Got Ears?

My experience is: rely on your girlfriend. She can teach you more than your gear can. And watch out that your ear isn't "tuned" and that you are fixated. Her ears aren't broken, yours might be.

My wife enjoys music.

I enjoy music AND sounds.

I can love the sounds something makes even if it isn't musical. I do this with everything - voices, engines, tools, nature, guns, you name it. If it makes a noise, I listen to it. If NASCAR's in-car camera sequences come on I'm listening to the engine. Awesome. The whine of tires changing pitch in corners. The clack of gear changes. Anything. I like and fixate on sounds. If I fixate on it I can tune a chainsaw within 50 rpm by ear. That hasn't taught me anything about music, but my chainsaws rip and I don't have to take the meter out.

I can probably tune a piano before I can learn how to play it.

My wife can probably learn to play a piano before she can tune it.

I forget that my wife hasn't heard a reference recording 1,000 times.

My wife finds how a string is bent to have more musical meaning than the fact that a tiny little bell noise has entered the soundstage at 2 o'clock.

When I turn music down to the volume my wife would have it and I cannot hear what she hears with perfect clarity, I know she hears better than I do.

When my wife hears how the string was bent AND hears the tiny little bell noise enter the soundstage at 2 o'clock on an NAD 326BEE, that means I've wasted $5,000 on my amp.

When she tells me to give it a rest, that means she'd like me to obsess over her for a little while.

Oh, and one more thing I've learned: if she is still with you, that means either she is crazy and you need to dump her before she burns you in your bed or that she loves you.

1) Get quiet, get centered, and listen in the dark with your eyes closed.
2) Consider it your job to identify every single instrument and effect on a track. Are there 1 or 2 or 3 guitars? Can you tell a single-coil from a humbucker? (or better yet, a Stratocaster from a Telecaster? How many horns? What keyboard sounds are present? Is that a Rhodes or a Hammond? Can you differentiate the kick drum from the bass notes?
3) After you're able to pick apart all the individual instruments, you realize that your next job is to appreciate how all these parts are put together. It's quite the zen trick to register the components and the whole (like figure and ground) at once. But once you reach this point, you're a Listener.
4) Take ear breaks. After 10 or 15 minutes of music, you often need 2 or 5 minutes of silence.
5) Have fun.

Lol vsollozzo, that made me laugh, what you said about her either being crazy or that she loves me. Your whole post was good! I can relate; I love the way some Ferrari's scream, and I love the way some sportbikes and harleys sound. Never thought of it that way, but I guess I like sounds too :-)

Cymbob, thanks for all the good input. I've recently been picking up on backup vocals. It's kind of funny, or sad, that I wasn't really able to hear that too much before. I've found that I do hear more and get more involved when I close my eyes when listening. I think part of what I enjoy so much about listening to music is how relaxing it can be. I've found that activities that can consume 100% of your concentration can be zen like.

Anyhow, thanks for the valuable input guys!

You've _got_ to take your eyes out of the equation. Your brain is wired to give visual stimuli precedence over aural stimuli. That's why I play bass with my eyes closed; that's why I'll close my eyes to listen when I'm at a live concert. That's why I set my DAC and Squeezebox to go black during playback. Turning off the lights in the room helps immeasurably, if you can get past other people thinking that it's weird.

Cymbop, nice rig.
I had to get past people thinking "it's" weird a long time ago my friend!