**** The question becomes, how does an audiophile who is not a musician, or who has no musical training, study, learn and practice his/her listening skills other than the ideas offered in this thread? ****
- A great place to start is reading these two books by two of the greatest musicians that have ever lived. There are others, but these do a particularly good job of being accessible to the non-musician.
“What To Listen For In Music” by Aaron Copland
”The Joy Of Music” by Leonard Bernstein
- Take a music appreciation course at the local college.
- On an even more immediate level, accept the fact that the sound of live music (preferably acoustic) is a great and ultimately the only true reference by which to judge how close our components get to true “accuracy” (probably the most misused term in audiophile-speak). Of course, this presumes that the audiophile seeks true accuracy and not just a preferred tonal signature. Additionally, abandon the idea (and this goes to the previously mentioned “message”) that tonal “accuracy” is the only important consideration when judging a component. In audiophile discussions seldom is anything other than tonality (frequency response signature) even discussed. Soundstaging, as fun as it is, has little to do with the music.
As a result of the record/playback process music suffers just as much distortion of one kind or another in the domain of rhythmic expression as it does in the domain of timbre/tonality. Only by attending live performances (preferably acoustic) can a listener fully learn to identify just how far our playback gear distorts the amazing rhythmic and dynamic immediacy and nuance of live music. This way we can identify why some gear sounds more rhythmically alive than others and why some sounds rhythmically dead. Phrasing has everything to do with rhythm and rhythm/timing is were most of the music of a performance is found. When we open our minds up to these possibilities we learn to be more discerning of both musical performance details and the performance of our gear.
- A great place to start is reading these two books by two of the greatest musicians that have ever lived. There are others, but these do a particularly good job of being accessible to the non-musician.
“What To Listen For In Music” by Aaron Copland
”The Joy Of Music” by Leonard Bernstein
- Take a music appreciation course at the local college.
- On an even more immediate level, accept the fact that the sound of live music (preferably acoustic) is a great and ultimately the only true reference by which to judge how close our components get to true “accuracy” (probably the most misused term in audiophile-speak). Of course, this presumes that the audiophile seeks true accuracy and not just a preferred tonal signature. Additionally, abandon the idea (and this goes to the previously mentioned “message”) that tonal “accuracy” is the only important consideration when judging a component. In audiophile discussions seldom is anything other than tonality (frequency response signature) even discussed. Soundstaging, as fun as it is, has little to do with the music.
As a result of the record/playback process music suffers just as much distortion of one kind or another in the domain of rhythmic expression as it does in the domain of timbre/tonality. Only by attending live performances (preferably acoustic) can a listener fully learn to identify just how far our playback gear distorts the amazing rhythmic and dynamic immediacy and nuance of live music. This way we can identify why some gear sounds more rhythmically alive than others and why some sounds rhythmically dead. Phrasing has everything to do with rhythm and rhythm/timing is were most of the music of a performance is found. When we open our minds up to these possibilities we learn to be more discerning of both musical performance details and the performance of our gear.