I think I need to take guidance from our friend Nathanb and purposefully limited the music I listen to. I discover too much on a daily basis to keep up with a lot of it.
New sounds are great, BUT when I'm not familiarising myself enough with them, I fail for a lot of pieces to mean something to me.
I'm considering listening to only:
Bartok's Sonata for Two Piano's and Percussion
Mahler's Wonderhorn
The obligatory Xenakis
And Lilburn's third Symphony
For a whole week.
I've listened to nothing for the last 5 days but 33 discs worth of Cage, and I ain't complaining.
But I only really do it because I need to. I tend to get really aimless and hopeless when I don't force myself to have some semblance of structure. Personal experience has told me this. And not just musically speaking.
Other things I recommend: set aside time to listen to large box sets and collections with nothing in between. More than a couple of times now, I'll throw on the first disc of Donaueschinger Musiktage 2006, and before it's over, I'll tell myself that I'm not allowed to listen to anything else until I've listened through the final pieces of Donaueschinger Musiktage 2014.
Not only does this force a special kind of discipline and focus, but it usually tends to reliably increase your appreciation of the subject. It's musical intimacy really. For this week, I'm musically monogamous
