Category Archives: Problem Practices

Communication behavior or analysis that is often counter-productive

Listening for Nuance

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Moderate levels of uncluttered sound reveal harmonics and timbres that are missed when we push a room and our ears beyond their limits.

We are lucky if we survive childhood with most of our hearing intact. Sporting events, concerts, cranked up earbuds and other explosions of sound all do a number on our fragile ears. On average, Americans listen to music on headphones at rates that can drift into a red zone of 94 to 105 dB At bustling New York restaurants it is common for a food reviewer to report that they cannot hear what their server is saying. These sound levels are akin to standing near the end of the runway of an American airport. Our current problem is that original equipment we were born with evolved to detect sound typical of a conversation than the roar inside a modern sports arena. Teens are especially attracted to the energy of noise, which I suspect stands in as a kind of token of independence.

Like other mammals, we were meant to aurally detect whispers, or the sounds of leaves underfoot, or the snap of a peapod when it is ready to yield the seeds inside. Nature decidedly did not evolve our hearing for the mayhem of a modern ballpark on a Saturday afternoon, or the output of a Fender 435-watt amplifier.

As as been said many times here, sonic overload in modern life is a problem. So is the assumption that listening is a throwaway skill. We don’t think we need to learn to listen, or to take steps to preserve our hearing. But most older adults who have clocked more than a few decades might tell you that an owner’s manual would have been a good idea. A life of listening at fortissimo involuntarily withers to pianissimo in later years, usually requiring electronic assists in middle age in order to still function in the culture.

                       Middle ear bones

Not only is hearing easily damaged by loud sounds, but the bones and tissues of the middle and inner ear typically don’t self-repair. In the face of a sound onslaught the best our hearing organs can do is slightly retard the bones of the middle, allowing for just a bit of protection from a sonic assault. Muscles connected to those tiny bones–the smallest in the body–can stretch to dampen loud noises to protect the fragile half-centimeter hair cells of the inner ear. But they are also easily overmatched by modern electrical and mechanical racket.

I started my brief stab as a school and college musician as a drummer, learning to use the musical artillery of a percussionist. But as I have aged, I’ve come to appreciate musical nuance, where moderate listening levels reveal inner sounds like timbres and recording room characteristics that are missed when we push hearing to its outer limits.  A good recording played at a moderate level will let you hear the wood of a string instrument, the three-octave spread of singer like Karen Carpenter, or the mellow warmth of Gary Burton’s vibraphone. We were meant to hear the quiet Westminster chimes of Big Ben quietly embedded in Ralph Vaughn William’s London Symphony, as well as the richness of Nathan East’s acoustic bass. Listen live to a pianist on a good piano and you may hear what recordings seldom catch. Even a single note triggers a range of audible overtones on the same instrument.

Overtones or “partials” give all acoustic instruments a wonderful complexity that the ear detects if not overwhelmed by other sounds.  Listen to the instruments in this clip: full and rich on their own, but also clearly in a space that functions as another instrument. There is some complex physics going on here that yields beautiful sounds.

It is also a plus to be able to sense the sound of a room. But it is heresy for most recording engineers. They want a “dry” space: acoustically the equivalent of listening to an unamplified solid-body electric guitar. No wonder musicians love the acoustic richness of most performance spaces with natural reverberation.

To be sure, very low listening levels can strip music of details and both ends of the sound spectrum. Unlike good audio equipment, our hearing is not stable and flat across all sound frequencies: a pattern sometimes known as the Fletcher-Munson effect. A listener has to find the sweet spot for hearing everything. The best experience is attained when auditory levels are less than Phil Spector’s “wall of sound,” but more than the ubiquitous background music in a public space. At some point in the middle (75 dB, or what a voice or piano in a modest-sized room might produce) quieter overtones emerge, revealing a feast of detail at levels that the ear can handle.

Developing a Default Critical Style

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arguing people

This is the most interesting kind of rhetoric, and a style to be used by anyone who wants to be a better communicator.

We think of everyday communication as the passing of information from one to another. That is often true, but listen carefully, and it is clear that more is going on. It’s one thing to receive directions for driving to a new restaurant. But its another when the “information” being passed on by a friend is, incidentally, a judgment on its quality.

Yah. I know the spot you are talking about. It’s at the corner where Awful meets Expensive. Actually, keep going straight and its about a mile on the right.

Maybe you know fewer wise guys. But we get the point. We embed attitudes, judgements, and evaluations in almost everything we say. Most of us have an endless store of descriptive adjectives to employ. Those silos never seem to be drawn down by overuse. And in the company of friends, it can be affirming to our egos to have an opinion. But everyday rhetoric that is essentially a string of opinions is its own ersatz style. And it seems to be the norm as we “converse” more and more in very truncated messages. Talk to your uncle Fred or listen to the President, both of whom should pay a surcharge for all of their dismissive one-liners. It’s too much. A few more samples:

This novelist never had an original character. End of story.

He’s a nice guy but is only good for three chords on that guitar.

Her dozens of movies in the 1950s were pretty mediocre.

Except for the Bolt, Chevy never made a good car.

The problem here is partly that we are smuggling unearning attitudes into a conversation, skipping the obligation to explain ourselves. We owe others the courtesy of having real reasons. Because we are blessed with the vast resources of ordinary language, our conversational partners deserve at least a little more substance and less attitude. A renewed obligation to explain turns what is may be a truncated introjection into a clearer critical stance.

By the use of the term “critical” here, I mean judgements and information that include useful detail. All we need is the will to do it and an interlocuter with a little patience. A person is not a drama critic if their view is represented in one simple dismissal. They are not a thoughtful judge of a musician if their efforts can be reduced to the brevity of a social media troll. Good criticism paves the way to more understanding and insight.

If we become more aware of assertions that should be explained we are using a critical style to elevate an exchange with another. We often let ourselves off the hook too easily when we offer a blustery contention that too often signals that no more need be said.

The classic film My Dinner with Andre (1981) offers a sense of what it like to use conversation to fully interrogate our thoughts. As the film suggests, good conservation is a worthy goal of two souls trying to make sense of their place in the world.

As Researcher Deborah Tannen described in the 1990s, the genders may be wired differently. With many exceptions, a pattern of clipped dismissals may still be more typical of men than women. Whether there is still a preference for opinion giving in lieu of more dialogical communication is open to debate. But I have no problem identifying male friends or even the current President with a communication style front-loaded with declarations, and final judgements: all without a hint of putting them to the test by hearing from others.

To be sure, a critical style is bound to retain loose ends and unexplored contentions, but if it is augmented with evidence and good reasons, it is a more useful way to relate to others. The style requires having the will to explain oneself rather than merely recycling one easy summation.

One route to thinking in terms of a critical style is to get in the habit by reading more thoughtful writing about areas of special interest, which could range from art or architecture, or novels and music. Critics and columnists online or in print are paid to explain their opinions. We read them because we want to hear their reasons, not just a curt thumbs up or down. This is the most interesting kind of rhetoric, and a style to be emulated by anyone who wants to be a better communicator. One-word judgments just don’t cut it.