I Can't Hear It

[Jim of Seattle]

What aspect of music do a whole lot of people get into and appreciate that you can't hear?

While I pride myself on having a great ear for melodies and harmonies - (i.e. I can hear a song and play it back with chords immediately), for the life of me I can't hear why a song sounds better in one key than in another. And that's really important to some people, as in, "This piece is in B-flat, therefore, it has this certain quality to it." You sing a note to me and I couldn't tell you what note it is. And if you then tell me, it means nothing at all to me. But to a lot of people, it does. Mystifies me.

I also can't hear what's great about pure instrumental chops. I'll hear Jorma Kakounen or someone like that wail away on his instrument for ten minutes and people will go crazy for it and it'll leave me totally cold. I just don't get it. It's boring.

But both of those things sometimes make me feel like there's a huge aspect to music that I'm missing out on.

And opera singing. What is the appeal there? What am I missing?

[Eric Y.]

What aspect of music do a whole lot of people get into and appreciate that you can't hear?

vocals and/or lyrics. unless the words really stick out as super-good or super-bad, my ears just treat them as background noise. more times than i can count, people have posted really well-done instrumentals to somesongs, and the general consensus is "this is nice, but it needs words," and i can't see it at all.

i feel the same way about opera, actually. there's a lot of classical music i really like, a lot of really powerful stuff, but i hate just about anything that has singing, because i feel like it really takes away from the music. this is probably borderline heretical, but i'd even include beethoven's "choral" symphony in that. but i'd make an exception for holst's "neptune the mystic" which incidentally has vocals but not words.

[Bolio]

for the life of me I can't hear why a song sounds better in one key than in another. And that's really important to some people, as in, "This piece is in B-flat, therefore, it has this certain quality to it."

I think varying keys keeps music interesting. For example, if an albums songs are all in A, then you will get tired of it faster than if they were in different keys.... I'm just assuming this but it might be a fun experiment! Next fight is all in the key of 'A' & see if you aren't snoring by the end of it.

You sing a note to me and I couldn't tell you what note it is.

There are a few songs that I refer to in my head when trying to figure out a note/key without having an instrument nearby. For example, I use 'Day Tripper' by the Beatles most often, the first note is 'E.' I can hear it clearly in my mind, then compare it to what it is I'm trying to figure out.

What's with opera?

I think a lot of it has to do with how you are brought up, what type of music is played when you are young. My mother listened to a lot of Neil Diamond [/gasp] so even though I don't listen to a lot of that type of music, I like Neil. People that like Opera were probably brought up on more classical type music.

[Bjam]

Personally the main redeeming feature in opera for me is the singer's ability. To be able to hold those notes with vibrato, on pitch, and for that long? Crazy.

Other than that it's warbley stuff I don't understand

I think a lot of it has to do with how you are brought up, what type of music is played when you are young. My mother listened to a lot of Neil Diamond [/gasp] so even though I don't listen to a lot of that type of music, I like Neil. People that like Opera were probably brought up on more classical type music.

I was brought up on country/90s pop/Queen. That's pretty much all I can remember, though I'm sure there was other stuff in there. I find a nostalgic and 'interesting' value in country and 90s pop, but on the whole it doesn't do it for me. G&G, however, totally does. Why? Who knows. Maybe I was a guitar in a past life. I think, on the whole, if you listen to a genre, you're more likely to make/like songs in that genre. If you don't like a genre, why would you make/listen a song in it?

[a bebop a rebop]

stuff about vocals

I feel exactly the same way, man. If I try to sing along with my favorite songs, I stumble and flub all over the lyrics, because I really just don't process them at all most of the time. They're just another instrument to me.

*Most of the time, I should say. If a singer has a particularly distinctive voice, I'll tend to get caught up in the words more.

And I was brought up primarily on the 16th through 19th century Western upper-class musical tradition, excluding opera, and jazz. I've branched out a bit from those humble beginnings but I think I have more tolerance for perhaps needlessly complex or faux-orchestral stuff than a lot of people (I'm thinking along the lines of Rush, Yes, King Crimson, ELP, Queensryche... but NOT fucking Mars Volta).

This could also be due to the fact that I'm an intellectual wanker.

[roymond]

Things about music:

Opera - I am facinated by it, but it bores me, for the most part, tremendously. I do like the production aspect what with the sets, costumes, lights, etc. I really dislike vibrato in any singing voice, unless treated with good taste as one of the various effects available to the art. This pretty much kills most standard operatic styles for me. A vocal ensemble I loved was the Greg Smith Singers, who performed contemporary vocal scores, largely without vibrato. I also heard them perform some baroque and medieval pieces with extraordinarily smooth tone and pitch. The effect was insanely awesome. Typical were pieces by George Crumb or Harrison, sung into an open piano spawning sympathetic vibrations...clusters of pure sound.

Pitch/key - I would think the real issue here arises with woodwinds and brass, where the instruments are more or less true (although compensated for in modern design) to physics. These instruments have natural biases that lean towards modal relationships and therefore influence the effect that keys have on the melodic and harmonic "mood". Other than that, how someone's voice falls within the range of a particular key will impact how comfortable the tune sounds.

Instrumental chops - the older I get, the less value this holds for me. I agree with you in that I can't stand listening to people with wailing chops, if that's what the impression is. But if I listen to something that really moves me and then it's like "wow, and his chops are awesome" then that's a different thing.

Something else that occurs to me is that most people are not willing to really listen and invest in the music around them. I am guilty as well, but I have often found that much of the most satisfying music I know is an acquired taste, and required quite a bit of work to truly appreciate it. "Modern" classical as a genre is still perceived as represented by composers that have been dead for 50 years, and whose works were written 30 years prior to their death, and still they're thought of as avante garde! Audiences have little patience or energy to get inside contemporary classical music. Same for many genres, but that's a big issue.

[deshead]

What aspect of music do a whole lot of people get into and appreciate that you can't hear?

Is Celine Dion an aspect of music?

[j$]

What is the appeal there? What am I missing?

One is tempted to bait here, and reply 'a soul'. :p

j$

[Mostess]

What aspect of music do a whole lot of people get into and appreciate that you can't hear?

Whenever a music critic talks about how an artist creates layers of textures, or weaves a tapestry, I tune out. I've never heard that. I've tried. It seems to be more a way of listening than anything that's actually in the music.

Subgenre: Various shades of blues/rock/folk, or rock/rhythm&blues, or folk/rock, etc. All sound the same to me. When I was in college, some people liked "industrial", others liked "house", still others liked "techno". And while I think I learned to tell the differences (at least better than chance), I never really understood the fuss about the distinction. I guess I've never loved a genre so much as to dismiss some of it as irrelevant or inauthentic.

Pianists talk about "touch". I've never been able to identify a pianist that way. Gould, sure, by interpretation, not "touch". And having looked at the mechanics of how the key raises the lever that pushes the other lever that has the hammer on the other end, I'm pretty confident that "touch" is a myth. But I guess it's an empirical question.

[Mostess]

And opera singing. What is the appeal there? What am I missing?

I think that if I'd never heard a mic'ed and amp'ed voice in my life, an opera singer would sound like God's own voice. Same with a pipe organ, which is really the most common ugly musical sound I can think of. Loud and full and all-acoustic.

[roymond]

Subgenre: Various shades of blues/rock/folk, or rock/rhythm&blues, or folk/rock, etc. All sound the same to me. When I was in college, some people liked "industrial", others liked "house", still others liked "techno". And while I think I learned to tell the differences (at least better than chance), I never really understood the fuss about the distinction. I guess I've never loved a genre so much as to dismiss some of it as irrelevant or inauthentic.

Yea to that. But I suppose in my naive youth I got all fussy about this stuff, too. Thus Queen and Rush were never accepted into our circle with Yes and Genesis.

Pianists talk about "touch". I've never been able to identify a pianist that way. Gould, sure, by interpretation, not "touch". And having looked at the mechanics of how the key raises the lever that pushes the other lever that has the hammer on the other end, I'm pretty confident that "touch" is a myth. But I guess it's an empirical question.

Well, I have heard two very accomplished pianists play the same piano and get entirely different sounds from it. Call it what you will, but the fact that a hammer simply goes up and down, etc. doesn't help me to dismiss that they were able to do this. I call that "touch". Helped by intelligent design, no doubt.

Same with a pipe organ, which is really the most common ugly musical sound I can think of. Loud and full and all-acoustic.

Is it that it's loud and full and all acoustic that you don't like? That's sort of an odd filter, isn't it? I'd be surprised if anyone wasn't awed by a powerhouse organ in a powerhouse hall. Sure, much of the music is aweful, but that's no different than any other instrument/style. I search out organ recitals when I travel. Here in NYC, go for St John's, St Patricks, and that little recital hall at Columbia University. Oh and St Bart's on Park Ave.

Organs rock!

[Mostess]

Is it that it's loud and full and all acoustic that you don't like?
[...]
Organs rock!

No. I like plenty of loud, full, acoustic sounds (i.e. opera singers). I just find the pipe organ sound ugly. It certainly varies between organs since it's determined largely by the acoustics of its (invariably enormous) hall. So some are nicer than others. And I can't say I've heard all that many live, though I've heard a few critically acclaimed ones.

With all due respect for your regard of pipe organs, which do you find rocks hardest: its high, whiny, nasal "winds" registers, its wheezy "strings" registers, or those plodding, muddy, bass noises from the clumsy foot-pedal stops? I know there's beauty in there somewhere. Someone went through the trouble of buying, building, maintaining, and playing the damned thing (none of them small tasks). I've just never heard that beauty with my own ears.

Oh, and caviar is salty crap. [/grumpy]

I'm sure you're right about "touch", too. Too many people swear by it and I'm no expert. (Though I'm willing to bet that by "entirely different sounds" you mean something I probably would have to strain to detect.)

[jute gyte]

When I was in college, some people liked "industrial", others liked "house", still others liked "techno". And while I think I learned to tell the differences (at least better than chance), I never really understood the fuss about the distinction. I guess I've never loved a genre so much as to dismiss some of it as irrelevant or inauthentic.

It's incorrect to group industrial with techno or house under a common genre. Perhaps you heard a crossover genre, because there's no way you'd mistake pure industrial from pure house or techno. From Wikipedia's entry on industrial: "The first wave of this music appeared in 1977 with Throbbing Gristle and NON, and often featured tape editing, stark percussion, and loops distorted to the point where they had degraded to harsh noise. Vocals were sporadic, and were as likely to be bubblegum pop as they were to be abrasive polemics." The entry for house, on the other hand, lists Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" as a "Classic (genre-defining/-representing) house record". Certainly this contrast is hard to miss.

EDIT: you'll have to replace "[CENSORED]" with w i k i p e d i a , I guess.

[Mostess]

It's incorrect to group industrial with techno or house under a common genre. Perhaps you heard a crossover genre, because there's no way you'd mistake pure industrial from pure house or techno.

Very educational. I'm sure that's it. I know Laibach (their "Let It Be" is one of my all time favorite albums) and never knew they were considered industrial. I graduated in '93, and my industrial college friends were more into Skinny Puppy, among others (vindication! from the Wkiipdeia on Skinny Puppy: "Skinny Puppy approached remixing and re-editing as an artistic process of reinterpreting compositions, often using remixes to push their sound into styles of ambient, dub and techno."). But I couldn't tell you exactly what they played for me, or why we talked about genre at all.

Nonetheless, quibbles over shades of genre are one of those things I don't hear in the music. You're right to call me out on being lazy about the term "industrial" (which I obviously don't understand). There was a light-hearted dust-up over the boundaries of "Progressive Rock" on this forum a few months back, that was educational for me, too. But really, even in the genres I can be kind of snotty about (i.e. post WWII art music), I'm agnostic about (for instance) whether Stravinksy's Moses und Aron is strictly 12-tone or not. I know people who would go to the mat for either side of that argument. But it doesn't really mean much to me when I listen to it.

P.S. Ooh! Look at me! I'm finally a Trouble Stick! Post number 300, baby! In your face, Fluffy!

[Dan-O from Five-O]

I also can't hear what's great about pure instrumental chops. I'll hear Jorma Kakounen or someone like that wail away on his instrument for ten minutes and people will go crazy for it and it'll leave me totally cold. I just don't get it. It's boring.

You should never ask a Jazz / Blues guy this question. For me it's the ultimate expression of "Look how hard I tried to learn this instrument". Is it self indulgent? Yeah. Is it rubbing it in the face of lesser musicians? Well.....yeah. But that is where the line in the sand get's drawn, and which side of it you will stand.

You can either listen to someone's well accomplished playing ability as an insult to your own lesser playing ability, or accept it as a challenge to get better and maybe even outplay them. At the very least you should be impressed by what you know is either a tremendous amount of effort that's been given to get to that point, or be impressed by the God given talent you've been presented. Don't be Salieri, just enjoy Mozart without murdering him.

Jim you're quite an accomplished player who's known for his knowledge of his instrument, music theory and playing ability as a whole. I'm pretty surprised that you don't get this part.

[the Jazz]

Going to school where I do I've run across plenty of jazz players who are all about chops, but I hate that jazz gets stereotyped as being that way by default. Those players who say anything slower than 16th notes at 200 bpm is smooth jazz kenny g radio schlock are giving the rest of us a bad name.

But on the subject of keys, and the character of a certain key, I recommend doing a little research on temperament and how the western musical scale is put together. In order to allow for modulation and the use of certain chords, the scale is not mathematically perfect. Different keys may very well have very subtle intervallic changes which maybe some people can hear. I dunno. But if there is any good reason for one key to sound better than another in contemporary rock/pop music, it's that.

If you're talking about instrumental music, then we get into the timbral characteristics of strings, winds and pitched percussion in their various ranges. The clarinet is a good example because it has lots of range, and each part of its range has a slightly different sound quality. The highest range (altissimo) is shrill and piercing; the middle range (clarion) has a very clear sound (hence the name of the instrument); just under that is a short group of notes called "throat tones" which connect the clarion register to the lowest range of the instrument (chalumeau), which has a much thicker, warmer sound.

[roymond]

Jim you're quite an accomplished player who's known for his knowledge of his instrument, music theory and playing ability as a whole. I'm pretty surprised that you don't get this part.

I don't think Jim said he couldn't appreciate the ability displayed. He did say it can come off as cold and boring.

I am sure you appreciate a number of musicians that do not display chops on their sleave who you admire. And admire them regardless of whether they have those chops or not.

[Dan-O from Five-O]

You're right Roymond. That is a good way to look at it.

When Jim said it left him feeling cold, I just thought he meant he didn't appreciate what the instrumentalist was trying to express. Jim, care to weigh in on this for clarification?

[deshead]

But I couldn't tell you exactly what they played for me, or why we talked about genre at all.

I know this is probably off topic, but it's a good link if you haven't seen it: Ishkur's guide to electronic music

[king_arthur]

I have some pages that I copied from "The Measurement of Melody" by Gerald W. Millar, Millar Publications, Exshaw, Alberta Canada, 1975. In this book, he proposes a whole system for taking a melody and mathematically calculating what key it will sound best in... it's a pretty complex system, but he goes through some examples to show why a particular song works better for a baritone voice rather than a soprano (the numbers come out differently at a lower octave), etc. Chords, harmonies, etc. are taken into detail, and presumably the system could be used to "improve" a song in a particular key as well as to identify the "perfect" key...

I've never worked through the system in any detail, but if somebody wanted a wild math + music project for school or something, it might be interesting to work up a computer program that could read a standard MIDI file and output the calculations and key suggestions... in 1975, MIDI and home computers that could do significant math were both still a ways off, but now... we have the technology...

Since this was self-published, it may be hard to come by these days; if anybody is seriously interested, PM me... I found it at the San Francisco public library, probably around 1980 or so...

Charles (KA)