Hearing / Listening

[Fweethawt]

A fellow coworker and I are having an argument pertaining to the difference between 'hearing' and 'listening' as the two relate to music whether it be instrumental or lyrical.

 

Let's all open this can'o worms and see where it gets us.

 

This could get ugly.

 

The two of us just finished an argument (for now) that actually generated a crowd around our desks.

 

 

So, what's the difference between hearing and listening as it relates to music (instrumental and lyrical) ?

 

 

Let's hear it, you brainiacs. I'm listening...

 

[bush country]

Ok, I'll give it a shot.

 

Listening is: paying attention to, being into, involved in the music. It may include evoking certain emotions or memories from other times.

 

Hearing is: the sound waves are striking my eardrums, so I know there is noise, but it doesn't really register.

 

Analogy: I told my wife that if she wants me to pay attention and remember what she tells me, be sure I'm looking at her when she speaks. If I'm watching tv, on the computer, or reading and she speaks to me, the sound registers but I cannot remember anything she said. I may "hear" her, but I am not "listening" unless she has my full attention.

[crazy-tiger]

Ok, I'll give it a shot.

 

Listening is: paying attention to, being into, involved in the music. It may include evoking certain emotions or memories from other times.

 

Hearing is: the sound waves are striking my eardrums, so I know there is noise, but it doesn't really register.

 

Analogy: I told my wife that if she wants me to pay attention and remember what she tells me, be sure I'm looking at her when she speaks. If I'm watching tv, on the computer, or reading and she speaks to me, the sound registers but I cannot remember anything she said. I may "hear" her, but I am not "listening" unless she has my full attention.

Frankly, I can't put it any better...

[Fweethawt]

Frankly, I can't put it any better...

Heck, you can't even see that that person's name isn't "Frankly", either. I'm looking for better input than that...

 

 

 

 

Seriously though, c'mon people, let's hear some opinions here. Even the dictionary has these two a little bit mixed up/blended together. I just want to read some serious opinions on this. That's all.

[Vigile]

I'll give it a shot:

 

Listening, is as Bush Country noted.

 

The human body is bombarded with a plethora of data at any given moment, via touch, smell, hearing, sight, etc... The brain is such that it allows us to filter out the noise of these data and necessarily focus. Hearing is the input of data, but not necessarily focus on that data.

 

Does that work?

[Antlerman]

So, what's the difference between hearing and listening as it relates to music (instrumental and lyrical) ?

 

 

Let's hear it, you brainiacs. I'm listening...

 

Well it's clear that this person is trying to say that instrumental music is just "background" music, and he is therefore "hearing" it but not listening to it. First of all, being a lover of jazz and classical music I listen to mostly instrumental music - so I always focus on the music, much more so than lyrical music actually. I don't just "hear" it in the background. But aside from this question of tastes, it really comes down to context and adopted usage and the words can be taken either way.

 

"Are you hearing me?" Means 'are you comprehending me'.

"Are you listening to me?" Means 'are you paying attention to what I'm saying?" Suggesting, "Are you comprehending me?"

 

Same thing really. But in the context, "I can hear that music playing on the radio in the other room, but I'm not listening to it," means 'I'm not paying attention to it'. In the way we use it in our culture it sounds right this way. If you were to say, "I'm listening to that music in the other room, but I'm not hearing it," that doesn't make a lot of sense. You would saying "I'm trying to listen to that music in the other room, but I'm not hearing it".

 

So it's really context and usage, even thought listening and hearing could be used interchangably in the sense of comprehension because of suggested meaning in the context. Language evolves this way.

 

Tell them they need to develope their tastes in music a little better to include compositions that don't feature the human voice. Turn that pop station off and start listening to music.

[pandora]

I hear music in the elevator or the grocery store. I am not involved in the music and it is just background noise.

 

I listen to music in my car. I become intimately involved with the crescendos, lyrics, and mood of the music.

 

 

Same goes for listening to vs. hearing someone talk. The distinction is pretty clear to me, even if the official dictionary clouds the definitions of the two, I think most people make this same distinction in common usage.

 

Perhaps this is a distinction that only those of us who have played music can really relate to, I don't know. Or maybe you just aren't capable of merely hearing music, Fwee.

[white_raven23]

As everyone else has already mentioned, hearing refers to the physical capacity to perceive sound.

 

Listening is what the brain does with the sound. How it interprests it based on that brain's experience.

 

The best example I can think of....I've hear this story before, of people who were physically present when a gun was fired for malicious intent. I've heard these people have later been known to suddenly find themselves hitting the dirt in reaction to a similar sound after the incident, while people around them do not react in a similar fashion.

 

That is of course, an extreme example. But the emotional interpretations of music between two different people are just as likely to be as varied in response as the crowd of people all hearing a gunshot, and a third or fewer of them hit the floor while others remain standing.

[Robbobrob]

When I just hear music, I may acknowledge that a group of instruments are playing, even recognize the top most melody, but not much else.

 

When I really listen to music, I can hear the singers words, I can feel the bass drums rhythmn, I can hear the bass guitar playing a counter melody to the lead guitars. When I listen, I can pick part the individual pieces and hear each separate from the whole.

 

When I hear music, I may only hear the collective sound, and the overall pleasing (or not so pleasing) effect it has over me.

[Amethyst]

A lot of people hear music because it's in the background, but they're not paying attention to it. If you really want to listen to the music, such as going to a concert or orchestra or something, you're going to be actively focused on the music and not multi-tasking.

 

I have also know people to use "listen" to mean "agree with everything they say" when they talk, because if you don't agree with them, you must not be listening to them.

[R. S. Martin]

I have also know people to use "listen" to mean "agree with everything they say" when they talk, because if you don't agree with them, you must not be listening to them.

 

I'm glad you brought up this meaning. I thought perhaps it's just a Germanized English nuance. In German we use a word that would be transliterated "harken, as in "harken unto me!" In other words, "Do as I tell you!" A teacher might say, "The children didn't listen to me at all today." By this, the teacher would not mean that the children did not hear and understand instructions for their lessons. The teacher would mean that the children did not obey the rules, or respond positively to spoken warnings.

[Legion]

For what it's worth here's my take...

 

Hearing is little more than an acknowledgment that there is sound there. It's a passive/reactive sort of response.

 

Listening on the other hand entails more participation. It's a pro-active/anticipatory engagment.

[pitchu]

A seismograph "heard" the earthquake. The people racing to brace themselves in door jambs "listened" to it.

[.god]

I think of "to listen" as implying an active action, while "to hear" as implying a passive action.

As in : "At night I carefully crept through the old house listening to the ghosts" as opposed to "At night I carefully crept through the old house hearing the ghosts"

 

"Listen" is almost always preceeded by a subject and followed by a preoposition or an adjective.

"Hear" can be preceeded by a subject and followed by an object.

 

I'm a bit rusty on my english... but,

a quick check with the dictionary lists "listen" as an intransitive verb, while "hear" can be both a transitive or intransitive verb.

By definition, an intransitive cannot take a direct object, while an intransitive verb is incomplete without a direct object.

[Fweethawt]

Just like I thought... It's not something that's crystal clear the way I thought it would be.

 

Either way, it seems as though most of you view the differences the same way that I do.

[Onyx]

I hear and listen with my eyes. I just "hear" my surroundings by glancing all over it, tuning out from the Principal's speech and lazily looking at the procession of the crowds or herds. I "listen" by focusing my eyes on one particular thing or a person signing or reading subtitles or a book or analysing a work of art. It's extraordinarily hard and rare for me to actually listen and hear in the conventional way but it can be done and was done on some occasions.

 

For me, books, poems, films and art is my usual "aural" drugs.

[HuaiDan]

No medical definition here, but if sound impulses are processed by the auditory cortex of the brain alone, I'd say that qualifies as hearing. If it's processed by the frontal cortex in some way, I'd say that would qualify as listening.