It's All in Your Head
Of course it is the brain. when two people listen to the same stereo system, and one thinks it sounds wonderful, but the other disagrees, what other explanation is there. in addition, the placebo effect is alive and well, and some people are more suggestible than others. you could change the phrase "it's all in the head" to "it's all psychological". |
Mechans, You stated, "If I here a piece that sounds crappy I know it and it annoys the crap out of me." As I said, there's no going back. Nonoise, Understood. Mrtennis, What I meant is that the perception of the musical event is mediated by the brain. Part of that is indeed psychological -- how the music moves us -- but this is preceded by and is based on the actual physiology of the brain perceiving the musical events. The brain reconstructs what appears to be happening "out there" in the room. The musical events are actually happening "in here" -- between our two ears. Music appreciation is actually an inner event that we perceive as an outer event. Audiophiles pursue "the outer" in the form of the best possible gear that we can afford in order to make the inner event as pleasing as possible. |
10-21-12: SabaiYou are a philosopher at heart, Sabai. You may already be aware of this, but the distinction you are drawing between what is "out there" and what is "in here" has been a subject of controversy among philosophers since ancient Greece. In the parlance of modern philosophy, it's the distinction between Realism and Idealism. Roughly put, it's the difference between things that are features of *the world* and things that are features of *the mind.* The distinction between Realism and Idealism defines a great many debates in the history of both philosophy and science, including debates about categories, logic, mathematics, properties like color, and morality. By standard philosophical conventions, you are an Idealist with respect to music. I agree with you up to a point, which is to say, I believe that SOME musical phenomena are in the mind. But I also believe that some musical phenomena are in the world. It's an interesting question, IMO. Bryon |
Most of us were not in the recording session/room and therefore, have no idea what the original recording session sounded like. Also, others have posted correctly that recording is indeed an art and science and the best recording engineers earn their big bucks because they really do know what they are doing. you have to not only have the best microphones, but you also have to know how to correctly place them. You have to have the best cables, mixing equipment (I know, I know), amplification equipment, etc. This goes way beyond the ability of the average recording engineer, if they really want to get it right. Also, then you need the artist and recording personnel to sit in the room and listen to the playback to see/hear if they got it right. and guess what? most times, they are listening to the recording through equipment that isn't close to what you have a home and continuing to mix based on what they hear using that equipment. Unless you were there during the recording session and also hear the recording afterwards, we have no idea what it really sounded like in the first place. So we approximate based on what our "experience" tells us it should have sounded like. I would be interested to hear the accounts of people that actually were at a concert or recording session and then heard the actual recording afterwards to see if they got it right or even close. enjoy |
