This is one of two interlocking pairs of terms (ordinary/practical is the other one) related to reduced listening and to the quatre écoutes in Schaefferian theory.
- Natural listening is the "main and primitive tendency to use sound for information about the event" and it is expressed in the question: "What is it? Who is it? What is happening?" It corresponds, therefore, to écouter in the quatre écoutes.
- Cultural listening "turns away...(without ceasing to hear it) from the sound event and the circumstances which it reveals about its source and uses it as a means to grasp a message, a meaning, values" and is analogous with the quatre écoutes mode, comprendre. (Paraphrase of Michel Chion (1983). Guide des Objets Sonores. Eds. Buchet/Chastel, Paris. 1995 translation by John Dack/Christine North.)