Topic: When are you "done" with a piece of music or a recording?

[clarity82]

I'm intrigued to hear others' perspectives on this – When do you feel like you're "done" with a piece of music or a particular recording? Is it upon a single listen-through? A certain number of listenings? When you can 'play back' the piece in your head? I'm still figuring out the answer to this for myself, so I'd love to hear others' experiences and perspectives!

[DavidW]

For my favorite works... never.  For anything else when I get tired or bored with it.  There is no formula for when that happens.

[Mirror Image]

For me, there isn’t a concrete answer to this question. If I enjoy a recording, I’ll more than likely revisit it at some juncture. I’m more concerned about the music than the recording. Of course, there are some instances where I’m done with the composer and this has happened more often than never wanting to listen to a piece of music or particular recording again.

[John Copeland]

I'm done with it if I don't like it first time around.
However:  I ALWAYS came back to something I'm 'done with' with if I hear, read or it is suggested to me that there's something in it I should listen for, or if I've completely misunderstood the music for one reason or another...
One example of many, I thought I had wasted money on Neumann's Mahler cycle with the Czch PO.  I thought it was bland, it was boring, it was quite poor altogether.  Someone on this forum (who owns about 4,546,789 CD's or something) about a decade ago suggested I was a wee bit skewed with it...it was suggested to me that I listen to it in a different way...I was to listen for nuance, to the brilliant use of Mahlers orchestration made clear by Neumann, how some things in the cycle which Neumann emphasised more that were not so apparent in other recordings.  So I listened again, and sure enough, there was magic in it!
I am ALWAYS open to other opinions of our music...so while someone else likes something I do not, if there's a reason for someone liking it, then there may be something in it I will like after all...Messiaen, there's another one, I 'wanted' to like his Turangalila Symphony, but couldn't get my head around it...but oh some patient reading, some extremely patient re-listening...and today I think most of the versions I've heard carry a great degree of profundity, and I do like it...it took a lot of work, no two versions are the same...

[Maestro267]

When I first read the thread title I thought it was referring to the act of creating music. As in, "When do you think your piece of music is completed?"