with very different drum sounds at a very different tempo. it'd still be the same rhythm though.

I was talking to someone last night about something related to this. We decided that for different modes of listening, there are different things that are considered important or irrelevant. From a 'classical' perspective, you would say that a piece of notated music is the same whatever the instrument. So, if you play Beethoven's 5th Symphony on a piano, it's still B5S; the notes and rhythms are important, but the timbre is less so. From a 'non-classical' point of view, it's very often the opposite - like you say, the Amen rhythm played on bunch of different drums sounds wouldn't be Amen any more; the quality of the sound is more important than the actual rhythmic pattern (although obv this is still important on some level); but many classical musicians would argue that the written-down note patterns of the break are Amen, and that the timbral aspects (that drummer on those drums mic'ed up in that particular way) are irrelevant.

So when you're listening, you automatically/subconciously/even conciously tune in to those aspects of the music that are most relevant. Listening to Richie Hawtin, say, from a classical perspective of melody and form would be utterly pointless, but you know when you start listening that you need to tune into the changes and interactions of the sounds that he's making.

 

[descending_sort]

Wow, very interesting thread.

Two things which may be a bit tangential to this but pop out in my mind: I always think it's interesting that nearly all pop music (in the slightly older fashioned pre-hip hop present day sense) is based obviously around melody and the lyrics which are going along with it, but it's oriented towards a non-instrumentally-trained audience. The things which are supposed to be a big deal about a lot of music are the result of western melodicism but the receptive mode is actually pretty much purely emotional. Anything funky happening with time signatures or chords isn't really that important for most of the audience, it's the emotional tenor of the melody and how the lyrics tie into it.
But I'll give 20th century melodic western pop a big lead over most of the avant garde composers of the same time. Even with a lot of jazz and such, I feel like there is very little sensual pleasure in what's going on, the entire mode of appreciation is based on how daring the composer is within the (i would argue long-since-expired-in-interestingness) sphere of notes ... not even as "Effective" melody but pretty much a purely textual read of the space between one note and the next. A lot of composer strike me as poetic not in the finished subjective experience sense but in the staring at gaps between marks on a sheet of paper sense. I dunno if that makes sense -- but when I hear a lot of academic big deal orchestral music, my honest reaction is that just reading sheet music in your head is how people got into music in churches in the 1200s on and by 1900 we're pretty much waiting for musique concrete to save us by shifting the focus from CDEFetc to actual sound. But then again, I like a lot of beat-oriented music that is purely about texture, so obviously I have a bias there.

The other thing which I always think is interesting is the theatrical angle to music which always seems like the whole real point to rock music especially. Where does the band fit socially, what set are they claiming, are they mods or rockers, and all that (and that really boils down to the lead singer most of the time, doesn't it?). I know a few people who are very into the canonized body of leftist punk and the visual/social package of how spiked the guy's hair is, what politics he's espousing in lyrics, does he come across as a middle class faker or authentically excitingly poor, and that kind of thing is all very very important. It seems to completely overshadow the actual sonics, which are, to be really honest, pretty much all the same and interchangeable to me. Samey same textures, frequencies, rhythms, the big difference from one photocopied B/W cover to the next is all social positioning. Of course the quick retort would be that the 'real world' matters and I'm just a formalist pussy.

Wow this is getting long and not even a direct response to anyone.

And to some of the interesting comments above -- the weed angle definitely clued me in to a lot of music, especially hip hop. From a beat producing angle, I don't think I really appreciated a lot of hip hop until I started hearing people like Nas or Mobb Deep while stoned and started listening to it as if it were techno being sequenced out. When I stepped away from the social context and heard the music from a much more formal and stoned angle, I found it easier to link up the murky textures to shit like Scorn or other bass-heavy dark ambient type stuff and I finally "got it". Like, "dang, how would I even sit down and sequence that myself?" Lately I find myself bumping producers like Enduser because I feel a personal "ah ha!" kind of connection to the way he sequences beats because he does a lot of stuff I can relate to, but at the same time he keeps the whole ardkwoah emotionalism that makes me want to bang my head around rather than just purely watching the MIDI scroll by as the song is going.

But there is always the danger of music becoming a "painter's painter" kind of thing and dead-ending. A lot of backpacker hip hop sounds pointless to me, probably because I don't dig through crates all day too. A lot of prog rock or technical metal would probably mean much more to me if my carpals had the muscle memory of picking off crazy guitar licks. If you write out sheet music or download VSTs all day, modern classical or IDM are going to make more sense to you. I guess everyone is just looking for different stuff.

So my question: is there any baseline to music in that regard, like -- grime is often discussed here and, compared to say drill n bass, not at all complicated in a fussy technical sequencing way (and bless it for that), and the structure of the beats and the rhymes both strike my american ears as so foreign that I just hear emotional content too. But other MCs from down the street probably pounce on every tiny good or bad nuance in spitting which go right over my head. Like I feel like lyrical sentiment or bootyshakeability or moods like fun/romantic/angry are the big democratic zone for taking in music, towards which some musics are more pointedly oriented.
Um .. I'm really not exactly sure how to phrase my question. Is it possible to draw a line from music which is maybe intended for a more straight-up flattened social/emotional type response to stuff which is more for afficionados of the genre to appreciate tiny details? And I don't mean flattened in a negative way, just in a photoshop way, like 'flatten all layers.' Music to be taken as a gestalt ... but I'm already thinking no, because a lot of the most so-called mainstream, like let's party type glossy hip hop of the moment actually has a lot of tiny tiny nuanced little elements that I never notice until the 20th time I hear the song and really concentrate.

Uhh, sorry. I dunno why this post is so long except probably that livejournal is down so I'm bored and can't write. This is a really interesting forum. So many big celebrities of the blogging world!

 

[DigitalDjigit]

Telling the amen break apart is much easier than telling what note someting is. It is more like telling apart an instrument because it has a very characteristic sound.

About 4/4...I wondered myself why it is so dominant. It's not really anymore natural than say 3/4. Just go Boom pa pa Boom pa pa. It's really easy and that is basically 3/4 time. All that carnival music is in 3/4. Maybe it is because marching band music is in 4/4 and jazz/ragtime came from marching band music (among other things) and that led to all the other pop music later.

Or maybe because it is associated with a simple Tick Tock motion. You can kinda stomp to it, jump to it..whatever. With 3/4 time one of the beats gets emphasis and then there are TWO beats where you have to figure out something to do with yourself so it is not as propulsive.

A lot of the color stuff associated with music turns out for me to be the color that is on the cover or on the website associated with the song.

I think what really helps people get trained in listening to music is trying to create it yourself. I can't even remember what I used to hear music like but after I started playing around with demos of Rebirth and trackers later I found myself being able to tell apart the different layers a lot better. Of course familiarity helps too. I remember when I first heard Prodigy's "Experience". I loved the melodies and stuff but I thought the drum beats were a complete mess, I couldn't follow at all. It was only years later after I discovered UK Hardcore that I could make sense of them and then they seemed pretty natural.

I am very interested in what people who never heard of Jungle think of it when they first hear it. I mean now I look at it and I think "How do people even know that these are drums?? They sound nothing like real drums...it's just a kind of noise." I imagine it just sounds like "pots and pans" to most. In fact it kind of makes me think why do they use old funk breaks for rhythm? Why not do the same with some weird rhythmic noise. Even squarepusher uses the Think breakbeat in "Come On My Selector" (I am not very familiar with his other work).

Kinda three posts in one. I came to this late, had to catch up.

 

[mms]

hardcore synaesthesia

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12428857-13762,00.html

 

[LRJP!]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12428857-13762,00.html

i saw that story in the New Scientist the other day. In the hard copy they have the following handy chart:

• Tone Interval - Taste Experienced
• Minor second - Sour
• Major second - Bitter
• Minor third - Salty
• Major third - Sweet
• Fourth - Mown grass
• Tritone - Disgust
• Fifth - Pure Water
• Minor sixth - Cream
• Major sixth - Low-fat cream
• Minor seventh - Bitter
• Major seventh - Sour
• Octave - No taste

i was talking to a friend about this last night, prompted by his amusement at a line from the 1950's version of War Of The Worlds - "They may be able to smell colour!".

 

[b/v]

a lot to think about here.

first off, is a lot of programmed music not simply in 4/4 because it's simpler than programming in 3/4, 5/4?

learning the guitar in my early teens, i really wanted to play songs by other people and with help from my guitar teacher, learnt how to pick out each individual element of a song. at first this would be how to focus on one particular instrument, which i guess i'd always been able to do, but had never had reason to. it soon progressed onto picking out one specific guitar part from a number of multitracked parts.

i remember at the time thinking how much of a curse this would become, and i stand by that. i've never heard music the same way since - having to really focus and pick out one part from many became something i no longer have any control over. to this day, music has become a multitracked sound, and it's nigh on impossible to regain the 'wall of' or 'wash of' there once was.

that's not to say it doesn't help me appreciate music even more, but i do think it makes connecting on an emotional level much harder.

i really liked the phrase someone used above about 'flatten all layers'; the photoshop analogy.. i think that's why i appreciate electronic music more and more, in that it's not so simple to pick out elements, and it's not something i'll have to consciously stop myself from doing: to me, electronic music does sound more cohesive, and <i>together</i> - it's not the perilously fragile mix of elements which guitar music can be.

in addition to this, i wonder if anyone else has similar problems with vocal parts. i find my awareness of multitracking and studio processes can really mess with my perception of a vocal.. for example, on some songs, i can't just help but <i>hear</i> that the vocal was added <b>after</b> the music. it just sounds detached to me. this is especially the case with guitar based/pop stuff.

finally, mcing. from an mc's perspective, i know that different perceptions of music can be a real blessing - when different mcs talk about how they ride the beat it always fascinates me. to be honest, i can safely say when i listen to grime and hip hop i'm as interested in the timbre of the flow as i am the content. this again, can really detract from appreciation as much as it can help - when someone spits their best bars just 'cos, without thinking of the track they're riding it can really irritate.

ok enough rambling, i'm out

 

[luka]

I rate the thread good thread