29
votes
Accepted
How do professional electronic musicians/sound engineers combat listening fatigue?
One of the most common pieces of advice I hear about this is to take breaks. You're right that in some situations (extremely tight deadlines, for example) this may not be practical, but in reality, it'...
- 967
20
votes
Is the ear really phase insensitive?
You don't notice the phase of a particular note that arrives in one ear. But the brain can detect phase differences between your ears. That's the main mehod your brain uses to work out which ...
- 1,647
19
votes
Accepted
How can we sing in tune, given a perfect ear for music, if we always hear ourselves lower than we actually sound?
The BBC article is confusing pitch with frequency response.
When one says your voice sounds lower to you than it does to other people, this is referring NOT to the pitch of your voice (the dominant ...
- 35k
16
votes
How do professional electronic musicians/sound engineers combat listening fatigue?
Taking breaks has been mentioned, and is obviously a good idea!
Other ideas:
A change is as good as a rest: work an a different project for a while, and come back to the first one
listen to other ...
- 45.8k
15
votes
Is the ear really phase insensitive?
I used to be a sensory neuroscientist, and I teach systems physiology. The ear is phase sensitive at low frequency, which is why inter aural time delay is the dominant mode of horizontal auditory ...
- 261
12
votes
Accepted
Does hearing fatigue?
Wow, this is a big subject - & one I'm not fully qualified to answer, but I'm going to try anyway...
Hearing fatigue is a very real phenomenon, though it takes many forms, of which I shall just ...
- 27.1k
12
votes
Why can't wearing both ear muffs (whether passive or active) and earplugs simultaneously yield more than 36 dB noise reduction ratio (NRR)?
Small disclaimer about decibels
For sound pressures, decibels are defined as follow:
XdB = 20 log (p1/p0)
with p1 being the amplitude of the pressure field of the sound, and p0 a reference (...
- 4,604
12
votes
How to develop a musical ear when even singing poses great difficulty?
Your absolute best bet is to find a teacher -- both to guide the process and to give you external feedback.
However, as an interim step, you could try this: get an electronic tuner (or app) of the ...
- 80k
11
votes
Accepted
Am I the only one to hear Cb instead of B here?
Sure, if you listen to this chord out of context, it sounds like a 2nd inversion Ab minor chord. But in context, at least to me, the chord and its resolution on the second eighth note seem to be a ...
- 6,444
11
votes
What is the point of notes lower than human hearing
We hear with our ears, but other body parts are susceptible to vibrations.
The percussionist/drummer Evelyn Glennie is profoundly deaf, and apparently uses her bare feet to detect vibrations - which ...
- 188k
10
votes
Accepted
If the resolution of human hearing is approximately five cents, how can musicians play works with intonation changes of less than five cents?
With a bit of training, a good musician can hear differences of 2 cents, and with significant talent and/or a lot of practice, 1 cent.
I base the above statement on my personal experience with ...
- 6,289
9
votes
Accepted
Sometimes I naturally sing songs in the right key. Do I have perfect (absolute) pitch?
The Levitin Effect
The ability to intuitively sing a song in the key your originally heard it is known as the Levitin Effect.1 It is a cognitive ability separate from absolute (perfect) pitch insofar ...
- 80k
8
votes
Being deaf and still produce music, how is that possible
He seems to wear a hearing aid, so he isn't profoundly deaf. According to Wikipedia he's 90% deaf. His parents bought him a drum set after noting him react to music on the radio. (Just what the ...
- 89.7k
8
votes
How to develop a musical ear when even singing poses great difficulty?
I'm guessing you do not play any instrument. If you do, I'm amazed.
Get yourself something - a keyboard is recommended - a kid's one will do. The physical act of seeing where, pressing, listening and ...
- 188k
8
votes
Is the ear really phase insensitive?
The ears, and our neuro processing, are amazing gadgets. Yes, the phase difference between left and right contributes to directional location, but there's more than that going on. If that were the ...
- 14.8k
8
votes
Pitch and Hearing beginner question
We say that C and Ḉ are "the same note" because their frequencies (rates of vibration) are in a 1:2 ratio. In other words, the sound waves of Ḉ vibrate twice as fast as those of C, and the ...
- 83.6k
6
votes
Can a note be heard in wrong pitch?
Absolutely! Shepard-Risset tones sound as if they are continuously rising or falling; this is done by continously changing the overtone content of the sounds such that when the central perceived pitch ...
- 796
6
votes
Accepted
Can a note be heard in wrong pitch?
Communicating in a language that is not your own can be very frustrating!
The answer is yes, and they are called combination tones
Some examples here
when certain pitches are tuned to just ...
- 5,089
6
votes
Am I the only one to hear Cb instead of B here?
The way you've phrased your question is a little strange, since the only possible answer would be "no, you are undoubtedly not the only one."
I hear it a little differently from Scott, but it doesn't ...
- 1,556
6
votes
How do professional electronic musicians/sound engineers combat listening fatigue?
3d12 and topo morto covered most of it, but having a good set of (correctly positioned) studio monitors also makes a huge difference. You can mix more effectively and at a lower volume, and you tend ...
- 161
6
votes
If the resolution of human hearing is approximately five cents, how can musicians play works with intonation changes of less than five cents?
At one point I did some exercises in pitch difference and could usually hear whether a second note was lower, higher or the same when the difference was 5 cents. I struggled with a 2 cent difference ...
- 61
6
votes
Accepted
At what nps a note could be considered as just continuous hum?
If the note is played percussively (e.g. with a pick, as opposed to e.g. a violin bow), at somewhere around 30 nps the attack of the note itself will be heard as a low note.
Why? Simply because around ...
- 6,289
6
votes
How to develop a musical ear when even singing poses great difficulty?
If you enjoy music, then it's likely you have a latent and undeveloped internal ear, and can make progress here. It's a matter of building connections between your ear, voice, and understanding.
I was ...
- 61
6
votes
Does swaying your head like Stevie Wonder improve your musical hearing?
Agreeing with John. He uses a fixed mic to sing into, so can only sway when not singing. He also mostly uses iems (in ear monitors), so wherever his head is, he'll be hearing the mix he asked for, and ...
- 188k
6
votes
What is the point of notes lower than human hearing
If you listen to hyperbass flute recordings on Youtube, its sound has clearly higher harmonics that can be heard, and the keys have strong percussive sound. It is also possible that the fundamental ...
- 2,772
5
votes
Do I have perfect pitch
Many musicians can tell intervals, i.e. guess what a note is once they have been told the name of another note. That's relative pitch.
A smaller group can often start some songs on the correct note. ...
- 1,911
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