Nighttime vs. daytime listening

[ChamberNut]

You can do both. It's not one or the other.

Yup.  I agree.

[Ciel_Rouge]

And even if you do both, please provide more details so that we can all get more ideas how to listen How about listening rooms? If you happen to have one, when do you use it?

[marvinbrown]

  These days I have not been particular.  Both nighttime and daytime listening work well with me.  That said I will admit that every once in a while I prefer to listen to Romantic era music (late Beethoven -> early Richard Strauss) at nighttime!  On the other hand any time and all times during the day or night are perfect for Wagner  0:)!!  Have I confused any of you yet with this post??

  marvin

[marvinbrown]

I'm retired; my days and nights are free so I listen whenever the mood strikes. The only rule I have is: no J. S. Bach before noon. Bach in the morning is highly irritating. After noon, though, he's the greatest composer ever. 

Sarge

  Interesting Sarge, just curious is it the sound of the harpsichord that you find so offputting in the mornings??

  marvin

[Jay F]

You can do both. It's not one or the other.

You're so right. If I had to give up listening to music because I happened to be doing something else at the same time, well, I can't even imagine it. So little music would get listened to by me. Do you think I'm not listening to music as I type this (Solti/LSO, Mahler 2, DG's The Originals)?

However, I don't like to walk and listen to music at the same time. It's a physical coordination issue. I literally can't do it without falling at some point, I get so wrapped up in the music. Also, I don't like creating an outdoor memory around music, something I'm unable to keep my brain from doing.

[DavidRoss]

I'm retired; my days and nights are free so I listen whenever the mood strikes. The only rule I have is: no J. S. Bach before noon. Bach in the morning is highly irritating. After noon, though, he's the greatest composer ever.  

I love Bach in the mornings, especially works for solo keyboard, violin, or cello.  And the Brandenburgs practically define Sunday mornings for me.

Because life is too short to approach important things in a half-assed manner, pardon the expression. If you decide you want to bother with something as serious, complex, and stimulating as classical music, why not take the time to really listen so you can get the most out of it, instead of vitiating the experience by half listening to bits and pieces in the background?

Life would be unbearably dull and difficult if I had to take everything so seriously all the time.  Enjoying music as sonic wallpaper under some circumstances hardly prevents us from giving it our full attention when we wish--and I find that "subconscious" familiarization sometimes increases my ability to appreciate music.

...I reserve those "the meaning of life" symphonies for late evenings: I include Mahler 9 and 10, Bruckner 9 and Brian's Gothic in that category.

Late evenings can be as difficult for me as early afternoons immediately following lunch:  I tend toward sleepiness and my attention flags.  For "serious" listening I prefer late mornings and late afternoons or early evenings.  "Serious" listening also almost always means in the "music room" with the primary hi fi system, but there are times when respecting others mandates headphones, and by reducing potential distractions this sometimes helps me to concentrate.

"Unserious" listening (not necessarily frivolous!) when I cannot or do not want to devote my complete attention to the music can take place any time and any place: driving while listening to CDs or the radio, walking or running or flying with my iPod, playing music through the computer while working or wasting time on GMG, or just putting something on as background music while doing chores or enjoying coffee and conversation with my wife or a friend.

And, yes, some types of music do not lend themselves to casual listening but keep demanding my attention:  The Rite of Spring, for instance, vs. Eine kleine Nachtmusik.  

[Mark G. Simon]

For me, listening to music is something that pretty much has to happen in the evening. During weekdays, there's that job that I have to go to, after which I have to eat dinner, then practice. Then a composition may demand my attention: maybe editing a score, or creating parts. Creative work pretty much has to happen on weekends, so that means Saturday and Sunday mornings are not available for listening, and afternoons are needed for practicing, so I'm still not going to be able to listen to music until some time in the evening.

[Bogey]

A generalization, of course:

Baroque and Classical in the mornings on weekends.  On Sundays we have four hours of classical radio my wife and I enjoy.   2 hours (7-11) of Sacred Classics and 2 hours of the Baroque Show (http://www.kvod.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=249).  A Bach Cantata also really hits the spot on Sunday mornings.    Afternoons on the weekends are for the more booming pieces that test the strength of our windows.  

On weekdays, it changes a bit.  In the mornings (6-8) I have lately been listening to opera.  I do not have much, but the discs I have are getting some serious play time.  Afternoons at work are now music free (very new for me) and I eat lunch with the same colleague each day.  We usually discuss what we read during our earlier in the week Bible study.  Then talk radio on the way home.  Usually NPR, unless there is a baseball game on.  

At night, (seven days a week) I tend to enjoy the more lush Romantic pieces, especially right before bed around 10.  Something along the lines of Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings comes to mind.

However, I do reserve Ravel's and Fauré's solo piano works for early rainy mornings.

[Sergeant Rock]

  Interesting Sarge, just curious is it the sound of the harpsichord that you find so offputting in the mornings??

  marvin

I don't ever listen to Bach on the harpsichord (yeah, I know how you feel...sorry  ) so it isn't that. It's the complexity of Bach's music that I can't handle that early in the day. I've never been a morning person (making my choice of a military career rather illogical given the fact a soldier's day usually starts around 4:30 or 5 a.m.). My brain doesn't start functioning at full capacity until afternoon. One of the greatest pleasures of Bach's music is following the contrapuntal argument...and I find that too taxing in the morning. In the morning I prefer the music of the Classical period, especially Mozart...or Dittersdorf: he's definitely not too taxing 

Sarge

[Grazioso]

Life would be unbearably dull and difficult if I had to take everything so seriously all the time.  Enjoying music as sonic wallpaper under some circumstances hardly prevents us from giving it our full attention when we wish--and I find that "subconscious" familiarization sometimes increases my ability to appreciate music.

I don't--and don't recommend--taking "everything so seriously all the time," but some things really cry out for special attention, and that includes great works of art. Inability or unwillingness to pay real attention to the masterworks of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, et al. means you'll necessarily be cheating yourself of what they have to offer. I'm sure it can be fun to just sort of half listen while you're doing your homework, but to me that's ultimately a waste of time and detracts from focusing on either fully. It turns the music into mere noise--hopefully pleasant noise, but for me at least, it would run the real risk of making it a nuisance. (There's enough noise bombardment in my life already, and the last thing I want to do is take a great symphony of Bruckner and turn it into half-heard noise jabbering at me in the background while I do other things.) And I doubt Brahms or Wagner or Debussy intended their major pieces to be listened to as Muzak, but surely hoped that sympathetic and informed listeners would take their work seriously and really pay attention the nuances, really study it, really open themselves up to its emotional message. If indeed they were great geniuses, why not pay their work the proper respect of actively listening to it?

I don't see that alternatively listening to it as background sonic wallpaper will do much for me or my appreciation of their work. That said, I'm not sitting there with furrowed brow and turning beet red with laser-like concentration every time I listen to classical music I know that a piece can suddenly grab me for the first time when I just relax and try to take it in as a whole without unduly focusing on the details. But I'm still giving it my attention and not simultaneously doing a bunch of other stuff that divides my mind and emotions.

[DavidRoss]

Inability or unwillingness to pay real attention to the masterworks of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, et al. means you'll necessarily be cheating yourself of what they have to offer. I'm sure it can be fun to just sort of half listen while you're doing your homework, but to me that's ultimately a waste of time and detracts from focusing on either fully. It turns the music into mere noise--hopefully pleasant noise, but for me at least, it would run the real risk of making it a nuisance.

As Dave and others have already pointed out, hearing Yo Yo Ma playing one of Bach's cello suites in the background while browsing at your local bookstore (do any local bookstores still exist?) hardly precludes serious listening on other occasions.  None here have disputed that focused listening pays dividends; some claim to also enjoy unfocused listening, a pastime that hardly merits reprimanding them as boors.

Have you never noticed that sometimes the unconscious part of your mind is more perceptive than the conscious part?  That intuition may effortlessly grasp what conscious effort struggles to explain?  An intellectual might hear a piece of music, count beats to determine the meter, compare knowledge of the music's time with the time in which the music was written, and conclude that it has a dance rhythm.  The non-intellectual simply knows that immediately by his body's unconscious recognition of the composer's intention, though he might not know or care whether it's a jig or a minuet.

[marvinbrown]

I don't ever listen to Bach on the harpsichord (yeah, I know how you feel...sorry  ) so it isn't that. It's the complexity of Bach's music that I can't handle that early in the day. I've never been a morning person (making my choice of a military career rather illogical given the fact a soldier's day usually starts around 4:30 or 5 a.m.). My brain doesn't start functioning at full capacity until afternoon. One of the greatest pleasures of Bach's music is following the contrapuntal argument...and I find that too taxing in the morning. In the morning I prefer the music of the Classical period, especially Mozart...or Dittersdorf: he's definitely not too taxing 

Sarge

Very good answer Sarge! Some of Bach's music is highly complex and perhaps too taxing for a morning listen.  The Art of Fugue comes to mind!!

  marvin

[Grazioso]

As Dave and others have already pointed out, hearing Yo Yo Ma playing one of Bach's cello suites in the background while browsing at your local bookstore (do any local bookstores still exist?) hardly precludes serious listening on other occasions.  None here have disputed that focused listening pays dividends; some claim to also enjoy unfocused listening, a pastime that hardly merits reprimanding them as boors.

Have you never noticed that sometimes the unconscious part of your mind is more perceptive than the conscious part?  That intuition may effortlessly grasp what conscious effort struggles to explain?  An intellectual might hear a piece of music, count beats to determine the meter, compare knowledge of the music's time with the time in which the music was written, and conclude that it has a dance rhythm.  The non-intellectual simply knows that immediately by his body's unconscious recognition of the composer's intention, though he might not know or care whether it's a jig or a minuet.

I for one never reprimanded anyone or called them boors.

Anyway, you're conflating or confusing intellectual analysis with focused attention. I'm not recommending that one exclusively "study" a piece with intellectual rigor, but rather that you put yourself in a state where you can be most receptive to a piece both emotionally and intellectually, where both your conscious and subconscious aspects can take it in fully instead of dividing your mind and emotions across other things. Would you go to see a performance of Hamlet with the world's greatest actors and read the Sunday paper through the performance? You could do it, and you might get something from both, but I'm positive you won't get as much from either as you otherwise could. My point is, why bother to do such a thing? Why lessen the potential of both experiences? Why not focus one on or the other so you can get the most out of each? I for one would rather have silence to refocus my heart and mind for the time when I'll really get to sit down and listen and get the most from music than to do a bunch of half-baked, multi-tasking listening part of the time and then try to listen with focus later.

[Ciel_Rouge]

I see we are drifting away from nighttime vs. daytime towards background vs. focused here. I hope this will not turn into a ping-pong thread ;-) I am merely looking for inspiration to start listening in other ways than I currently do and I am also curious about the habits of other listeneres and speaker owners in particular as I currently own none and do my listening exclusively on the DAP (the computer setup has a lof of shortcomings so I do not do much listening on my computer either ).

So, how about air conditioning in your listening rooms? Does it interfere? Is there a good way to have an excellent isolated listening room that sounds great but also have decent airflow etc. even if it lacks windows?

By the way, I am currently reading this excellent book on spatial accoustics:

http://www.amazon.com/Spaces-Speak-Are-You-Listening/dp/0262026058/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237400574&sr=8-1

which makes me very excited about the possibilites I might have once I get a decent pair of speakers as well It may not be very intuitive, but a situation where you have the organ playing in a cathedral and using the whole structure as a resonator is sort of vaguely similar to having speakers taking advantage of the dimensions and accoustic characteristics of a good listening room. After all, speakers are "sort of" like instruments playing - only that they are electro-accoustic and do not allow for active playing and just "reproduce" the soundwaves of a given piece recorded earlier.

[George]

So, how about air conditioning in your listening rooms? Does it interfere? Is there a good way to have an excellent isolated listening room that sounds great but also have decent airflow etc. even if it lacks windows?

I usually run the A/C overnight and when I start listening, shut it off.

[Superhorn]

  There is only one work which I prefer to hear at night, and that's Mahler's supremely noctural symphony no 7, sometimes called the"Song Of The Night".
  It just doesn't sound right unless I listen to a recording at night.
  The Solti/CSO recording on Decca has yet to be surpassed, although there are some other fine recordings by Levine and Abbado,also with the CSO, and Barenboim with the Staatskapelle,Berlin.

[Frumaster]

Why not? The music doesn't mind.

But your brain does.  Don't cheat yourself by putting great music in the background.

I'm retired; my days and nights are free so I listen whenever the mood strikes. The only rule I have is: no J. S. Bach before noon. Bach in the morning is highly irritating. After noon, though, he's the greatest composer ever. 

Sarge

I prefer Bach in the mornings...jump starts my brain.

[orbital]

But your brain does.  Don't cheat yourself by putting great music in the background.

It's not cheating (at least not for everyone). There are so many great things in the world, and their greatness is partly due to the fact that we do not have to give our full attention to appreciate them. I don't have to actively listen to Beethoven's 6th symph to realize what a great piece of music it is. For me, the trick is to be actively aware of music even when it is playing in the background.

[Frumaster]

It's not cheating (at least not for everyone). There are so many great things in the world, and their greatness is partly due to the fact that we do not have to give our full attention to appreciate them. I don't have to actively listen to Beethoven's 6th symph to realize what a great piece of music it is. For me, the trick is to be actively aware of music even when it is playing in the background.

Point taken.  But wouldn't you agree that by not giving music your full attention, you may miss some important subtleties?  If you listen to it enough times in the background, I'm sure it will all eventually sink in...but thats an inefficient approach.  There are also some pieces which you may never be able to appreciate without intense listening and analysis.  Art can be challenging and great, and in many cases the two are not mutually exclusive.  Intellectual stimulation is one of the reasons to love concert music.

[DavidRoss]

How many times and in how many ways do how many different people here have to patiently explain that enjoying music without giving it one's full attention does NOT preclude also listening to music while giving it full attention when desired?  Why is this concept so difficult for some to grasp?  It ain't rocket science.