Quite often when I write and play music, I’ll take my headphones off to have drink or eat.
invariably it sounds faster without headphones on, hearing it in the “background” rather than the dominant source…
then as soon as i put them on, it feels like back to before, a drop of 2+ to 3+ bpm?
what am i perceiving?
its puzzling?
That’s interesting.
I have this when listening to music in the mornings.
Everything appears to be 10 bpm too fast.
I read somewhere that dense high frequeny content will skew perception towards “faster”…
here is a paper (quite a few around) looking at tempo:
http://www.icmpc8.umn.edu/proceedings/ICMPC8/PDF/AUTHOR/MP040237.PDF
So to keep it short,
A)your headphones will emphasize different frequency content from your speakers, therefore your reception of rhythmical density might vary.
B) humans are more sensitive to treble in the morning, which might explain my experiences.
C) my alternate, personal, possible explanation: your speakers/room have bass reflections which appear to make your rhytmic perception denser. I.e. Resonances at 40-80hz giving the illusion of doubled bass patterns.
yes not makng this up, but way too mao to continue
Cheers
when I am in the shower and leave the music running I hear more of the hi hats etc, not base … with headphones the bass in emphasized, overruling the temp of the hihats …
hats in shower = fast
bass in headphones = slow
thanks for the link
haha could throw a spanner jn the “Am I a Muso” thread with this excerpt
3Two groups of subjects were
defined based on their musical background: those with more
than 10 years of musical training were called musicians;
those with less than 10 years of musical training were called
non-musicians.
Haha, yes i was thinking the same exact thing!
I’m having the EXACT same experience. Have had it for like twenty years or so.
I always figured that depending on where you are in the room - and headphones can be a room of their own, in this case - you perceive things differently. I kind of like it.
Also, when I’m listening to something I’ve recorded, just letting it play to me without me working with instrument or participating in any way, I usually feel the track is tighter and better than how I perceive it when I play. When I play, I usually think “Dear god, let it end”, but when I listen to it afterwards, I’m like “Whoa. Groovy.”
And so on and so forth.
I dont always have the afterwards “fuck yeah , groovey,” experience … but I sure know the… "let it be over " … hence playing live is kinda no motivation for me, because I already know I will be bored (plus fuck the audience) 