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When are people going to wake up and realize listening is a skill?

Thirty years ago I realized my lifelong dream of owning a 911. This is a fast car and so first thing I did was join PCA to get some track experience in order to be able to drive safely at speed. Of course I already knew how to drive. I was a "good driver" much better than most, etc, etc. 

PCA Driver Ed begins with several hours of classroom study. Track rules, safety, and some car control skills- braking, steering, throttle control. Yeah, yeah, whatever let's go!    

Then at the track they put you in your car with an instructor and you head out onto the track driving so freaking slow, actually normal freeway driving speed but it seems slow because, race track. So we play follow the leader with the instructor pointing out cones. Braking cones, turn-in cone, apex cone, track out cone. Each turn is numbered 1 thru 9, and there's turn worker stations, and they have flags, and you need to be watching and know what they mean, because you screw up and that is it your day is done. One full 20 min session, all the excitement of a tour bus.  

Bear with me. There's a connection here. Trust me. 

It goes on like this all day until finally we are signed off to drive solo but then there is an accident, flat bed, that's it for the day. 

Next time out I am so super confident instead of novice I sign up for Intermediate. Same cars, only the Intermediate drivers are supposed to somehow be better. Whatever.   

So out I go and Holy Crap everyone is passing me! I am driving as fast as I possibly can and being passed by everyone! Not only that, if you have ever driven as fast as you possibly can then you know this means braking as late as you possibly can, cornering as fast as you can, all of it. Which without fear of police is pretty damn fast! So fast I am not at all used to it, and so by the end of 20 min am literally sweating and exhausted!  

But I keep at it. Turns out all that classroom talk is about driving skills that are absolutely essential, not only to know but to be able to do. Threshold braking is braking right at the edge of lockup. Right at the very edge. Those cones are there for reference, to help you delay braking as long as possible. The turn-in cones are where you start turning, apex cone where you are right at the inside edge of the turn, track-out where you come out the other side. Do all this while at the very limit of traction and you are going very fast indeed. Without- and this is the essential part- without really trying to go fast.  

Learn the skills, practice the techniques until you are able to execute smoothly, efficiently, and consistently, and you will be fast. Without ever really trying to go fast.   

The connection here is, everyone thinks they hear just fine. Just like they think they drive just fine. In the classroom they talk about threshold braking, the late apex line, and controlling weight transfer with throttle. Just like here we talk about grain, glare, imaging and sound stage.   

I left one part out. All the track rats, they all start out talking about horsepower, springs and spoilers, thinking these are what makes the car fast. They are, sort of. But really it is the driver. By the time I was an instructor myself it was easy to go out with those same Intermediate drivers and it was like the commute to work it was so easy. My car was the same. Only my skills were greater.  

So when are people gonna wake up and realize listening is just like this? Nobody expects to become a really good golfer, tennis player or rock climber just by going out and doing it. Why are so many stuck talking watts? When are they gonna realize that is just like track rats talking hp?


128x128millercarbon
ivan_nosnibor's avatar
ivan_nosnibor
1,052 posts
 
There seem to be 2 different levels of system building.

The first is the "simplest" kind (not being dismissive). It consists of merrily going along and attempting to "cobble together" some perhaps disparate pieces into a functioning whole that results in a pleasing sound. You can benefit from knowledge and experience with this approach, but they're not required to get started. 

There's only one caveat: it sort of limits you from easily transitioning from that level of system building into the high end, should you ever even decide that was what you ultimately wanted to do. There's a sort of glass ceiling in that the high end begins to involve a more profound appreciation of any number of audio or acoustic principles that go well beyond the more readily accepted principles of gear matching. And wading into that territory will require a lot more study, time, effort and money than many people may feel they are willing to give.

So, in effect, there is a personal threshold that must be crossed: either you are willing to do everything it may take in order to try to bump everything up to the next level, or you must remain content with a certain level of 'status quo'. Fans of the latter may typically say "it's the journey, not the destination", so a kind of philosophical attitude just seems to go with the territory.

For going the high-end route, it may tax all your knowledge, experience, and talent to boot, in order to either arrive at some presupposed nirvana destination, or simply to carry on indefinitely with yet more experiments, but at a noticeably higher technical and financial level.

I think all that may depend on your wallet, expectations and your personality order...(or disorder, if you like).

Cheers,
John
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
ghdprentice-
Good analogy. It really takes a lot of learning and experience to improve listening skills and develop the vocabulary to understand and describe what you hear.

How right you are. And it don’t come easy.

But it can be learned.

Vocabulary is essential. There is a very real debate to be had as to whether we even can be said to hear things we do not have words for. All words are defined in terms of other words, and so this gets real deep real fast. But there can be no doubt vocabulary is at the heart of it.

So, in effect, there is a personal threshold that must be crossed: either you are willing to do everything it may take in order to try to bump everything up to the next level, or you must remain content with a certain level of 'status quo'. Fans of the latter may typically say "it's the journey, not the destination", so a kind of philosophical attitude just seems to go with the territory. 

Well said.
whart's avatar
whart
3,050 posts
 
@tomic601 - my bet is, you weren't teaching budding engineers how to listen in a technical, engineering sense so much as to ask the question whether X recording v Y recording sounds more like a real trumpet, no?
As to "vocabulary" JGH did us a service many years ago by defining the terminology, but it is still applied subjectively. One man's "clarity" is another's "analytical, too clinical." I'd rather listen with somebody who knows the sound of real instruments than hi-fi rigamarole. 
edcyn
1,876 posts
 
All I can say is that I currently enjoy the heck out of my musical toys and that I live too far away from any sort of high end music retailer (stereo, musical instruments, etc.) to climb into the car and "drive" myself nuts.
heretobuy
131 posts
 
You know who else told you to do exactly what he does? ADOLF HITLER!

Seriously, though, I think there's a difference between (a) a two ton, 640 horsepower automobile and (b) your ears.
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