Turn up the silence - are iPods and other mp3 players the enemy?

Many of my students are, at times, of the impression that I deliberately try to act against their own sense of logic.  Now, to be fair, there is probably some truth to that idea, though not in the manner they identify. 

One example would be my desire for a fairly quiet learning environment.   Keep in mind that I run a music program.  A rock music program.  But here's the thing: the issue is not so much the "quiet," it's the need to be able to accurately hear everything.

This has been one of the more significant learning experiences for me in developing and facilitating the CMAS (Contemporary Music and Sound) program.  I guess I've been doing so much of this kind of work for so long that the notion of being able to really hear the details seemed kinda self-evident to me.  Apparently not.

On the other hand, it's not really the students' fault. The proliferation of iPods and mp3 players (I have a treasured iPod myself) has been a really good thing in many ways, except perhaps for one:  they create an artificial sense of auditory isolation.  I say artificial because the fact is that by listening almost exclusively in headphones a person simply does not hear the elements of the recording accurately. Not even close.  It's just the physics of it. (See my comments about crossfeeding for more on this and how to get around the problem.)

So they have learned to hear very inaccurately, and this inaccuracy has created a false sense of auditory reality when they work.  The toughest lesson I find for even my more advanced level students is the process of replacing their past auditory expectations with new, more accurate, instincts.  It takes a while, but it certainly can be done; and it's very cool when one of them takes a step forward on it, but it definitely takes some pretty serious patience to say nothing of deliberate, work on their part.

Like everything else though it is a process.  One I suppose I have become somewhat hypersensitive to.  I love my iPod but actually use it almost exclusively as part of my car audio system - I rarely use it with headphones.  In fact, now that I am so obsessed with crossfeeding, I am not certain I could use it with headphones and not go a bit nuts without some kind of CF workaround - gotta look into that I suppose.

Anyway, back to my students and my love of messing with their logic - it's really not about the silence, it's about being able to hear.  On the other hand, I always know when a student really has learned the key elements of the program: when they are able to make the distinction freely on their own.  Who knows, maybe in this case, logic is over-rated.