Critical listening and altered states


Ok, this is not a question about relaxing, but about listening to evaluate how the system (or a piece of gear is sounding).

What, in your experience, are the pluses and minuses of altering your state of mind for listening? This can include anything you've used to affect your everyday state of mind, from coffee, beer, scotch, tobacco, to much stronger — and psychoactive, dissociative — additives.

What do you gain by altering your consciousness in terms of what you notice, attend to, linger on, etc?
What causes more details to emerge?
What allows you to stick with a thread or, alternately, make new connections?

Or perhaps you like to keep all those things *out* of your listening; if that's you, please say a bit about why.

hilde45

....when the 'Gon posts 'go oblique' is where truth in audio tastes reside... ;)

Personally, I apply both states at leisure* and compare notes.
* hear = always of late getting shorter, now and in the long run, which shortens every damn day...😒 ;)

Anyway, thc, and it's current variations on the theme are most likely roundabout here...drinking only when the desire to short oneself to 'ground' seems to be a vaguely illogical Rx.  

Been known to 'mix my media' audially and chemotherapaticly....BUT

'ludes & Jack.....
Nutz...back in SF some decadents' ago, I saw a young fem in her car plated
ROHR454
"High🤷‍♂️Bust me..." 🙄😏 
Takes a lot of all kinds to stuff the aquarium, yes....

Lucy S. Diamonds eventually made everything seem to be made out of polyethylene, and rushing around had enough complexity going...post of that, yeah...  Waiting for the echos in one's gray mush to settle...*L*

Current interest re that is use for the Full STOP at the end of this physical endeavour....ego death prior to main event...
Ultimately...appreciate y'all, but at the end of The Day

;) But........a late & fitting 'bro valentine carol to y'all

Have a great weekend....J

One issue for critical listening, e.g., when comparing components, is that an ASC might interfere with the short-term memory needed to recall what one has heard. 

Good point. I'm talking about relatively small amounts. Have you heard the expression, "You're overthinking it"? I believe that an ASC might help shift of focus toward new foci for attention that are currently overshadowed by an overemphasis on something else. Sometimes I'll focus on instrument placement, and a friend will say, "try to zoom out and hear the grouping," or stuff like that. This is what an ASC can do – and note-taking helps with the memory piece. 

Beers,Pot,thc,Mushrooms, will modify your interpretation of music perception , not the objective quality of sound perception. only acoustics can do this.

You are in direct contact with non-interpreted reality. You can hear sounds objectively and then interpret them. That's not how my brain/mind work. I guess we're built differently. Everything I hear is interpreted. The question (for me not you) is how to make sure my interpretations are not stuck in a rut.

I bet you didn’t think your thread would be coming back to life four years later.

There are a lot of things I thought were gone for good from four years ago. I have some hope for this thread, though.

@hilde45 ...."There's life in that old post yet..." 👍😎🎶

@mahgister ....sounds like my 'reality', whatever it is...not much on candles 'n such.....*G*

Beers,Pot,thc,Mushrooms, will modify your interpretation of music perception , not the objective quality of sound perception. only acoustics can do this.

You are in direct contact with non-interpreted reality. You can hear sounds objectively and then interpret them. That’s not how my brain/mind work. I guess we’re built differently. Everything I hear is interpreted. The question (for me not you) is how to make sure my interpretations are not stuck in a rut.

 You forget that there exist 2 contextual  meanings of the word biases and interpretation here.

The first context is conscious use of substance(beers &drugs) to create an acoustically distorted subjective experience of music and sound...

The second context is conscious use of acoustic condition to modify your own perception and interpretation of sound and music...

I do not hear sound objectively as you claimed i use objective acoustic concepts and parameter to modify my subjective interpretation of sound and music...(ASW/LV ratio is objective concepts and parameters which we can use to control or not the system/ears/room, it refer also to a modified or altered conscious experience of sound )

Everything we hear is interpreted consciously and unconsciously , saying this is a common place evident fact, but acting on our conscious experience of this interpretation and biases using acoustics or beer are two different factors...

I only add to the ,beer,pot,mushroom, common place factors a less known factor...

Acoustics is also an altered state of consciousness as music is in itself, with beers and pot or without...

Observe that my opinion about acoustics experience and controls "as an altered state of consciousness" wed together the subjective interpretation in and with perception and the objective aspect of perception  into one  relatively communicable experience.

 

 

 
 

 

 

Acoustics? That absolutely makes no sense in the context of this conversation,

You are right. Acoustic wall panels had no place in a conversation about altered states and critical listening...

But if you dare to google search acoustics as science you will learn what it is... Try it.

But perhaps the only way you ever used to alter your consciousness state, listening music, was beer ?

I am not in this situation sorry. Many others are like me. Then before deciding what can be said in a thread inform yourself.