# Does it sound different?



## Ciel_Rouge (May 16, 2008)

I think we all experience this phenomennon - the same recordings can sound different for many reasons:

1. we have "outgrown" them - stopped listening and got acquainted with much better stuff
2. we changed our listening equipment
3. we got somehow affected emotionally during the day prior to listening so that it changed the perception

Perhaps you could add some points to the list or provide personal examples for those mentioned above.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

The only time I notice this phenomenon is if I have a lot of recordings mixed together in a playlist, and the more modern recordings have a wider frequency range than those made in the 50's or 60's. The older recordings still have the same effect on me within their own context however.

If someone does a scholarly study and determines that a piece really should be played faster or at a more historical tuning, this does not diminish the emotional response I had to the previous recordings of the work. It just gives more interpretations to enjoy.

Some pieces though I will rarely ever need to hear again - Dvorak's 9th Symphony being one of them. I would never tire of Beethoven's 9th though.


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## Ciel_Rouge (May 16, 2008)

Sure, new performances or having HIP where there was no HIP before or some radically different but equally enjoyable reading can be another factor.

How about how other pieces affect what you get out of another piece? For instance, when I only knew Sibelius and Mendelssohn violin concertos I responded to them a little bit different than when I also got acquainted with Dvorak and Tchaikovsky violin concertos. I now perceive the violin concerto also as a "genre" in itself and sometimes try to compare them and look for patterns (not too detailed or scientific coparison, nothing like that - I can simply compare how they make me feel and a little structure behind it - I compare different ways of opening a violin concerto etc.).


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## msegers (Oct 17, 2008)

I've been checking this thread, hoping for more comments. So, I'll jump in. The discussion by *Ciel_Rouge* about how as her musical experience developed, so did her approach to certain pieces of music is fascinating. It might be even more dramatic to think about how you heard your first opera and how you hear an opera (even that same one) many years later. I wonder whether someone who attended a performance of a piece of music despite being ill would always associate that piece of music with feeling bad.

For me, my perception of music is often affected by extra-musical experience. I think many of us have a song or other piece of music associated with particular emotions. A couple may have "their" song, which will have a very different meaning for them after they break up.

I'm sure I am not alone among people of my generation in the U.S. for whom the _1812 Overture_ will always be associated with the words "The one and only cereal that's shot from guns!" (from a commercial from my childhood). I'm wondering whether the use of the same musical theme in this absurd but funny video (



) will change that.

Elsewhere on this forum, I found a post about the association of Ralph Vaughn Williams's _Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis_ (



) with the English countryside. A couple of years ago, I heard this (one of my favorites) on public radio as I was driving along a beautiful country road here in central Florida, and every time I hear it now, it has a distinctly Floridian twist.


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

Old and tired ears like mine seem to "hear" something different in recordings I've listened to for years.
I consider it a "maturation" effect of sorts. The ears begin to detect certain sounds and timbres that might not have been possible in an undeveloped ear. This ,to me, is a blessing as new vistas open up to music of all types. I was listening to Mahler's 5th just yesterday and heard some aspects I could not pin down straight away. It brought the work around to me in a whole new light. As a Mahler addict, I have never been a true fan of this symphony but now I'm hooked more than ever. I wanted to complete my (so far) Michael Tilson Thomas series with adding the 5th. A good time to do it as I purchased it yesterday for 40% off at Borders! The sonics of the SACD are truly amazing and now I have a new appreciation of this 5th symphony.

So, yes, I think with age our ears change. 

Jim


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## Lang (Sep 30, 2008)

Weston said:


> The only time I notice this phenomenon is if I have a lot of recordings mixed together in a playlist, and the more modern recordings have a wider frequency range than those made in the 50's or 60's. The older recordings still have the same effect on me within their own context however.


Yes, and there is always something special about the very first interpretation you heard of a particular work - even if you subsequently hear a better performance, the feelings brought on by the original recording remain.

Many years ago I bought a recording of Alban Berg's Chamber Concerto. At one point one of the musicians obviously accidentally kicked his music stand. The crash was in time, and always seemed to blend into the music for me. When I heard a subsequent performance in which the crash was missing, it sounded wrong to me.


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## Enkhbat (Jan 28, 2009)

Yes, you're right. There are lot of reasons
It also depends on performers, instruments, chambers, orchestrals


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## Bgroovy2 (Mar 27, 2009)

I think a lot of this has to do with our musical education as well. We will tend to be a lot more critical of those that play the same instruments that we play or are very familiar with. The reason for this is that we understand the how technique affets sound so you will hear the the imperfections in tone production that someone who is not educated in that insrument will miss.

For instance, being a vocalist, I often hear of contemporary vocalists being refered to as awesome but when I listen to these same individals, I hear wobble, pushing, screaming, undeveloped registers, impure vowels and bad tremelo do to poor technique. I would think that this would apply to those of you that play instruments as well.


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