HEARING
THE INFORMATIONAL AND THE EXPERIENTIAL
©1983 The Anstendig Institute
The
complete process of hearing consists of two basic, essentially separate
categories of phenomena:
1)
the simple act of hearing: the actual physical registration of the sound, the
conscious awareness of the sound, and the physical-emotional (the expressive)
manner in which we experience the sound, and
2)
the mental processing of that which has been experienced.
The
Anstendig Institute has, in previous papers, named these two aspects of hearing
the "experiential" and the "informational".
The
experiential is the physical aspect of hearing, which includes the following
processes: the actual registering of the sounds, i.e., the physical duplication
by our bodies of the vibrations from the source; the conscious awareness of the
sounds; and the physical-emotional (the expressive) manner in which we
experience the sound, i.e., the emotional experiences caused by the sounds. The
experiential phenomena take place simultaneously: the production of the sound
vibrations at the source, their travel through the air, their striking the body
and thus causing the body the body to vibrate i.e., the physical processes that
cause the sound to be produced by our bodies, happen causally, as a flow in
time. But the duplication of the sounds by our body, the conscious registering
of the sounds, and the emotions inherent in the sound all happen simultaneously
the instant the body duplicates the vibrations from the source as a final step
in the process. To understand why the emotional experiencing of sound happens
simultaneously with the physical registering of the sounds one must understand
that there are no abstract emotions.1 In order to experience an
emotion one's body must physically assume the characteristics of the emotion
either internally or externally. Since sound waves strike the body and cause it
to vibrate in their patterns, the vibrational characteristics of the emotion
one will experience are inherent in the manner in which the body vibrates after
being caused to vibrate by the sound-waves. And it is precisely that manner in
which the body vibrates--usually, but not necessarily, along with the physical
attitude of the body--that is the emotion one experiences.2 Thus the
emotional happens simultaneously, and as part of, the physical registering of
the sound, because the body is actually vibrating in the characteristics of the
emotion that is experienced at the time it is experienced.
The
informational takes place as a flow in time and is a sequence of events that
happen after, and are initiated by, the experiential phenomena: first the sound
is simultaneously experientially registered and consciously noticed, after
which it is mentally processed, categorized and evaluated. The mental activity
takes place sequentially over a period of time. All such activities associated
with hearing as recognizing, remembering, naming (pitches, etc.),
understanding, liking, disliking are mental activities that follow and are
dependent upon the actual hearing of the sound. Thus the experiential is
hearing itself, and the informational is the
subsequent processing in our minds of what has already been heard and
experienced. None of the informational processes are necessary in order to hear
and experience the content of sound and, in fact, it is possible to suspend
one's mental-informational activity and hear sounds, particularly those of
music, purely experientially. In most cases this is the ideal, most intense way
to hear music. That is because our consciousnesses are limited and most people
can only fully concentrate on one thing at a time. If one is mentally busy
processing what has been heard, the music continues on while one's mind is busy
with what has already happened. One is distracted from the further progress of
the music by the attention necessary for the mental activity. This problem of
hearing is characteristic of the way most people hear.
The
sounds themselves have their experiential and informational content. As sounds
flow in time they form patterns to which our bodies react in an experiential
manner. Examples would be major and minor chords, their progression from one to
the other, and the rhythms of their progression. In music, these sounds and
patterns correspond to the patterns of our own bodies, i.e., the body is put
together in such a way that, like the sounding board of a piano, it responds to
and vibrates in sympathy with external vibrations and the patterns of most
music are those to which our bodies are most sensitive and vibrate most readily
in sympathy with. The patterns in which music causes our bodies to vibrate are
those of our emotions. Thus music produces expressive emotional reactions in
us. Sound can also carry the patterns of informational communication, i.e., the
words and nuances that imply information. But the informational aspect of
hearing can be a mental activity in relation to the experiential aspects of the
sounds as well as a processing of messages and other information specifically
contained in the sounds Recognizing and evaluating emotions would be an example
of the informational, mental processing of things heard experientially. An
example of the processing of information contained in the sounds would be the
simple understanding and evaluating of the meaning of words and the messages
implied by the word patterns. Actually even words first have to be heard
experientially before one can process them informationally,
but their patterns do contain pure information.
The
experiential content of sound is the more difficult to hear because the whole
body has to duplicate the nuances of the sounds in order for one to hear them.
If one's body does not vibrate with the emotional characteristics of the
musical performance, for example, one will not experience that emotion. If the
nuances of a musical performance are finer than the vibrating of one's own
body, i.e., if one's body is vibrating more coarsely than the nuances of the
musical performance, one will not hear those nuances: the nuances will be
degraded by one's own body and one will hear either something similar but
coarser or something completely different, depending upon the attitudes and
patterns in which one's body is vibrating. An example of this is trying to brighten
up the attitude of persons who have just experienced a great tragedy. Those
persons' bodies will be in various physical attitudes of extreme distress and
unhappiness. If one were to play happy music for them, or do anything else to
try to distract them, one may eventually be successful in raising their spirits
somewhat, but they will still be hearing the expression of the music colored by
their own attitudes and w111 experience a completely different expressive
content than that of the music (for example, they might hear the music as
bittersweet instead of happy).
The
informational and the experiential are classic polarities of time and space
relationships, the informational being a function of time and the experiential
being a function of space.3 Information is processed by the spirit
(our consciousness) as a flow in time. Sounds and emotional experiences are
vibrating space. One can only be conscious of space. Of course, the polarities
are part of one thing, always are together, and cannot be separated. (To
understand the inseparable nature of polarities, think of a see-saw. One end is
up and the other is down.) One distinguishes between the two for purposes of
investigation and analysis, but they are both inseparable parts of the same
thing.4
Experiential: Informational:
space time
final (ity)
(synchronicity) causal (ity)
static dynamic
sound processes
over a period
of time
soul spirit
orientation left and right orientation up and down
horizontal vertical
emotions intellect
physical mental
receptive creative
passive active
yin yang
female principle male principle
In
considerations of hearing, the actual act of hearing has been neglected.
Whenever hearing is considered, it is the informational that is usually meant.
In music, this is particularly the case. None of the books on how to listen to
music that we have looked at explain anything about how to improve one's
hearing (one's attention span, one's ability to register nuance etc.). All of
them deal only with the informational aspects of hearing and thus are only of
value to people who already hear well. For example, they explain the formal
structure of the music, they explain what the music is supposed to express,
they explain counterpoint and harmony, and generally direct your attention to a
lot of informational aspects of music that are totally unnecessary in order to
hear and experience the music. But they do not direct you in any of the many
possibilities that can help you improve the way you actually hear the music.
In
our music schools, the instruction in ear training is really recognition
training and does not teach one in any way to hear. One is only taught how to
recognize and categorize what one has already heard. This type of instruction
deals with the informational aspect of the hearing experience, but not with
hearing itself and is only successful with people who already can hear well.
Most people need to learn how to hear before they can really benefit from this
kind of training. Better hearing acuity could be developed by means of known
disciplines that are not taught at all in these classes.4
The
situation is tragic, because there are many very talented people with much to
express but who are lacking in an understanding of how to hear acutely, and
there are many musicians with spectacular ears from the informational point of
view, but emotionally have little to express. Similarly, it is possible for one
to have excellent hearing as far as how loud one hears, but not have the
ability to concentrate or relax enough to notice very much of what is falling
on one's ears. Therefore it is possible for someone who is hard of hearing in
the sense of how loud one hears, to be more aware of sounds than a person who
hears louder.
Our
modern manner of living is no longer conducive to developing the abilities that
are necessary to hear acutely. Our present time-oriented society does not
foster the emotional aspects of life nor does it allow time to just listen. It
is important to the continued development of the human race that the
experiential aspects of hearing (and those of sight also) be specifically
fostered and cultivated because they are the most enriching of human
experiences and are the experiences capable of the finest possible nuance and
variation.
1See
our paper "Hearing Loss From Listening With Headphones", end of page
1.
2By
attitude, I mean the phyisiognomical shapes
characteristic of emotions, i.e., the mouth turned up in a smile or turned down
in a frown, and other emotional attitudes of the body.
3the
polarities of time and space are symbolized by the vertical and horizontal
lines of a cross.
The
Anstendig Institute owes the substance of its explanations of the classic
polarities to "Methodik der
Astrologischen Haeuser
und Planetenbilder n by Hermann Lefeldt,
published by the Ludwig Rudolph (witte-yerlag)~
4Techniques
of developing hearing acuity are dealt with in a separate paper.
The
Anstendig Institute is a non-profit, tax-exempt, research institute that was
founded to investigate stress-producing vibrational influences in our lives and
to pursue research in the fields of sight and sound; to provide material designed
to help the public become aware of and understand stressful vibrational
influences; to instruct the public in how to improve the quality of those
influences in their lives; and to provide research and explanations for a
practical understanding of the psychology of seeing and hearing.