Questions tagged [hearing]
Coherent distinguishing of aural sensations. See also "ear-training"
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What deviations to musical notes are human ears capable of differentiating?
The frequency of the A440 or Stuttgart pitch is 440 Hz. I wonder to what extent people are able to differentiate between the correct pitch height and increasingly further deviations from this standard....
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How can I learn to hear chords from reading a score?
I’ve self studied my way through harmony, counterpoint (strict and free), free composition, can improvise at the piano in most styles without much thought, but I’m finding when I try to compose ...
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If I can identify specific notes on specific instruments, does that mean I have perfect pitch (or train to achieve perfect pitch)?
If I hear a G, B, B flat or E played on a piano or string instrument, I can (most of the time) identify the Note. Whenever I hear a G, I think of Holst's Mars or Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker march, when I ...
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What is the point of notes lower than human hearing
(Scientific pitch notation)
For example:
Organs can go down to C-1
Hyperbass Flute goes down to C0
And these notes have neglegible overtones on these instruments!
Do they modulate other notes?
They ...
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Can I identify any note by ear by knowing one single note and all intervals?
I assume that learning to identify intervals by ear is easier than learning to identifying notes by ear.
So if one is capable of playing sound of only one note in his head and comparing it to the ...
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Are musicians better than nonmusicians at learning echolocation? [closed]
Is there any evidence that musicians are faster than non-musicians at learning the skill of echo-location, i.e. the technique of navigating a physical environment by making tongue clicks and listening ...
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Is the ear really phase insensitive?
According to Ohm’s Law of Acoustics, the ear is phase insensitive due to its resonant structure. For example, changing the phase angle of the 3rd harmonic of a note drastically changes the shape of a ...
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I'm a singer struggling with tempo and time
I'm a singer with a decent voice and technique, I also used to play the violin so I can read classical sheet music and sight-read pretty well. However, I've always struggled with counting.
I have no ...
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Do I need ear protection to practice piano? [duplicate]
I once stumbled on a question on which someone suggested to consider buying ear protection for the child who was learning violin, because on the long run, playing violin can damage the child's ears.
I ...
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Does swaying your head like Stevie Wonder improve your musical hearing?
Stevie Wonder famously sways his head left and right when he's performing on stage. I've always thought that it was a listening technique linked to his blindness; I assume you can locate sounds easier ...
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Is there literal correlation between sounds and the words to describe them?
In English, we describe pitches as "high" and "low", as being "sharp" or "flat". A timbre can be "fat". At least one study suggests that there is a ...
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Why does my head fill in the 'home' note when playing a different mode of a harmonic minor scale?
I've been learning and experimenting with modes only recently, despite having played guitar for almost 11 years. In the past, I would use a "no-holds-barred, free-for-all" approach to ...
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How to develop a musical ear when even singing poses great difficulty?
I love music and would love to develop a musical ear. My problem is that I can't get started. All tutorials that I find start at a more advanced point compared to where I am at. I can't carry a tune. ...
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How to find/hold vocal pitch within tone clusters
I sing in a choir that performs a lot of music containing very close, tone-cluster type harmonies. We stand mixed rather than in sections, so it's especially challenging to find my pitch and maintain ...
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Improving perfect pitch? [duplicate]
I've always had good pitch hearing but never perfect. Things like 1/32 tone change is hard to notice. I was wondering whether it can be improved (if you have some to begin with) to achieve "...
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How can you detect seventh chords by ear?
I've been trying to detect seventh chords, major and minor seventh for at least one week, doing them unsucessfully...
My method have been, for the moment, going to musictheory.net and trying to learn ...
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At what nps a note could be considered as just continuous hum?
I am just curious to know the limit of our ear to distinguish time between two notes played. For example: A person playing quarter note at 60 bpm(4/4) is easily distinguishable because the delay ...
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Does perfect (absolute) pitch ever go out of tune?
When someone has perfect pitch, can it get "out of tune"? I've heard of musicians who had perfect pitch but as they got older they didn't have perfect pitch any more, or maybe it just got &...
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Sometimes I naturally sing songs in the right key. Do I have perfect (absolute) pitch?
Sometimes I'll be singing a song, and then I'll play a recording and discover I was singing in the same key. Does this mean I have perfect pitch?
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How to practice hearing what other people hear and techniques to detect I'm diverging
I'm not hearing sound objectively.
For example when I produce music, even after the final mixdown, I think my brain is actually adding things that aren't objectively there. Not entire instruments and ...
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Singing and hearing quarter tones
I’ve just received a choir piece that contains some (rare) quarter tones on long held notes. For example, a B which slides into a Bᴓ (that's a half flat).
I’ve tried singing the part where it happens. ...
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Why can't wearing both ear muffs (whether passive or active) and earplugs simultaneously yield more than 36 dB noise reduction ratio (NRR)?
I read on Wikipedia:
Using both ear muffs (whether passive or active) and earplugs simultaneously results in maximum protection, but the efficacy of such combined protection relative to preventing ...
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Why does the formula to compute the Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) subtract 3dB?
Context: NRR (Noise Reduction Rating) is the noise reduction standard used in the United States, and SNR (Single Number Rating) is the European Union's standard for showing the attenuation of hearing ...
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Why do SNR ratings tend to be about 3 dB higher than NRR ratings? I.e., what difference(s) in the testing procedures account for this gap?
I read on https://eardefender.co.uk/snr-vs-nrr/ (mirror):
SNR (Single Number Rating) is the EU’s standard for showing the attenuation of hearing protection. [...] NRR (Noise Reduction Rating) is the ...
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How can I achieve maximum hearing protection, beyond custom-fitted earplugs + earmuffs?
I sometimes attend events with very loud music, e.g. Technoparade (> 110dB next to speakers) and at times need to stop listening the music, without having to move. How can I achieve maximum hearing ...
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If the resolution of human hearing is approximately five cents, how can musicians play works with intonation changes of less than five cents?
Sources1 suggest that the frequency resolution of humans—our ability to discriminate differences in pitch—is limited to around five cents.
If this is the case, how can musicians play an excerpt like ...
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How do you decide which key signature a certain music is in by ear, from hearing it?
When I hear a song or a melodious tune, I can often figure out the relative pitches and play the tune on the piano. But I usually only play it on C major (the simplest scale for me--occasionally G ...
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Ear and singing training
I have read plenty of different questions related to ear training, even way more answers, but I'm still struggling to obtain a clear-cut answer (provided that it exists). I have taken up on singing ...
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Ear monitors or headset to monitor my voice with PC
Hello I have a question that I hope is in the right place because it involves several different subjects and I thought this forum was the best for this since it is close to singing along with an MP3 ...
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Head voice and chest voice [duplicate]
When I hear something (a song for instance) I want to be able to tell whether I am hearing a head voice rendition or that of a chest voice.
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Most useful piano exercises to memorize for playing by ear?
I'm not talented at all but I consider myself very dedicated and with a good ability to learn and memorize new material through my hands (not ears)
I'm playing the piano on my own for 2 years, ...
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How do professional electronic musicians/sound engineers combat listening fatigue?
As an amateur bedroom composer working in a DAW on my song, I might have a general idea of how something ought to sound, but through endless 'random walking through knob space' - i.e. tweaking ...
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To compose music, do you have to be able to hear?
I am asking this question out of sheer curiosity. Ludwig van Beethoven was deaf but still made some amazing songs. Just like Beethoven, do your ears have to work normally (Like not deaf), to be able ...
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Why am I not hearing concepts I'm aware of? [closed]
I've been playing guitar for more than 10 years, although not very seriously. I'm not at all gifted, but I'm not tone-deaf either. I've always thought that I'm not meant to understand music, so I didn'...
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Deafness and intonation in music
I have a question I'm hoping someone may be able to help with.
I'm 52 years old and have been a professional musician all my life. I play violin, viola and cello and these days do mostly remote ...
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Am I the only one to hear Cb instead of B here?
This comes from BWV 847 (the C minor fugue from the Well Tempered Clavier).
Look at the third beat from measure 28.
I can't help but hear an A flat minor chord here, that is Eb, Cb, Ab. Especially ...
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"Along the way" ear training in your daily routine
I am an amateur musician, not good at ear training. But I want to improve, unfortunately my time is limited as music is just a hobby. So in this post the author suggests doing ear training in your ...
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Hearing through distortion
Are there any tricks to figuring out the (exact) chords of a song that has really strong distortion or other effects?
I can vaguely hear what chords there are but can’t figure out the exact variant.
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I have semi (explained) perfect pitch but can't handle harmonic intervals. What do I practice?
As the title suggests I have a form of perfect pitch that is not exactly perfect pitch. So let's say I hear a melody. I can name the notes as I hear them if they're not insanely fast of course. The ...
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Stage monitoring for drums - in ear and speakers combined
I am a drummer and I am using in-ear for live performances as monitoring.
But sometimes I have problems with the cymbals mix which can get to really high frequencies during the performance (moments ...
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Are there similarities between musical temperament and colorimetry? [closed]
It is well known that musical temperament is the basic of music theory, just as colorimetry is the basic of color theory.
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Unable to properly hear myself singing, but can hear well playing or singing others
I'm looking on a voice (singing) a little like an instrument where you don't use muscles on fingers, but muscles inside your neck/throat.
I got some practice in playing bass (guitar/double-bass) and ...
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Hearing Aids for Music
I have a hearing condition called Enlarged Vestibular Aqueduct, which causes just slight hearing loss for me. I'm getting hearing aids next week.
I play the violin, piano, and clarinet, and I have ...
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Why does Libera wear earpieces?
I listen a fair amount to the Libera Children's Choir, and one of the things that I've noticed is that frequently they wear ear-pieces in one ear or the other (For instance, Joshua Madine in his right ...
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Are theremin's pitch hand positions unique?
I don't know much about theremins, and wondered about this: given a constant volume, I would like to know if I can produce the same note with different hand positions or if all notes have a specific/...
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While playing fugues, do pianists follow each voice simultaneously?
I'm learning the piano and my teacher always says to me: "just focus on the melody, sing it in your head, and voicing and phrasing will go along", which works greatly as long as the piece is a mix of ...
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Inear wired monitor for drummers
I need an advice from someone that has experience with this kind of situations. I am drummer for a fast and loud band. In our last tour I experienced locations with good and bad sound.
I have a ...
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How accurately can a good musician judge an interval to be out of tune? [closed]
This is for a music/physics crossover experiment. Almost everyone will be familiar with the Doppler Effect, even if they don't know the name. Imagine that a vehicle is blaring its a siren or ...
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Hearing overlapping sound
When I sing/hum lets say C note and then play on a piano a C note too, the sound I hear overlap so that I can immediately know if its the same note or not.
I want to know if everyone can do this ...
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How can I prevent filters from falling from my earplugs when I remove them?
I have a few pairs of flat-response attenuators (a.k.a. musicians earplugs). On one of them, the filters tend to fall when I remove the earplugs from my ear. How can I prevent that?
Demonstration:
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