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Old musicians have better ears


Ratae Corieltauvorum

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I have great ears.
Its the processor between them that gets me into trouble and that's not getting any better with age or music.
It still works like it did when I was 18.


edit: Thinking about the delayed ageing process, maybe it's like keeping an active exercise schedule to retain bone and muscle mass as we age....keep an active brain processing inputs and its pathways may well renew or compensate.

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My brain can sift through a mix and focus on that tambourine part in a beatles song or the squeak of the bassdrum pedal on get on the good foot. But I have to ask my wife three times to repeat herself if she's talking while facing the other way. I have noticed that I have a habit of looking at people's mouths when they talk to me instead of looking them in the eye because it helps me to understand what they're saying. Damned consonants! Can't hardly hear the difference between a T and a P.

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^^ I barely hear anything my wife says to me. It's like a kind of constant background noise ;-)

 

But seriously, I do find it hard to 'hear' in a distributive way. Like you, I can pick out individual notes or sounds within a piece quite well. But if I am concentrating on listening to somethiing, and somebody else speaks to me, I know they are speaking but I don't fully hear them, if you know what I mean?

 

My wife, on the other hand, seems to be able to hold three conversations, while doing two different things with her hands. Is it something to do with the connections between each hemisphere?

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Interesting study, I think that good musicians have more accurate defining of sound. What the study doesn't go into is what type of musicians have better hearing. Im sure a rock guitarist who gigs in loud bars does not have the same gain as a classical guitist who plays mostly intimate settings with relatively few people at a time.

Hearing may be like any other system in our body if you dont use it you lose it.

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I'm 54 and started playing guitar in high school.
Thankfully, I spent very little time playing or listening to very loud music so if I have lost anything physically, its no more than normal.
Ive spent a lot more time in acoustic music than rock.
My pitch recognition and overal musical hearing ability have improved significatly over a lifetime.
I did not start out a natural. Had to work hard for all of it.

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I hear for a living as I am an audio engineer. I take special care to protect my hearing whenever possible. I wear earplugs when I'm commuting- commuter train, city streets, subway. And when I'm doing something like cutting the lawn or other yardwork that requires loud equipment I use earprotectors.

I think my problem with hearing conversation is that I hear everything with equal force. So, parts of the spectrum from say, the TV playing in the backround that most people don't hear I do hear and it interferes with the sound of people talking to me. I think some damage that occurs with most people's hearing kind of acts as a filter to things that would impinge on conversation.

As for playing levels, my rare guilty pleasure is plugging in and turning it up loud. I usually don't do it for long stretches and it probably wouldn't be considered all that loud by most players. But I assure you that if I had to do it for gigs I'd be wearing ear protection.

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I don't really think it is my guitar or amp that made me this way. Damned drummers and their cymbals and riding a motorcycle with no helmet or a half helmet for years. Now I never ride my motorcycle without hearing protection (and mostly with a helmet these days). Drummers you have to live with.

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My father was a radio operator in aircraft and marine transportation and could decipher morse code through all the static from the lunchroom where he worked.

 

He was very adamant in is warnings to my brother and myself when we decided to get into the music business. I can still hear him saying "It's too loud" when we played at his favorite bar back in the 70s.

 

Fortunately we both heeded his advice.

Thanks Dad.

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