Listening is Better Understood with: Minds, Milieux, Machines & Musics

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding listening as a four-way interaction in-and-between minds, milieux, machines, and musics. Building on cognitive, ecological, computational, and cultural approaches to sound, we explore how each of these elements contributes uniquely to auditory experience and interpretation. Minds bring perceptual, cognitive, and emotional grounding; milieux provide ecological and sociocultural contexts; machines offer tools for sensing, modeling, and synthesis in sonic environments; and musics embody structured forms of human expression and shared aesthetic meanings. Through pairwise and three-way analyses, we identify the pitfalls of excluding any one component—leading to disembodiment, inefficiency, or cultural disconnection. We advocate for a transdisciplinary synthesis that situates listening within networks of perception, technology, and environment. Our goal is to recenter listening as a reflexive, situated, and multiscalar practice across disciplines.