Are we all hearing the same things?
In the beginning of the article, David Dunn writes, "coherence is finite." We live in an enormous, complex world, but due to our limited capacities to experience things, we will never truly understood just how big the world really is. Instead, we all live in our own little worlds. And even those can feel enormous at times.
One thing I felt deeply connected to when reading Dunn's piece was how he described the purpose of music. Dunn writes that he wonders if music is "our way of mapping reality through metaphors of sound." I wholeheartedly agree that music is a tool that people use to make better sense of their world. I also believe music exposes the difference between hearing and listening.
As Dunn describes in the article, hearing is a physical act that occurs when sound waves enter the ear and send messages to the brain, which we perceive as noise. Although the source of that noise may be constant, the way individuals hear that noise can be different. For example, a long-time musician might hear a song and unconsciously pick up on elements that a novice listener would not pick up on. It's important to remember that hearing is subjective for a number of reasons.
Listening is the conscious aspect of sensing noise. Listening requires attention and reflection - that's how we can use music and other sounds to make sense of our own world. This is why I can listen to "Driver's License" by Olivia Rodrigo and feel the heartbreak of young love, but when my dad listens to it, he doesn't connect with it at all.
A noise may be a collection of vibrations, but it's also a tool we use to feel things, to better understand our world. That is why sound making is such an important aspect of the art world.
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