Andrew Hugill is a British Composer and Academic. His recent work on his 2022 Aural Diversity presents how humans, physiological and physical build; the complexities in which we embody all affect the way we hear and listen.
His book focuses on and informs all the known hearing differences humans can adopt.
This shows how most of us do not have “normal hearing”. I found this graph fascinating as it tells me how and why certain sounds and aesthetics sonically stand out to others.
It is obvious and clear by the divide in genres of music that humans develop their own tastes and opinions on certain sounds throughout life. Some people find ASMR relaxing whereas others find it uncomfortable to listen to. Across the world, no human stands the same and everyone prefers different things. After researching Andrew Hugill’s work I came to the conclusion that hearing differences are a key factor in sonic diverse taste. Despite environmental and emotional attachment to certain sounds, I believe that we hear things differently from each other due to hearing differences. This will affect the physiological response that we have to certain sounds resulting in genre boundaries and other diversity in the sound world.
I found His work fascinating and will definitely reference his studies in my own up-and-coming work regarding the way we listen.