Hearing, perhaps, but listening?
My listening habits have changed drastically over the years, but
only minimally as a result of the computer and the internet. Getting
married and having kids have had, by far, more influence. As did, I
suppose, the fact that most of my music is on record, and even with
an accessible turntable listening to music from record has become a
rather exasperating task.
Years ago, listening to music was something I did very purposefully. I'd put a record on the turntable (or later a CD) and sit quietly in a chair with my eyes closed, doing nothing other than concentrating on the music. Sometimes I knew exactly what I wanted to listen to, sometimes choosing a record was a time consuming task. It was a satisfying experience, but like most experiences of that sort, demanding. Today, for numerous reasons, I'm rarely in a position where I'm able to muster the necessary concentration to really listen. Instead, the music becomes background music. While it's playing I may read the paper, write something, or occupy myself in some other manner. Often I discover, after perhaps ten minutes, that I've forgotten that the music is playing. In situations such as this it's fair to ask whether I'm really listening.
But it's not only a case of busying myself with other tasks and thus not really concentrating on the music. It's also that the information surrounding the music often offers too many stimuli. Not too many years ago, after putting a record on the turntable the main competition with listening was the album cover itself. Reading the liner notes, interesting as they might be (and more often than not they weren't, and rarely contributed to the listening experience) was a distraction from truly listening. The digital tools available to us today offer us a plethora of additional information such that our
actual listening is in danger of becoming a secondary experience. It would appear that we're faced with an additional case of information overload.
Go to: The Complete Works.