# Listening to vs. Hearing Music



## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

I was just reading a post to a music thread on another site where the poster talks about the pleasure of listening to music while studying for college exams. I've encountered this phenomenon in many different forms and contexts over the years and am always left wondering about the use of the word listening in such contexts.

I seriously doubt that actual listening can occur while the brain is occupied with the task of absorbing frequently complex and/or subtle bits of information, concepts, etc. I strongly suspect that in these contexts, people are using the term listening when what they mean is hearing. Listening seems to me to be an actively engaged and more or less focused process. Hearing, on the other hand, is passive and requires little or no focus.

The idea of studying for a college exam and enjoying music simultaneously is something I've never understood. For myself, music or any other strong sensory input while trying to concentrate on anything else of any complexity is close to impossible.

Any ideas on this subject amongst TC'ers?


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

I think it's possible!

For instance, if I'm engaged in work on the computer, I'll always have some music in the background. I can _hear_ it while I work, but occasionally it draws me from what I'm doing and I _listen_. I know, we can't do two things at once, but it actually helps me with what I'm doing, to be distracted by music this way. It can also be a useful way for me to engage with an unfamiliar piece. I let it play and it washes through me without me trying to hard to get it. Eventually, I actually become familiar with it by hearing it this way, and I give it a proper listen later...


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I think it is a perfectly valid way of listening to music, and I absolutely believe it is possible for the brain to do two things at once. Musicians have to do two or more things at once all the time (ie -reading and playing music, or playing melody and rhythm at the same time). Doing two things at once mentally is actually a very good brain exercise. It strengthens the mind. I think it is good to listen to music in different ways - not just one way.


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

For me, music pretty much always will draw my attention to it--from what ever I might be involved with, either because I like it or find it interesting or because I don't. Hearing music is inherently distracting to me. 

Of course in some contexts is doesn't matter like the canned music piped in to the grocery store while shopping for food. It's easily tuned out and ignored. But in the context of studying for a college exam???!!


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Back when I was in school I was only listening to junk, so that my brain was not taxed too much by it and could still deal with the homework at the same time.

Generally, I find it absolutely useless to listen to music while reading, writing or studying.

What I did do occasionally is this: I put on headphones and listened to something with rather even dynamics (usually baroque) at a near subliminal volume. That worked like ear plugs with a bit of aroma to them. But I'm not sure that made any sense either.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Well, just as there are different types of learners, perhaps there are different types of music listeners as well. I find music at its most powerful effects the subconscious mind and the heart more so than the actual conscious mind. That is why I believe that consciously focusing on music does not _necessarily_ lead to a greater experience of it. I find like inspiration, those transcendent musical moments come in unpredictable moments. Sometimes it might happen when I am consciously focusing on a piece, sometimes it might happen when I am doing something else at the same time. One of the most powerful musical experiences I've had was one time when I listened to Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe while I was half asleep. I had a surreal and rather 'psychedelic' (for lack of a better term) experience with this music, that is utterly indescribable. I haven't been able to reduplicate that experience at all by consciously focusing on the music. I think too much focusing on the technical side of things in music (like form, structure etc.) can sometimes actually detract from a person's experience of the piece.

This last part is slightly off topic but I'd just like to add that I believe in music (like all things in life) balance is important. So all though I think it is great to listen to music in different types of circumstances, I think it is also good to go through periods of listening to no music at all. Similarly though it is good to exercise the mind, just like the body the mind also needs rest. However, the body rests while one sleeps, but the mind does not fully rest while the body is asleep. It remains active through much of the sleep periods. That is why I think it is important to supplement mental exercises with periods of mental_ inactivity_ through things like meditation that will rest the mind. Exercises like this I absolutely believe increase not only musical enjoyment, but the enjoyment of all activity (and non-activity) in life.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

There are those who can study with something going in the background. I can't. I'm always aware of music. It drives my wife crazy, because we'll be shopping, and suddenly I'll stop under a speaker, drawn to what's playing. 

But I've found that when I'm going to hear a new classical piece, sometimes I'll play it in the background a few times before I actually concentrate on hearing it. It seems like if I've heard it start to finish a few times casually, it sets me up to pick out what I'll need to hear to later appreciate it more fully.


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## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

If I'm studying (actually studying and not just holding the book ) I can't listen to much. I get too distracted by the music and wind up taking hours to do something g that should have taken a few minutes. The only exception is baroque. I can concentrate on what I'm doing if baroque is playing...any other classical music and I lose it. I think I also can concentrate a bit better if I'm listening to a concerto. There's just that one instrument to really focus on so its easier to listen to it while doing work.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

I have always had a hard time _just _listening. I need to be doing something with my eyes (like reading, typing, doing a jigsaw puzzle). In the same way I hate being read to. I absorb music very well while doing other things -- most often reading. The first couple of hearings it is often just a subconscious familiarization process -- but I am always surprised at the subtle things I can pick up that will often divert my attention and allow me to focus on a particularly interesting or well played passage. The analytical part of my listening mind is always engaged -- even if running in background.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

When it is aural wallpaper, you are hearing it: when your consciousness tracks it, you are listening.

Especially if a work is familiar, the 'listening' done many a time over prior its being used as aural wallpaper, at least in memory that is more 'knowing' than 'just hearing.'

If I am wanting to concentrate on anything not music, the music quickly fades to 'nothing' really, while I'm focused on the reading / learning at hand. 

A different quality of 'listen' vs. 'hear' is quite possible: I use / misuse music like many another, will put on, say, Morton Feldman piano and String Quartet to play as I do my household clean-up, i.e. simple drudge work requiring little brain activity.

I used to go the aural wallpaper route while studying, the 'denser' textbook kind of study, but dropped it when I realized the concentration on the subject wholly occluded the running music -- i.e. I wasn't even 'hearing it,' so then I thought why have it on when I'm neither listening or even, really, hearing it? 

"Even a duck can hear." ~ Igor Stravinsky.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It's easy to tell the two apart. If somebody really likes a piece that I like, they're listening to it. If they don't, then they're merely hearing it.


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## RobertoDevereux (Feb 12, 2013)

Andolink said:


> For me, music pretty much always will draw my attention to it--from what ever I might be involved with, either because I like it or find it interesting or because I don't. Hearing music is inherently distracting to me.
> 
> Of course in some contexts is doesn't matter like the canned music piped in to the grocery store while shopping for food. It's easily tuned out and ignored. But in the context of studying for a college exam???!!


I'm totally with you, *Andolink*. If I'm doing something else, I find classical music... incapacitating. So much of my attention switches on to the music that I can't do anything else, especially read, write, work with a spreadsheet, etc.

RD

P.S. Similarly to *OboeKnight*, I might make an exception for baroque. But then Brandenburg Concertos totally knock me out...


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2013)

KenOC said:


> It's easy to tell the two apart. If somebody really likes a piece that I like, they're listening to it. *If they don't, then they're merely hearing it*.


Or deaf, right?


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2013)

But you know, according to the French (or more precisely, Pierre Schaeffer), there are *three* modes of listening:
1) _Ouïr_ (to hear : passive reception of sonic information : I hear the sound of the wind, my brain tells me "no sweat"),
2) _Entendre_ (to hear and to understand : I hear a car klaxon, "I better get out of the way"),
3) _Ecouter_ (to listen : "Oh, this is Mozart, how nice!").
Subtle differences in a way, rather like the Eskimos' various words for 'snow'.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

TalkingHead said:


> Or deaf, right?


Just so, or possibly aesthetically impaired.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

I think there is difference between hearing and listening. Simply playing the piece and not paying attention to what the music is doing is the same, in my opinion, as opening a book, blankly staring at the words and expecting to understand the plot.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

This discussion reminds me of this:

In the movie White Men Can't Jump, Wesley Snipes' character says to Woody Harrelson's (about Jimi Hendrix) "sure you _listen_ to Jimi, but you don't _hear_ him."

So hearing is superior because listening merely implies an attempt, not a connection. Kind of the opposite of what most people are saying. I don't know if it's just words or if it gets at a difference between Classical and Rock.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

I can't listen to anything whatever while concentrating or studying.

I can't help but listen closely. If it's 18th century music, in sonata form, I like to listen for the medial caesura and the expositional conclusionary chord. Then I like to hear how the two [or three] themes are developed. Before I know it, I've listened to three or four whole works and accomplished no studying.

And then there are the dance themes: gavottes, minuets, etc. I enjoy focusing on how the melody is deformed vis-a-vis the pure dance rhythm. Romantic music has too much interesting harmonic material, as opposed to purely structural material.

Earlier music is still difficult, because I like to listen for clever polyphonic techniques, especially the cambiata in 16th century music, and the inverse variant in the 15th century. I can't simply "hear" music. An incurable music nerd.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

GreenMamba said:


> This discussion reminds me of this:
> 
> In the movie White Men Can't Jump, Wesley Snipes' character says to Woody Harrelson's (about Jimi Hendrix) "sure you _listen_ to Jimi, but you don't _hear_ him."
> 
> So hearing is superior because listening merely implies an attempt, not a connection. Kind of the opposite of what most people are saying. I don't know if it's just words or if it gets at a difference between Classical and Rock.


Hah. So this scriptwriter is your authority? Listening is the deliberate act, hearing is the passive one. Neither word signifies 'connecting' with the music. As in many conversations, the usages in this thread must be interpreted in context.


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