Listening. Observing. Trying. Failing. Perceiving the nuances. And, sledge hammer impacts. Developing a new vocubulary. (As well as using very familiar terms when things don’t go as expected), Sorting through tons of data. Skillfully differentiating between the things that matter, and things that don’t. To us, anyway.
So, how have these skills (and, being a generally good person) helped you in life? Or, others?
Here’s one to start:
Wine Pouring:
My wife and I like to drink wine. Landing a enjoyable wine in the single digits (after all discounts applied) is a big win for us. Our evening of wine allocation and enjoyment generally takes on the following cadence: Pour One. Pour two (making sure to save just a little in the bottle). Then, the highly anticipated "desperation pour". The last 2 sips for each poured from the bottle. This way we take a pause, and take the time to fully appreciate those last two sips. Silly, but it’s what we do.
Frankly, I’ve gotten pretty good at this wine allocation thing. Equal pours, every time. For a while there, I thought I was just "lucky" and timed it just right. But, recently, I’ve concluded it’s something more. My "finely tuned audiophile" dexterity.
As we have all observed, when you fill a vessel with liquid, the frequency of the sound changes as the space in the vessel becomes occupied with more liquid. I was unaware that I was paying attention to those frequencies and my brain remembered the frequency at the conclusion of the last pour. So, when filling the second glass, I just listened and stopped when the frequency of the last pour was matched. Seems to work for me (within a tolerance of a few Hz/Mls). This doens’t help when you’re camping in near darkness and miss the glass completely, but has worked for us in a workable domestic sense for quite some time. Now I thank Sal Marantz, Frank McIntosh, and others after those (nearly) perfect pours.
