“Are you really listening to the music – paying attention to the lyrics or listening to the individual instruments – or are you just hearing it?”
I will guess that Gizmo Cat is listening to the music, and that it’s the embroidery that she has done so much of that it has become automatic.
What becomes automatic depends very much on both the individual and the amount of practice. Even very complex tasks can become automatic. I’m especially reminded of two different orchestra directors, who each had the habit of studying the score for the next night’s performance while conducting the current performance.
Not entirely true. I can do things that I’ve learned to do “automatically” — without conscious thought — at the same time as I’m doing something that requires thought. E.g., I can walk alongside of a person with whom I’m having a conversation.
‘Mike’ was in “the early days of radio”… and also much later. I never saw ‘mic’ used for ‘microphone’ until at least the 1990s. Groups I performed with recorded in three different studios in the 1980s, and one in the 1960s.
“Are you really listening to the music – paying attention to the lyrics or listening to the individual instruments – or are you just hearing it?”
I will guess that Gizmo Cat is listening to the music, and that it’s the embroidery that she has done so much of that it has become automatic.
What becomes automatic depends very much on both the individual and the amount of practice. Even very complex tasks can become automatic. I’m especially reminded of two different orchestra directors, who each had the habit of studying the score for the next night’s performance while conducting the current performance.