Listening with pointed ears - can it be a curse ?
Thursday, June 23 2011 @ 09:15 AM CDT

When you communicate in home recording hobbyist environments you often run into people who listen with different styles. There is a certain hardcore producer type who gets caught up in listening with pointed ears and seems totally incapable of actual music appreciation. They hear everything in separated parts, they might be totally fixated on bass, or drum sound. Often they have little room for the concept of songwriting. For me, when I listen to music for pleasure, I suspend the mixing analysis and try to listen in the same way I did when I was a kid first encountering catchy tunes on my sister's transistor radio at the beach. Music should be at least given a chance to reward you with that sort of joy.

If you ask somebody to judge your drum sound or your harmonies, they are much more likely to find imperfection than if you ask them to check out your song. I believe it's pretty obvious that if you play sound detective instead of captive listener, you will find the defendent guilty of something or other.

Sure, it's a useful thing to be able to hear every component of a song analytically if you're trying to produce your own material but some people get lost in that, it's kind of the same thing as fantasy sports geeks who get so involved in the stats they start to no longer care if their team wins, the purity of the whole exercise is lost.

Re:Listening with pointed ears - can it be a curse ?
Thursday, June 23 2011 @ 09:39 AM CDT

Sounds logical...