"Why Are Musicians Such Lousy Listeners?"

[Neil McCauley]

Jimmy Hughes writes at length re this on my blog as follows:

"When it comes to judging sound quality, there should be no one better qualified than a practising professional musician. After all, they’re involved with music on a day to day basis and regularly experience the natural sound of live instruments. So why is it that most musicians aren’t critical listeners and don’t seem to be overly concerned about good or bad sound? That’s certainly been my experience in the past.

We’ve all heard stories of famous musicians who – despite being filthy rich and able to afford something really good – listen to music on hopelessly poor hi-fi systems. The pat answer is that musicians listen to the music and performance – absolute sound quality being of little or no consequence. There’s also the possibility that many musicians have damaged hearing through exposure to excessively loud music."

Too large to fit here on AoS

More here > http://bit.ly/hPDxE0


Oops. Just spotted I've dropped this in the wrong section - sorry. H

[Barry]

That's my experience too. In fact the better the musician, often the worse the system they seem to find satisfactory.

A possible explanation is that musicians need only a trigger to remind themselves of the sound. And being good musicians and familiar with playing music, their brain can readily fill-in and correct for any failings of the replay system used. Taken to the extreme, musicians who can site read need only to have to look at a music score for them to "hear" the music in their head.

No doubt there will plenty of replies from musician members who have, and insist upon having, high quality replay systems. And if those members, who having read my first paragraph feel insulted, then I apologise. There are always exceptions in practice.

[Stratmangler]

Most musicians aren't critical listeners ?
I think you'll find the opposite, they're very critical in terms of technique, note choice, and emotional content and interpretation.
Interplay between musicians is what makes it all work.
They almost all admit that it's impossible to capture the tonal nuances of the sounds that they're hearing, so why be obsessive about it ?

[WOStantonCS100]

I guess generalizations are unavoidable...

The term "musician" has to be defined. It all depends on the reason the musician picked up and/or still chooses to play his/her instrument(s). Some play for the sake of the music. I find these musicians to be intensely concerned with quality. For some, it's just a job; just something they do for whatever reason. A musician who is not a song writer/composer is probably less vested in the final outcome. There are those who are in it for the money or fame, especially if they are backed by a "corporation". I don't know how many times I have heard, "I joined a rock band so I could get girls." It's equivalent to doctors and lawyers who do what they do to get rich or gain societal status; not necessarily because of the hippocratic oath or a desire to see justice prevail.

I can only speak for myself; but, I know there are plenty of other musicians like myself who are intensely concerned about hi-fi gear and how a recording will sound on said gear. This is because I was a music lover before I became a musician. I would go as far as to say that most classical and jazz (non-mainstream) musicians are more concerned with sound quality than pop and rock musicians. Alas, though, this is also a generalization.

Some of the supposed "disregard for sound quality" can be summed up in the live playing experience. In 20+ years of playing live, I can only think of a handful of situations where I stood on stage with my guitar and had a moment of clarity that gave me pause, "...wow, the sound is really good tonight..." Mostly, the sound is passable at best, both on the stage and out in the audience. Far too many times, it's just horrible. It takes great pains to create a great live playing space. I think most musicians, and sound engineers, settle for the best they can make it, with what they have to make it with and in what time they are given to make it in. Regardless, for me, it's almost always way too loud. Such is the nature of the beast and part of the reason I am happily semi-retired from public performance. I stopped bringing my best gear to live gigs a long time ago. In the studio, when it's for posterity... that's when I bring out the vintage and/or best sounding guitars and amps I own..... but....

There is also the aspect of knowing how good something sounds in the studio but knowing that the glorious 2" analog tape sound just recorded (even hi def digital) is going to be dumped into a DAW, than truncated to 16/44.1kHz or even worse, down to .mp3 or a flippin' ring tone!! At some point, to not go nuts, you have distance yourself emotionally. Unless, of course, "the budget" is big enough for an analog or hi-def release.

Mostly though, I believe it simply boils down to the fact that not all musicians are music lovers.

[Butuz]

Most of them are at least half deaf!!

Butuz

[John]

I take the same view as Chris
For instantance most of my guitar playing friends will go down different routes to create different sounds My rocking friends usually go down Marshall or Messa Boogie. whilst I have a few friends with Fender Twin reverb. Also the guitar will very the tone a lot too, then a guitarist will also be interested in how the music works, how to create riffs, how notes fix around a chord etc. So I guess its about what we tend to focus on, as listener its natural to focus how it sounds, a musician might be interested in how it all fits together or the structure or the melody etc. I think its how we training our ears to follow music and what we value, but of course I could be all wrong Lol

[kt66]

b'jesus

Lets remember a couple of things

99.9% of all musicians are poor, any spare cash is spent on better equipment,
studio time, PA hire, transport, etc

If (like me) you have spent 14 hours in a studio listening to the SAME song at really high volume do you really think we want to come home and listen to Jazz at the Pawnshop on a Koetsu?

I think most audiophiles listen in a bizarre way - PRAT? sound stage? timing?
all a good hifi can give you is more detail and correct tonal balance, that is why what musicians look for.

Kt66
musician first
audiophile second.

[kt66]

Most of them are at least half deaf!!

Butuz

so are most audiophiles that I've met