Exploring New Music vs. Sticking to Preferences

[Mandryka]

I'm curious, how did you operate when listening to recorded music generally meant buying it?

Because constantly moving on to new music would've been pretty expensive.

I still buy CDs. This strikes me as cost effective because I aim to only buy things that I expect to listen to many times over, maybe over a span of MANY years but the cost per play will be minimal.

Now of course online services mean you can freely graze across big libraries. But that's a relatively recent phenomenon and my listening habits were largely shaped before that.

Oh yes, what you say is true. I would focus on performers - Sviatoslav Richter and Jon Vickers.  I was also interested in opera production and so would buy DVDs.

[71 dB]

CDs became rather cheap quickly already in the mid-1990s.

Huh? In Finland new normal price CDs were 120 mk (20 euros) and Naxos was priced at 50 mk (8 euros). Apart from Naxos I wouldn't call that cheap. Online stores were at this point a vision in Jeff Bezos' mind and I didn't even have a credit cart until 1998 to order stuff online. Maybe you talk about second hand shops or maybe CDs just were cheap in 90's Germany?

I bought probably more than 100 discs per year already as a student with more time than money.

Great. When I was a student I had a budget of 170 mk (28 euros/$30) per month so I could buy one album and one single. It was electronic dance music and in 1996/97 I got into classical music and started buying Naxos. I got my first job in 1998 meaning I got much more money and also a credit card so I could buy much more CDs so that I used to buy about 100 CDs per year. In 2002 I got myself a DVD-player meaning less CDs because I had also DVDs to buy.

If one bought boxes and sometimes used in the early 2000s one could easily buy faster than one could listen to even with a moderate income and I'd guess that many classical listeners have comfortable incomes. I mean, how many opera tickets plus travel an accomodation does one get for $500 and how many CDs... Or how much would be other hobbies like two skiing holidays + gear per year or a motorcycle? $2000 a year will get you more discs than you can listen to and will still be moderate compared to many other pastimes.

Nowadays I have a buying budget of 100 euros for CDs and Blu-rays per month so that's 1200 euros per year, but I try to save money so I maybe use 70 euros in average and maybe half of that goes to Blu-rays. That's why BIS and Ondine seem expensive for me. Anyway I have cumulated so many CDs after buying them for 3 decades, time is now the bigger problem. 20 years ago I used to listen to music all the time. I couldn't get enough! About 10 years ago I started noticing I almost prefer silence* (I guess it's part of getting old) meaning I listen to music nowadays perhaps 20 % of what I used to now that I have more CDs than ever. Ironic!

* I also enjoy listening to people speak! Nowadays I listen to  a lot of Youtube videos were people speak about something (politics, math, music theory,...).  Just 5-6 years ago I didn't do that at all! I kind of "discovered" Youtube around 2015/16. Before this I watched Youtube very little without realizing how much it has to offer when you discover "your stuff" in the sea of Googolplex videos (and counting...)

[Jo498]

I hardly ever bought full price which was also 30-40 DM in the mid-nineties. Cheap series or boxed sets were already less than 1/3 of this on average. And there were more and more options. I spent one year in the US at the U of Washington in 95-96 and bought quite a few CDs because full price was relatively cheaper ($13-15 or less on sale which was 20-25 DM, so more like "mid price" in Germany) and I remember that I was surprised that I could keep buying rather cheap when I got back to Germany because there were so many twofers, boxes, budget priced items. As I said, I never bought full price except on sale. I don't think I spent much more than DM 50-60/month, so this was a similar budget but I'd get about 5-8 discs for that money. 
I started buying used on Ebay in 2001 which was much cheaper, often around  5 DM or later around 3-5 EUR/disc, so this was even cheaper.

[71 dB]

I hardly ever bought full price which was also 30-40 DM in the mid-nineties.

When it was electronic dance music there was no other way than to pay the full price and be happy you where able to get the CD at all! Now I could buy a lot of the same stuff on Amazon Market place at a fraction of the price!  As I said when I started buying classical music around 1996/7 it was almost always Naxos. Sometimes I might buy other labels if it was something Naxos didn't have and I really wanted (Buxtehude's cantatas, Fauré's chamber music etc.) but it was a big hit financially to pay 119,95 mk instead of 49,95 mk for a classical CD. Naxos also had take 4 pay 3 campaigns sometimes which I did take advantage of. Just 5 years ago I could go to "Anttila" (Finnish department store chain that went bankrupt a few years ago) and buy Naxos from the shelf. Naxos even had it's own dedicated store in Helsinki in the 90's, but when I went there the first time in 1996 the door was open, but when I got in the staff said to me they have just stopped doing business and starting to empty the premises! 

Cheap series or boxed sets were already less than 1/3 of this on average.

I suppose, but because of budget limitations buying large boxes wasn't "possible" and I have to say I wasn't into boxes at that time*. One of the first bigger boxes I bought around year 2000 was Haydn's Piano Trios by Beaux Arts Trio on Philips. It was on discount (299,90 mk = 50 euros). Now I could buy it online for about half of the that price.

Some composers have much more boxes than others. Mahler has boxes. Wagner has boxes. Clerámbault and Fasch not so much. I have always been into composers who are not so well-served box-wise. Nowadays there are much more boxes (thanks to Brilliant Classics) than 20 years ago and even "somewhat obscure" composers may have boxes, something that used to be very rare.

And there were more and more options. I spent one year in the US at the U of Washington in 95-96 and bought quite a few CDs because full price was relatively cheaper ($13-15 or less on sale which was 20-25 DM, so more like "mid price" in Germany)

Yes, American full price used to be European mid price. Mid price was always one option "between" Naxos and full price releases, but the selection was limited: If Mendelssohn, Brahms and Drořák are offered at mid price and I wanted Hasse what do you do?

and I remember that I was surprised that I could keep buying rather cheap when I got back to Germany because there were so many twofers, boxes, budget priced items. As I said, I never bought full price except on sale. I don't think I spent much more than DM 50-60/month, so this was a similar budget but I'd get about 5-8 discs for that money.

So your budget was about the same it was for me (about 100 euros/month), but I kept buying non-classical music also + DVD + Bluray's so perhaps only 25 % has been allocated to classical music CDs (the ratio has been changing depending what I'm into. Lately I have been buying mostly classical music whereas last year I bought a lot of Blu-rays. In fact I think my classical purchases are almost done now for the year).

I started buying used on Ebay in 2001 which was much cheaper, often around  5 DM or later around 3-5 EUR/disc, so this was even cheaper.

I have used eBay very little because I very rarely find anything cheap there. If it costs 18 euros delivered on eBay, Amazon might sell it for 13 euros etc.  However, Amazon Marketplace used to be 10 years ago insanely cheap when older Naxos CDs where sold for £0.01 + £1.79 for shipping. Whenever euro was strong against pound I paid just 2 euros for these CDs delivered. 

[Jo498]

I have not been active on Ebay for ages but I bought a lot between ca. 2001 and 2010 and probably more in the earlier part of that period.
I distinctly remember that I was never much interested in Naxos in the 1990s because I already had most of the mainstream repertoire and for a lot of other stuff there were recordings as cheap or cheaper from the majors. While the usual budget lines of the majors (like Sony essential classics) often sold for about the same as Naxos (around DM 10), sometimes they were even cheaper. And there was one mailorder store (Zweitausendeins) that had lots of stuff around 5 DM or cheaper, in fact so cheap that I sometimes bought things only because they were cheap.
While still a teenager I was at the rate of one disc a month or so because I could not afford more and in the late 1980s not much was available for budget price. But I also spent most of my Xmas and birthday money on CDs or directly received expensive CD sets as gifts from an aunt who didn't really mind if she spent 50 or 80 Deutschmarks. So I guess it was overall around 20-25 discs/year. Later, in the 1990s, I'd guess it was about 40-50 per year. I seem to recall that I had around 500 (not sure if discs or sets) around 2000. It got out of control when I started buying from ebay in 2001 and also had more money to spend. The zenith was probably 2006-09 when I had enough money AND space and was not yet saturated. But even in 2015-18 I still spent around or more than EUR 500 a year, more and more for ever cheaper used discs. I only reached saturation point last year. I have only bought a handful in 2020 and I am not missing it, rather I am culling my collection and planning on selling a few hundred discs to be able to get along with the shelf space I currently have.

[arpeggio]

I used to acquire many CD's on Ebay but the snipers ruined the experience for me.  It got to the point that I would never ever win a bid, so I gave up.

[Jo498]

Why didn't you use snipers yourself? I did to some extent the last time I was active there which is again already several years in the past.
For me it was a mix of several factors. Ebay become clogged by professional sellers and buy now at fixed price offers and I tended to buy stuff only because it was irrestibly cheap or buy a second item because the shipping was too much for only one. Overall, it was hard to restrict myself and unlike in the early times I had to do this for reasons of space and money. I realized that I shouldn't buy stuff only because it was an incredible bargain or because I could not allow this going away for such a low price...

[Madiel]

Yes, there is hardly ANY bidding on eBay anymore.

Which suits me just fine. Tell me the price and I'll decide if I'm willing to pay it.  It's basically the same as Amazon Marketplace only far more reliable and accessible.

[vandermolen]

Can I ask - I hope its okay to ask - how did your brother's early genius affect his later life?

OT
Oddly enough my daughter just found this photo of my brother, aged 3 I think, playing a Schroeder-type piano (Getty Images) online. It accompanied an article about raising infant prodigy children. That's my mother in the background. Must be c.1951, before my time (just as well really):

[Mirror Image]

OT
Oddly enough my daughter just found this photo of my brother, aged 3 I think, playing a Schroeder-type piano (Getty Images) online. It accompanied an article about raising infant prodigy children. That's my mother in the background. Must be c.1951, before my time (just as well really):

That's very interesting, Jeffrey. Thanks for sharing!

[vandermolen]

That's very interesting, Jeffrey. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks John 

[some guy]

I'm just glad I was an adult prodigy, when I could enjoy it.

I don't think I would have enjoyed it as a child. Your brother, though, DOES look like he's enjoying it!

Delightful picture.

[71 dB]

What a cool photo vandermolen. 

[Karl Henning]

What a cool photo vandermolen. 

Indeed!

[SimonNZ]

OT
Oddly enough my daughter just found this photo of my brother, aged 3 I think, playing a Schroeder-type piano (Getty Images) online. It accompanied an article about raising infant prodigy children. That's my mother in the background. Must be c.1951, before my time (just as well really):

Thanks very much for that, and for the reply upthread.

[steve ridgway]

I think I appreciated music more in the days when I had less of it so listened to each album more regularly and came to know it very well. I might try doing something like that again, concentrating much more on the real treasures I've discovered over the years.

Following this up with my non classical collection has turned out well. I've filled a 16 Gb iPod with max quality MP3s of albums I really like all the way through and have been concentrating on listening to just these. A core 142 albums should be plenty to focus on appreciating properly. My newer classical collection must come to a similar amount so I think I'll stop adding to it now and get to know it better too.