For all the years I’ve been playing music…

For all the classical concerts I’ve seen…

I’ve finally realized why, when I listen to similar music on stereo or headphones, I sometimes have to flip the left/right channels.

Most of the time I listen to music, it’s from being on stage with the orchestra. In this case, I’m facing out toward the house, so the cellos are on my left and violins my right. When I’m watching a concert, I’m looking toward the stage, so in this case, I can see that the cellos are on my right and violins left.  However, when just listing to the music on CD or headphones, I don’t have the visual marker of where the instruments are, so my brain tries to adjust to my “normal” mode which is from a players perspective, so I need to flip the channels to adjust and make everything sound correct.

The brain is a funny thing.