Are our ears evolving?

Sure, IM not speaking of the actual ear mechanism itself but merely how our brain is interpreting changes in pitch, timing and amplitude.

Timing:

Before drum machines what did we have to measure time against? Jeff Porcaro? Steve Gadd

One of the 1st really influential drum machines were the Linn Drum (LM-2) were perceived to have solid time but in actuality the snare triggered 17 milliseconds late. Just listen to old Prince records and you can hear it. Which is my point, back then few could but today just about everyone can tell.

Most drums in the 80s were triggered by laying down a SMPTE track, usually with a Roland SBX-80 and then the SMPTE playback thru the same box where it converted to MIDI clock. Then came bands like Scritti Politti who employed the Russian Dragon on EVERY track to tighten things up so much it was almost nauseating to listen to. My Berklee professors tried to teach me in the early 80's that we could not detect any thing faster than 40 milliseconds as did some prominent engineers. I disagreed with them showing them in real time I could detect delays of 6-7 milliseconds. IM not superman, but I did a LOT of sequencer programming and sampling in those days, so inevitably my perception improved.

Pitch:

Our ears are most sensitive to pitch. Any human with little training can tell you almost exactly within a dozen-or-so cents what frequency something is playing in. It seems today, all guitarist have digital tuners, {censored} some have them built into the guitar. Auto-tune gets used quite often today to fix vocals primarily. I have become so adroit at using the pitch correction in DP that I no longer use ay auto tuning software. I could not have done that 10 years ago.

Amplitude:

OF the three, amplitude is the hardest to be completely accurate about. I was taught that volume changes could only be heard in increments of 3dB.

But when automation was becoming commonplace on consoles I noticed engineers just changing things 1-2dB and we all could hear the difference.

I recall one engineer saying, and he was old-school like me, "you know, I know Im not supposed to be able to hear anything less than a 3 dB change but I swear I hear a 1dB nudge on the fader. Of course he is right as all of now have a much more accurate of controlling level within our digital mixes, so has our ability to perceive micro changes in level, pitch and amplitude. Our global perception is changing, evolving if you will and this is a good thing. If only this applied to Paula Abdul...

The metronome.

This is true of the average person in blind tests. You are talking about trained listeners who know a priori the amount of change. I always tell people to take data from perceptual experiments with a grain of salt.

-D

I know this much: as I've become a better writer, the entire world has become better at writing. It's incredible.

It's true. I type much faster than my parents used to. Our fingers are obviously evolving.

Evolution requires natural selection. So unless people are failing to breed due to poor hearing, or breeding more due to superior hearing, I am going to guess no.

Wrong. Artificial selection results in evolutionary change as well.

It's not evolution, it's just training our brains to pay closer attention to certain things. I'm sure there are physical limits to the degree of difference we can perceive as far as time, frequency and amplitude, but each of these limits can only be reached through training your perception to that limit. If the limit gradually changed, that might be evolution.

It's just easier to measure and manipulate things very accurately nowadays is all.

Not the definition of evolution I have come across.

This is your brain on music by Daniel Levitin (2008)

is an AMAZING book that talks all about this and many other very interesting things about our brains and music. Just trust me and check it out

Also see: Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition by Oliver Sacks

My tinnitus is evolving ...

Seeing the sound levels earbuds pump out plus the inane levels at most clubs - I'm no longer going without any protection, and the death of dynamic range, I'd rather be back in the Stone Age. The 20 year olds of today will be near-deaf at 40, and the only benefit that it'll bring is that with a bit of luck they'll start doing research to fix this; imagine regrowing hair cells and gaining back 20-20k when you're 50. Or of course the set.AI option; being able to plug in an S/PDIF cable in your neck and having everything pumped directly to your brain.

Nauseating? Perhaps to some.

I think and feel Scritti Politti's Cupid & Psyche 85 is a gem of an album, for songwriting and production both. That rhythmic tightness, played against the feel of the songs and the gate and decay control of the reverbs, is amazing to my ear.

An all-time favorite, to be sure.

cheers,

Ian

The real question is:

are we human ?

or are we dancer ?

If our eats cause us to reproduce more effectively, then yes.

Long before drum machines and metronomes peeps where able to keep time just fine. As little kids our hearing is much more acute and broader freq range then most adults. In olden days adults to had more acute hearing cause they didnt repress their senses as they became adults. Peeps who still live in jungles also on average have more acute hearing then modern city dwellers. In part this is due to need, survival needs. In part its also due to modern city peeps over time tuning out a lot of the everyday constant sounds that occur in city. Whereas in jungle living they dont tune those enviroemnt sounds out, due to need to remain more aware.

Serious musicians on average prob have more acute hearing then average person in modern cities due to greater interest in what they are hearing imo. However if exposed to frequent sustained high volume sound hearing ussually deteriorates. The modern trend of ultra high volume music is bad imo. Same as working in modern airports civilian or military without hearing protection. Untill modern bands return to the more sensible average volumes of the 70's and before for music playing live I think todays giging musicians in high volume bands will have hearing that continues to deevolove actually.

It's quite simple really: selective breeding.

Anyone who has created beat loops knows that you can fine-tune your rythmic sensitivities to absurdly tiny increments.

And if you listen to pop harmonies from the 60s you'll hear all sorts of off-pitch singing that would never go uncorrected these days.

The issue to me is this: sure you can become extremely sensitive to minute shifts in pitch and rhythm, but can you avoid becoming all anal and obsessive about it?

A little off-pitch and a little off-the-beat should still be okay, even desirable if musically relevant. No perfection-puritanism.

nat whilk ii