First of all I'm completely new to Linux and really not much of a computer person until my bf gave me a computer with linux, so please bear with me I really appreciate any help... The sound devices listed in my device manager (a bunch of em most with just question marks and no more property info) and the list that came up in terminal completely confused me so while exploring i was brought to arecordmidi and when i tried to look up the verbose this is what I got..... Can anyone tell me what this is??????????

arecordmidi version 1.0.20
Me@Mylaptop:~$ arecord -v
Recording WAVE 'stdin' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono
ALSA <-> PulseAudio PCM I/O Plugin
Its setup is:
stream : CAPTURE
access : RW_INTERLEAVED
format : U8
subformat : STD
channels : 1
rate : 8000
exact rate : 8000 (8000/1)
msbits : 8
buffer_size : 4000
period_size : 1000
period_time : 125000
tstamp_mode : NONE
period_step : 1
avail_min : 1000
period_event : 0
start_threshold : 1
stop_threshold : 4000
silence_threshold: 0
silence_size : 0
boundary : 2097152000
RIFF$�WAVEfmt 

@@data����

...then those question marks go on forevor....

??????????????What does tthis mean? Whats recording? To where?
it also said ...

Me@mylapto:~$ arecordmidi -l
Port Client name Port name
:0 Midi Through Midi Through Port-0
Me@mylaptop:~$ aplaymidi -l
Port Client name Port name
:0 Midi Through Midi Through Port-0
:0 TiMidity TiMidity port 0
:1 TiMidity TiMidity port 1
:2 TiMidity TiMidity port 2
:3 TiMidity TiMidity port 3

What is this?

It's your recorded file ;-)
You've forgotten to submit an output file name, so it puts all the recorded data to stdout.
One should always check man file before using a program for the first time. Make man arecord and man arecordmidi, there are many interesting there.