Keeping track of what you like?

[ibanezmonster]

No system for me, either. All of my music is organized by composer/musician/band, so it's not hard to find stuff I have. As for discoveries via youtube, I don't track what I like, which is good because it means I might rediscover something I've forgotten.

One of my greatest wishes is to utterly forget all the music I like. To discover Mozart or Schubert again, from nothing ...

Hehe, would be nice to completely forget the music and reencounter it again for the first time.

[Ken B]

This forgetting stuff could be dangerous though. My second greatest wish is to completely forget my first wife ...

[ibanezmonster]

This forgetting stuff could be dangerous though. My second greatest wish is to completely forget my first wife ...

Don't worry, maybe one day you'll get Alzheimer's...

oh wait, nah, then your first wife will probably be the only thing you remember. Feel better? 

[Chris L.]

I was wondering: How do people keep track of what they like and don't like among the music they listen to?

Do you write it down? Do you keep it all in your head?

For a few months I've had a little Excel sheet with my own comments on various composers and interpreters, constantly updating what I think is good and what's bad about them.

I use Spotify, so the playlists in there obviously help me. I have e.g. a playlist called "Listen: Haydn" filled to the brim with Haydn recordings I should wade through, and then a "Haydn" playlist with the pieces that I thought were really good and want to listen to again.

Note that my recall is awfully bad, so this might just be me.

I guess I just keep it all in my head. If it's something I REALLY like then I just know and I go to it. If it's something I REALLY hate then it eventually ends up either being sold or traded for credit. If it's something that just didn't do anything for me musically but the physical recording itself looks nice then it stays in my collection as eye candy, and maybe someday I will return to it with a renewed mindset and will better appreciate it.

I do wish I were better able to remember all the titles, movements and working number of the works that I like, e.g. D.960, K.24, BWV1060 and so on by memory as I heard them. That would be really nice, and would make me feel like I were somebody! 

[Jo498]

I have a fairly good memory (and of course some of the pieces I like I have been listening to for 25 years). About interpretations/recordings I only take notes when posting about something in online fora or with such a big comparison as the Schubert quintet blind listening. I probably should take notes about stuff like Bach cantatas, Vivaldi concerti or Scarlatti sonatas, because I cannot remember these so well and there are so many of them.

[springrite]

Don't worry, maybe one day you'll get Alzheimer's...

oh wait, nah, then your first wife will probably be the only thing you remember. Feel better? 

That would be my fear, although if the only part I remember is the all except the last few months, then it'd be perfect!

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

One of my greatest wishes is to utterly forget all the music I like. To discover Mozart or Schubert again, from nothing ...

Kurzweil is working on this...or at least the uploading and downloading part; he prob. would not recommend delete memory in your case!  In the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf , Holly, the on-board computer, finishes all the Agatha Christie mysteries and deletes his memory so that he can read them again, anew.

[Jay F]

I used to mark things off in the Penguin Guides during the '80s and '90s. I would assign my own stars and the special little "C:" thing to things I liked (Bernstein, Brendel), which were almost never what they liked (Rattle, Uchida).

[jochanaan]

If I like a thing enough, it's in my memory whether I deliberately tried to put it there or not. And if it's on my "sort of like" list, well, I don't keep track of those.  Yet sometimes I come back to a piece I heard long ago and there's a kind of flash, "Oh yeah, THAT's why I liked ithis!"

[Linus]

One of my greatest wishes is to utterly forget all the music I like. To discover Mozart or Schubert again, from nothing ...

I actually wish for the opposite.

Sure, I appreciate the sensation of discovery, "Wow, that was surprisingly awesome!", and the "freshness" that comes with it. But I never appreciate a piece of music more than when I've become very familiar with it, when I've "understood" it perfectly and am able to experience it in its full expression.

So, I actually wish I already knew not only which pieces are worth hearing (and coming back to), but also that I already knew of every nook and cranny of those pieces. Because to me that means less exploration and more "pure" appreciation of music.

[Fagotterdämmerung]

 
   All this forgetting of music would be problematic for musicians. Imagine forgetting music itself entirely ... OMG, what's that sound!?

[Madiel]

I keep track of everything I own* in a spreadsheet, and the dates I've listened to it. I don't, however, make notes about reactions.

I think that for the strongest reactions I remember. Hopefully they're mostly positive reactions, because compared to many people I'm not that quick to buy something in the first place. So yes, there are definitely things that become favourites. But really, I'm not THAT fussed about remembering exactly what I thought because by the time I come around to something again it may be several years since the last listen, and having a fresh reaction is part of the enjoyment.

And even if it's a negative reaction, there's always the hope that next time I'll get something out of it (although, that Tcherepnin piece... keep trying, orfeo, once every few years, and it may come. Also, Mahler's 8th has been failing but last time I sought help here about possible alternative recordings that might be more to my taste!)

Also, when it comes to classical music it's fairly rare for me to listen to something just once when I've pulled it off the shelf, except perhaps for the recordings I'm really familiar with already. It will often be twice, maybe quite a few times over the course of a day or several days that I'll listen. So the reaction changes (and perhaps deepens?) over those listens.

* Things I sample online, such as with streaming services, don't count. The very purpose of sampling is to decide what could be added to the shopping list.

[Pat B]

I keep notes in a text file. It's mostly about performances (and not very rigorous at that -- I write in it maybe twice a week).

I might write down "like" for pieces by prolific composers that I haven't internalized. I'm not yet at a point where I can remember what's in Haydn's 90th and what's in his 91st. But mostly, I remember what pieces I like and dislike.

I also try to write down thoughts that might get lost as I become more familiar with a piece. For example, on my first listen to Mahler 1 I noted allusions to Beethoven's 4th, and 3rd, and 5th. The connection to the 4th is still impossible to miss, but I'm glad I wrote down the others, because I haven't noticed them since -- now they just sound like Mahler's 1st. I guess that's sort of academic, but I still find it interesting.

[Jo498]

Could you give pointers to the Beethoven allusions in Mahler's 1st (except for the hard to miss similarity with the main theme of the 4th first movement they are not obvious to me)?

[Wanderer]

I've never had a problem keeping track of what I like. Keeping track of what I own is what's become difficult.

[EigenUser]

Could you give pointers to the Beethoven allusions in Mahler's 1st (except for the hard to miss similarity with the main theme of the 4th first movement they are not obvious to me)?

Yeah, me too. There is this theme that I call the "Spring" theme in the first movement of M1 (played by violins -- happens twice -- could say it is the "loudest/liveliest" part of the movement) which reminds me of the first movement of B6, but that's about it.

[Jo498]

I consider the melody from the 2nd song from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Ging' heut' morgen übers Feld) as the "main theme" of Mahler 1,i, although there is of course more material (the trumpet signals/wakeup calls and bird songs before and the broader "horn theme" later). Because of the falling fourth people are reminded of Beethoven's 4th, i (after the intro). Is that what you mean with "spring theme"?

[lovinglife]

There are plenty of classical musicians on SoundCloud-- well, mostly people who cover piano pieces, and if I chance upon something I'd like to play and cover at a later time, I can save them on my SoundCloud playlist. I'm an adult learner, by the way, so I don't easily memorize names until I play them, know the music, hear how it's played, and most importantly, 'feel' it.

[Mirror Image]

I've never had a problem keeping track of what I like. Keeping track of what I own is what's become difficult.

+1

[NJ Joe]

One of my greatest wishes is to utterly forget all the music I like. To discover Mozart or Schubert again, from nothing ...

One of my greatest joys is to listen to something I had liked a lot at one time, but haven't heard in so long that I've practically forgotten how it goes.

Doesn't happen too often, but when it does the result is damn near orgasmic.