Capping your collection?

[prémont]

Very surprised by that -- you always seem to peg them.

Only to some degree, I think.

[Sammy]

I've got around 10,000 cd's, but I have a big home with plenty of rooms.  With that situation in mind, I only get rid of those cd's that I can't tolerate listening to such as the Bach Goldbergs disc on Dorian performed by Labadie and his group; evidently that recording is now on Atma Classique.

The best storage unit I every bought is an entertainment center with large drawers specifically built for cd storage.

[Mirror Image]

I assume most of us have shelves or drawers. I replace jewel cases with space-saving sleeves. I guesstimate my classical collection to be about 2500 CDs. I have drawer space for plenty more. (Right now most are boxed up pending a move.) But I am like Jo in that, aside from space and budgetary concerns, I don't see much point in owning a CD that I either won't listen to again, or couldn't distinguish from a different recording in my collection. I'm pretty sure I don't really need 12 versions of Mahler 1 (much as I love that piece) and I definitely don't need 12 versions of The Planets. Maybe our ears are less sensitive than others'. But in many cases the ones I'd be willing to cull are coupled (or part of a box) with something else that I want to keep. Still, I need to do a cull at some point. I have also put myself on a monthly budget which has made me more selective with purchases -- and I still have an abundance of things to listen to!

I have all of my CDs (w/ their jewel cases) stored in large plastic boxes. I have about nine of them. I couldn't even tell you how many classical CDs I own (maybe 5,000? including box sets). I don't see anything wrong with owning 12 versions of The Planets just like I don't see anything wrong with me owning over 40 performances of Le sacre du printemps. I collect things and I don't actually intend on hearing everything in my collection, because this will never happen. What it really boils down to is having available options. If I'm in the mood for Brahms I can pull from a large collection, if I want to hear Schoenberg, I can pull from a large collection, etc. I cull occasionally, but mostly what I cull is duplication.

[Florestan]

This is a very good topic, for sure. I have been thinking about it myself for a very long time.

What if we were born 100, or 200, or 300 years ago?

Just go figure it, if you can! No recordings whatsoever, no regular concert going whatsoever, no scores whatsoever except piano reductions, not even, and most importantly, being born into a social class whose exposure to what we now call "classical" music was the norm, or at least fashionable, or at least a mark of stepping up the social ladder?

What then, eh?

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

...I have probably almost 5000 discs, among these 100s of CDs I hardly (or never) listened to...

I'm just not going to worry about this as I've only approx. 3000 or so.     I have been unloading many books, railroad history, french and german literature, and philosophy in preparation for a potential move (and to make wife happier). 

[Holden]

This is a very good topic, for sure. I have been thinking about it myself for a very long time.

What if we were born 100, or 200, or 300 years ago?

Just go figure it, if you can! No recordings whatsoever, no regular concert going whatsoever, no scores whatsoever except piano reductions, not even, and most importantly, being born into a social class whose exposure to what we now call "classical" music was the norm, or at least fashionable, or at least a mark of stepping up the social ladder?

What then, eh?

You would probably have one or more musical instruments in your home and be making your own music. This was certainly the case for many families in the 19th century. I wonder how many homes have this today?

[amw]

My library contains 4802 "albums", which are either individual cds or multiple-cd sets grouped together. It's basically my reference library of musical works and composers, so in general I try to have only one recording of a piece, though alternative recordings are valuable if they are significantly contrasting. Obviously I'm not going to listen to all of it. But it's a good way to re-familiarise myself with composers when I forget about them and then am reminded; and putting my library on shuffle/random gives me a wide variety of music, some of which I may not have heard before, or heard but not remembered, or not understood the connection to other music. That sort of thing.

I "cap" the collection by getting rid of stuff, mostly when I find something in a recording I like better. It's all digital so I can't really sell the CDs, but a lot of it was obtained from libraries anyway, so no $$$ wasted >_>

When I first subscribed to Qobuz, though I did it mostly to find new music, new recordings of known works were a bonus. e.g. when I wanted to listen to Beethoven 7 instead of going into my library and searching for whatever recording I had (Kleiber and Dohnányi at the time) I would go into Qobuz and select at random from the hundreds of Beethoven 7s they offered. But now it's gone bankrupt and a lot of the most important labels have pulled their catalogues from the site, so that wasn't really sustainable, and none of the alternative recordings really did much. It's not like I hate the Beethoven 7s I have now (which has, however, expanded to include Gardiner, Norrington, Yury Martynov, Pro Arte Antiqua Praha and Leslie Howard...) and on the occasions I want to listen to it again, selecting one of them should provide all the freshness necessary.

(I do collect Hammerklaviers but mostly because I'm still looking for an actually good recording and will never have the technique to make one. I should probably get rid of some, but the piece fascinates me. Also, as far as recordings go: Why is it so hard even for virtuoso pianists who are hundreds of times better and more experienced than me? Why can someone play Rach 3 or Bartók 2 but not this piece? Anyway)

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

TOO MUCH IS NEVER ENOUGH!

The way I deal with quantities of CDs is to rip everything to a media server and box up the physical CDs in the garage. That way, everything in my collection is instantly available and organized without having to turn my head sideways and squint to read tiny text on CD spines. I found that when I went to a server and gave up the CDs, my listening habits changed. Instead of playing a few dozen CDs over and over, I was listening to a much wider swath of my collection. I also rip to complete works by joining tracks, so I can put the server on shuffle and have great music 24/7. It's increased my scope tremendously.

I have begun to do this too actually. I never had a CD problem though because I barely owned many at all until I started buying some here and there a few years ago. Most of my music lsitening was on the radio or streaming online (and I still listen to music in both those ways as well). Last year my girlfriend's family acquired a large CD collection owned by her grandfather.......and after a lot of ripping to computers and passing on physical copies, the CDs have ended up with me. Currently I am ripping the CDs to my computer and I feel almost like I have converted to the church of Kopimism.

Listening to music in this way is extremely convenient, and shuffle is great when I don't know what to listen to next.

[Mirror Image]

I have begun to do this too actually. I never had a CD problem though because I barely owned many at all until I started buying some here and there a few years ago. Most of my music lsitening was on the radio or streaming online (and I still listen to music in both those ways as well). Last year my girlfriend's family acquired a large CD collection owned by her grandfather.......and after a lot of ripping to computers and passing on physical copies, the CDs have ended up with me. Currently I am ripping the CDs to my computer and I feel almost like I have converted to the church of Kopimism.

Listening to music in this way is extremely convenient, and shuffle is great when I don't know what to listen to next.

What kind of collection did your girlfriend's grandfather have, Jessop? I'm always curious to learn of other people's collections, especially those that once belonged to a classical/jazz fan.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

What kind of collection did your girlfriend's grandfather have, Jessop? I'm always curious to learn of other people's collections, especially those that once belonged to a classical/jazz fan.

Classical. Lots of vocal, choral, chamber and organ music, some orchestral music too....mainly 19th century repertoire.

[(poco) Sforzando]

springrite: "Don't forget I am also building the collection to pass on to Kimi who loves music."

Mirror Image: "What it really boils down to is having available options."

These are the two best arguments I have read on this thread, and in a sense they support one another. At age 67, with perhaps 2500 CDs on my shelves and some unlistened or not likely ever to be listened while others are heard several times a year, I could easily just find the discipline to cull my collection down to the 500 discs I find most essential. Maybe I'll have to do that someday if they cart me off to a nursing home and I only have an 8"x10" room to call home. But that's not happening yet, and as it is, I've found all kinds of ways to build shelves in closets and squirrel away CDs in drawers to combat the ever-increasing problem of not having enough space to store everything I own without making the place look all cluttered. (I have for example one walk-in closet built floor-to-ceiling on all sides with shelves for books, scores, CDs, DVDs, and every square inch of available space is used except the ceiling. I call it my sanctum sanctorum, and it is beyond me why some people are amused when I show it to them.)

I cull a couple of dozen books and some CDs each year, where they usually wind up as donations to my local public library. A few years ago I took all my old LPs, about 500 of them, and transferred them to CDs, keeping only the few records that might be considered rare or hard to find. The library told me that every LP I donated sold within hours. And this feeds into springrite's point: I collect not only for myself but for my heirs.

But I like MI's point too. I rarely have more than 3-4 of any work (with a few exceptions like Die Meistersinger and the Eroica), but even if I don't listen to a disc much or at all, it's nice knowing I have it around in case I get a hankering for something that's been sitting on the shelves for the past 20 years unheard.

[(poco) Sforzando]

My library contains 4802 "albums",

I think you missed one. I count 4803.

[Mirror Image]

Classical. Lots of vocal, choral, chamber and organ music, some orchestral music too....mainly 19th century repertoire.

Ah, okay. Very nice. You're fortunate to have such a collection at your disposal.

springrite: "Don't forget I am also building the collection to pass on to Kimi who loves music."

Mirror Image: "What it really boils down to is having available options."

These are the two best arguments I have read on this thread, and in a sense they support one another. At age 67, with perhaps 2500 CDs on my shelves and some unlistened or not likely ever to be listened while others are heard several times a year, I could easily just find the discipline to cull my collection down to the 500 discs I find most essential. Maybe I'll have to do that someday if they cart me off to a nursing home and I only have an 8"x10" room to call home. But that's not happening yet, and as it is, I've found all kinds of ways to build shelves in closets and squirrel away CDs in drawers to combat the ever-increasing problem of not having enough space to store everything I own without making the place look all cluttered. (I have for example one walk-in closet built floor-to-ceiling on all sides with shelves for books, scores, CDs, DVDs, and every square inch of available space is used except the ceiling. I call it my sanctum sanctorum, and it is beyond me why some people are amused when I show it to them.)

I cull a couple of dozen books and some CDs each year, where they usually wind up as donations to my local public library. A few years ago I took all my old LPs, about 500 of them, and transferred them to CDs, keeping only the few records that might be considered rare or hard to find. The library told me that every LP I donated sold within hours. And this feeds into springrite's point: I collect not only for myself but for my heirs.

But I like MI's point too. I rarely have more than 3-4 of any work (with a few exceptions like Die Meistersinger and the Eroica), but even if I don't listen to a disc much or at all, it's nice knowing I have it around in case I get a hankering for something that's been sitting on the shelves for the past 20 years unheard.

A lot of what you wrote makes sense to me. I suppose my problem, which will, in turn, come back to bite me at some point in terms of space unless I do something quickly, is I like having many recordings of works that have meant a lot to me, but, at the same time, I'm kind of a completist, but also a certifiable whack job (I own every single box set of Messiaen that was released during his anniversary year 2008 and I'm not that big of a fan of his music right now --- just to throw that out there as an example). As you probably know (or have noticed), a lot of my listening comes from the 20th Century. This is my favorite era of music, so my collection merely is a broad sampling of almost every stylistic strand that took place. Where my interest in classical really actually begins is towards the end of the 19th Century and progresses through the end of the 20th Century. This is a lot of music and there was a lot of music that happened during this time frame, so I suppose that's what I'm building my collection towards. I do realize at some point that early Romantic music and back will probably slip it's way into my collection and, in many cases, it already has --- I own a good a lot of Vivaldi and Corelli, but I suppose it's always best to collect what your heart desires and wants to hear. There's a lot of music I don't enjoy (as with anyone), but, it's like I said, I like to keep my options open, so I can choose from a wider palette of repertoire and recordings. Sometimes I'll be in the middle of watching a TV program and I'll get the nagging feeling to listen to say Ravel. All I have to do is go to my Ravel collection and decide what I want to listen to and it's usually something that I haven't heard in quite some time. It's really that simple.

[amw]

I think you missed one. I count 4803.

By golly, you're right!

(Actually I just added one from my downloads folder, but still >_>)

[Brian]

By golly, you're right!

(Actually I just added one from my downloads folder, but still >_>)

Can I ask (as someone who someday dreams of digitising) how you store/back up your 1,400 gigabytes of music?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I would have to be buying massive amounts of CDs every year to get anywhere near 5000 CDs in the next 20 years or so....

[amw]

Can I ask (as someone who someday dreams of digitising) how you store/back up your 1,400 gigabytes of music?

I have a 3TB portable drive just for music, which I take everywhere, and an 8TB desktop drive that backs up both my computer and the music drive via Time Machine. (I'm sure there is similar software for Windows.) I probably don't do ~enough~ to keep everything backed up and should have multiple RAIDs or whatever, but I don't have a lot of, er, money.

[Green Destiny]

Sure, I think about capping my collection quite often.
I think I would probably have enough music to last me the rest of my life if I was to stop tomorrow.
But its very hard to stop collecting especially if you love music and are a member of a group such as this one.
I would be intested in hearing from anyone who has managed to cease collecting and want to know about the strategies they used to avoid buying more stuff.
Sometimes it would seem that the only way to cease collecting would be to leave GMG for a start! - I lost track of the number of times I thought I had finished collecting until I seen an intesting looking new recording in these pages!

[Jo498]

I have been unloading ... french and german literature, and philosophy in preparation for a potential move.

 
These are the Classics you will be reading in retirement!
I never had all that many books (compared to other people with advanced degrees) because I figured I would usually be living close to universities with large libraries. With project Gutenberg and kindle around I got rid of quite a number of "classics" because they had been cheap paperbacks anyway. If books are beautiful or rare, though, I am a far worse fetishist here than with CDs

[Florestan]

You would probably have one or more musical instruments in your home and be making your own music.

Yes. Sometimes I wonder if this is not a more engaging and lively relationship with music than passively listening to tons of CDs.