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Comment on White noise improves learning by modulating activity in midbrain regions (2014)parent

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Why does someone that listens to classical hear harmonics (I'm still not sure whether you mean tonal harmonies or harmonics aka timbre) better than someone who doesn't?

Sure, maybe they'd be better at picking out a bassoon in the mix than a metal fan, and a metal fan might be able to tell the difference between a Jackson guitar and a ESP guitar than the classical fan, but that's just due to familiarity, not their overall sense of hearing.

I don't think any serious musician would agree with you whether you're talking harmony or harmonics. However, listening to music in general will definitely allow you to hear different harmonic intervals better than if you didn't, but this is again just due to familiarity/ear training and doesn't overlap into your overall ability to hear.

We just use mnemonics. For example, Amen = 4th twinkle twinkle = 5th NBC = 6th etc.

Hearing is a process that extends from your ear all the way through your brain. The hard line you think exists between “hear” and “familiarity” or “ear training” doesn’t exist. The last few years I’ve been spending around Vietnamese, and while I still speak relatively little of it, I’ve been able to slowly adjust to be able to separate out sounds and words that previously sounded like one big mess.

And that's something completely different. Language and music use similar parts of the brain, but you're just mashing audio perception together in a way that just isn't related and is not what the article is talking about.

You’re being overly strict in defining a general word, in a way that worsens understanding.

We aren’t computers with parts. There isn’t a microphone connected to a DSP, there’s a neural net on every level from signal processing up to whole experience.

When someone says “hear” they mean almost all of that pipeline, not just the mic quality.

Picking out a bassoon in the mix is hearing better, at the level that matters.

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