How to listen .........

[Clive]

I believe that if you listen to a piece of music in its entirety you listen at a superficial (hmmm, not the right word - maybe overview?) level. If you listen to one instrument it's more analytical. I remember hearing a lecture how we can only focus fully on relatively small frequency spectra at one time. If you're trying to be analytical then when listening for bass frequencies you won't be properly hearing what the treble sounds like.

Then there are vocals. Personally I hear vocals as an instrument. Others listen intently to the words. Probably I'm dyslexic....this makes the processing of sounds harder so hearing a tune and making sense of the words at the same time is not as easy as some would think. Rather like when dyslexics read a book out loud, they can read the words but don't pick up on the story. I digress, but there are all sort of factors at play here.