Balance between known and new music

[Henk]

With so many music available through free services like Spotify and Rdio I can't keep pace with all the new stuff I acquire anymore.

I think there should be some balance between known and unknown (new) music. I should obtain myself a diet.

My listenings are already split up since there are different mediums: cd's, online streaming, mp3's. That helps a bit, since it restricts one's listenings. You should at least keep pace with what you have purchased (that's already hard).

How to handle all that new stuff? How to decide what to listen and what to purchase? How to balance new and known stuff?

I almost get stressed!

Probably get to live with it. Take the uncomfortabelism for granted. It could actually get better that way (with reference to Nietzsche).

(This topic could as well be placed in the Diner, since it also applies to non-classical listening)

[aukhawk]

I dunno - it's good to be adventurous and learn stuff I suppose, but if I'm spending time listening to music, I actually feel it's time wasted unless it's very good music very well played.  But then, I've been listening for over 50 years, so I know what i like.

[DavidW]

I think that just because a great multitude of recordings are easily available does not mean that we are obligated to listen. 

When it comes to other media (books, video) there is a definitive beginning and end and most of us don't reread or rewatch the same way that we relisten to music.  That means that once we choose a book or a movie we ignore the rest until we are done with that experience.  But what defines being done with listening to a recording?  When should we move on?  That openendedness that naturally occurs in music listening defines a spectrum of obsessiveness on one side, and the casual single listen on the other.  Striking a balance is personal and depends on both the listener and the music.

My simple solution: I move onto something else when I'm bored.  I come back when I want to, if I want to.  It seems to work well.

[Brian]

Last year, following a new year's resolution, I made 250 listens to living composers and 1,200 listens to works I had never heard before. That's an average of about three first listens per day, which is absolutely bananas. This year I'm on a pace for 550, which obviously is a huge drop from last year, but equally obviously, is still a huge number.

There are still many, many repertoire masterworks which I have not heard and which will be "new" to me. This is on purpose; I want to have something new to discover in later years. Last week saw my first-ever listens to Bluebeard's Castle and Bruckner's Fifth.

I think a goal of listening to something new once a day, as simple and silly as it sounds, helps create a positive balance.

[amw]

That reminds me of a thread idea I had, brought on by an absolutely shocking (unbelievable, really) realisation I came to recently.

My listening, in the past few months, has become something like 85% streamed, 15% owned. This enables me to listen to lots of new music, as well as offers access to lots of different recordings of pieces I already know (which is generally a good thing as I don't want to hear the same performance every time as a rule). It has also caused me to nearly stop buying music, giving me a chance to catch up on those 6000 iTunes tracks I've never actually listened to (closer to 4500 now).

Of course when you listen to as much music as I do one can't just sort things into "new" and "known": it's more like "new", "heard this before but not often enough to remember it well", "heard sometimes when I'm in the right mood", "heard often, still working my way through it", "know it by heart". I'd say the vast majority of the music I listen to falls into either the second or last categories.

[DavidW]

I think a goal of listening to something new once a day, as simple and silly as it sounds, helps create a positive balance.

Well balanced to you, barking mad to me.  I don't see the point in listening to something new every day.  A work won't be fully understood with a single listen.  On that spectrum I outlined, you're completely on one end, just dabbling.  Breadth vs depth.

[Brian]

Well balanced to you, barking mad to me.  I don't see the point in listening to something new every day.  A work won't be fully understood with a single listen.  On that spectrum I outlined, you're completely on one end, just dabbling.  Breadth vs depth.

I don't see it that way. Of course, I also don't listen to a new work that's major and gigantic very often, because there's comparatively less stuff that's major and gigantic. For example, on a recent day, my first listen was a set of piano pieces by Joseph Jongen, which were terrific. I enjoyed them very much and plan to listen again. Monday's first listen was a Zemlinsky song cycle.

You have to remember that I stream music on NML every day at work, for probably 5-6 hours, in addition to whatever free time I have for serious, concentrated listening on the big stuff. I take care not to "learn" really important new works at the office, because that's just not possible. Usually it's old familiar favorites, piano and chamber music especially.

[Karl Henning]

Well balanced to you, barking mad to me.  I don't see the point in listening to something new every day.  A work won't be fully understood with a single listen.  On that spectrum I outlined, you're completely on one end, just dabbling.  Breadth vs depth.

I think you each have a point, and that those several points can be harmonized.

While I don't think it's sustainable (from a mental health standpoint, per Davey) to do a new work every day longer-term, why not do so periodically?  Certainly listening to something new on a weekly basis is sustainable.

And while Davey is right, too, that a fine piece of music will not yield up all its soul upon a single listen — you don't get to multiple listens, without a first listen.

[DavidW]

why not do so periodically? 

Starting with that long list of major works that you somehow have not listened to yet!

[Karl Henning]

Starting with that long list of major works that you somehow have not listened to yet!

Gaaah, every day?

[Sammy]

Last year, following a new year's resolution, I made 250 listens to living composers and 1,200 listens to works I had never heard before. That's an average of about three first listens per day, which is absolutely bananas. This year I'm on a pace for 550, which obviously is a huge drop from last year, but equally obviously, is still a huge number.

There are still many, many repertoire masterworks which I have not heard and which will be "new" to me. This is on purpose; I want to have something new to discover in later years. Last week saw my first-ever listens to Bluebeard's Castle and Bruckner's Fifth.

I think a goal of listening to something new once a day, as simple and silly as it sounds, helps create a positive balance.

Each of us has our own listening routine.  I assume Brian's works for him; if I were doing something similar, it would be time to get me to the institution.  My routine is that I listen to what I want and when I want; then I move on. 

Concerning balance, I don't give it any thought.  Well, I am thinking about it now and assume I create the balance that appeals to me.

[Todd]

My routine is that I listen to what I want and when I want; then I move on. 

I like that routine.

[Jay F]

Well balanced to you, barking mad to me.  I don't see the point in listening to something new every day.  A work won't be fully understood with a single listen.  On that spectrum I outlined, you're completely on one end, just dabbling.  Breadth vs depth.

I thoroughly agree. I listen to what I want to listen to. I don't listen to what I don't want to listen to. I gave up on the "What are you listening to now?" thread years ago, because I usually listen relatively obsessively to some particular body of work for months on end. If I were to answer the question "What are you listening to now?" every day, nine times out of ten, you would observe that I'm listening to the same thing I listened to yesterday.

This month it's the Box Tops/Big Star/Alex Chilton. Most of this year it was the Beatles. Most of last year, it was Shostakovich (among other chamber music). And then there's Mahler. There is always Mahler. There was Mahler before rap, before the Box Tops. There is Mahler now in addition to rap. Though we have yet to reach the era we will be able to call post-rap, when we do, Mahler will be there waiting for me.

There will always be Mahler.

[EigenUser]

I thoroughly agree. I listen to what I want to listen to. I don't listen to what I don't want to listen to. I gave up on the "What are you listening to now?" thread years ago, because I usually listen relatively obsessively to some particular body of work for months on end. If I were to answer the question "What are you listening to now?" every day, nine times out of ten, you would observe that I'm listening to the same thing I listened to yesterday.

I'm so glad to hear that someone else is (probably) as obsessive/repetitive as I am when it comes to music! I thought I was the only one.

This is exactly why I don't post there very often. I generally post there if I am (1) listening to something new and hope to spark a discussion or (2) to occasionally poke fun at myself for said repetitiveness (e.g. posting my Ligeti PC listening in the morning sometimes). Recently it has been Messiaen, Feldman, Haydn, Ockeghem, Messiaen, Ohana, some Ligeti, Mahler, and Messiaen. That doesn't necessarily mean I like them more than every other composer (though they'd all appear on a top 20 list, I think). I suspect Beethoven and Bruckner are around the corner, but I could be wrong.

[Jay F]

I suspect Beethoven and Bruckner are around the corner, but I could be wrong.

And you'll get there when you get there.

[aukhawk]

A work won't be fully understood with a single listen.

Understood - well maybe not. 
But we have to remember that (to pick an example at random) when Mahler published his 2nd Symphony, it would be in the expectation that a typical concert-goer might hear it once or maybe twice in their lives.  Music just wasn't written to be 'understood' through repeated hearings.

This doesn't really change until the 2nd half of last century.  Then, yes, composers know (hope?) that their music will be recorded and replayed in this way.  Slightly ironic then, that one of the major innovations in musical language in that time is the looping music of Reich & co - we now have a recursive world of repetition within repetition, and the funny thing is, that to 'understand' Reich's music you really do have to listen to it several times.

[DavidW]

Music just wasn't written to be 'understood' through repeated hearings.

Music isn't written that way today either.  I'm not Bach, I can't fully appreciate a great fugue the first time I listen.  I don't see the point of your post.  I'm not going to pretend that I'm in the 18th century when I'm sitting in my air conditioned living room listening to a cd on speakers.

The wonderful thing about technology is that it allows us to listen to a work as much as we want whenever we want.  Why pretend otherwise? 

The people that make the recordings practice their performances many times over and the conductor spends considerable time studying the score thinking over his or her interpretation.  Listeners and musicians can return to these works later in life and see that it means something else to them.  Just because the only venue some of these composers had was a single concert performed by underprepared musicians does not mean that great classical masterpieces were written for anyone to fully grasp and appreciate them on a single listen.  We are not talking pop music here.

You do what you want, and Brian can do what he wants, but I will take advantage of recordings.  I will listen to Beethoven's late string quartets in perpetuity. 

[Karl Henning]

Understood - well maybe not. 
But we have to remember that (to pick an example at random) when Mahler published his 2nd Symphony, it would be in the expectation that a typical concert-goer might hear it once or maybe twice in their lives.  Music just wasn't written to be 'understood' through repeated hearings.

But there were LvB's late quartets.  I do, in fact, think that:

1. There is music written which the composer means for us to listen to several times, i.e., music which we are not meant to "comprehend" on one hearing.

2. There is music written which (as you observe) it was probably not practical for the average listener to here more than once;  and yet, is made to withstand repeated hearing (as it were).

. . . for just two possibilities . . . .

[Jay F]

Music isn't written that way today either.  I'm not Bach, I can't fully appreciate a great fugue the first time I listen.  I don't see the point of your post.  I'm not going to pretend that I'm in the 18th century when I'm sitting in my air conditioned living room listening to a cd on speakers.

The wonderful thing about technology is that it allows us to listen to a work as much as we want whenever we want.  Why pretend otherwise?

One of the things I am most grateful for is that I live in an era in which I can listen to music I love nearly any time I want. It takes repeated listening for me to "get" most works. I generally like things more the tenth time I hear them, or the hundredth. It's hard sometimes to imagine the world in which this was not possible.

The people that make the recordings practice their performances many times over and the conductor spends considerable time studying the score thinking over his or her interpretation.  Listeners and musicians can return to these works later in life and see that it means something else to them.  Just because the only venue some of these composers had was a single concert performed by underprepared musicians does not mean that great classical masterpieces were written for anyone to fully grasp and appreciate them on a single listen.  We are not talking pop music here.

I am equally grateful for being able to listen to pop music whenever I want. It, too, can get better with repeated listening.

You do what you want, and Brian can do what he wants, but I will take advantage of recordings.  I will listen to Beethoven's late string quartets in perpetuity.

I will listen to those as well. And also to Beethoven's piano sonatas, Mozart's piano concertos, and Mahler's symphonies. Plus Linda Ronstadt, Warren Zevon, the Beatles, and Alex Chilton.

[Brian]

I will listen to Beethoven's late string quartets in perpetuity.

I think somehow you got the incorrect idea from my post that I never listen to the same thing twice.