I saw this answer that says that we use hear for sounds that come to our ears, without us necessarily trying to hear them, and we use listen to describe paying attention to sounds that are going on.
Now does that mean that I can use "hear" also for music if I don't want it? (For example: "I heard music there" (=I didn't want it) Vs. "I listened to music." (I wanted it).
Also I noticed that always when people communicating through phones, they very often say "I hear you" or "I can't hear you". Now, based on this answer both (hear and listen) are possible for use, depending on the context. Isn't it?
Best Answer
That website you quoted is right. In general, we can think of the action of hearing as passive listening. Consider these two hypothetical situations involving a phone conversation:
In this scenario, it's not your fault that you couldn't hear what the person on the other end was saying. You couldn't hear him because of a technical issue.
In this situation, it is now your fault that you couldn't hear the other person. You had all the potential to listen to your interlocutor, but you weren't because you were busy doing something else.
And the same thing, of course, applies to situations when we're talking about music: