Re: [ARSCLIST] Plus Deck

[stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Miller" <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To
> > It would be interesting to be able to record the sound
> > *exactly as heard* from one's seat in the venue...and
> > then compare that to what one remembers having heard!
>
> Which raises another question...after having reviewed a concert
> performance, I would sometimes be given a recording of the concert. After
> listening to the recording, I would reread my review and wonder, "what was
> I thinking (hearing)" when I wrote that review.
>
> It wasn't the same as going back to a piece of music you may not have
> encountered in several years and then discovering something new in it...I
> would find that I would notice things like errors in intonation, ensemble,
> etc. These obeservations could not, at least in my mind, be attributed to
> the microphone placement and the quality of the microphones...or at least
> I did not think so at the time, but I now wonder if those considerations
> could effect my hearing of even those basic aspects.
>
Well, there are at least two subtly (or not so subtly) different
things here...what we ACTUALLY hear (the physical sonic vibrations
which act upon our eardrums)...and what WE THINK we hear (the
interpreted signal after its processing by the brain)! Ofteh
the latter (what we think we hear, see, usw.) is more based
on what we expected to hear/see, or even what we hoped we
would hear/see!

Think of trying to hold a conversation in a crowded, noisy
room...or as I used to do some time ago, trying to listen
to a particular AM station on a crowded frequency (like
1240 kHz after sunset) in hopes of identifying one or
more of them. Our minds seem to be able to separate what
we want to hear from what we don't!

As well, many optical illusions work on the principle
of leading us to expect to see one thing...which then
becomes our interpretation of the picture our eyes
take in! For example, there used to be a wallpaper
(in the fifties) that was intended to look like
a cushioned wall, complete with "buttons"...however,
if the light was coming from the opposite direction
when you looked at a sample of it, it looked like
the exact opposite. Why? Because your mind "knew"
where the light was coming from, and where the
shadows would then be...and adjusted what it "saw"
in accordance with that knowledge!

So, it isn't/wasn't your hearing that was/is
failing...it is/was your mental perception of
what those signals represented!

Steven C. Barr