Your listening habits – listening with full attention or while occupied?

[Daedalus]

Simple question for this thread – what do you do when listening to music?

Is most of your listening time devoted to the piece of music and nothing else?
This is, perhaps, how many of us would like it to be but when time is a scarcity, one might have to find other ways to absorb music.
So perhaps most of your listening is done while doing other tasks, such as reading, working at the computer etc.?

Personally, I like to listen to music while I work on the computer at a task where I don't have to concentrate too much. However, my favourite way to listen to music is while lying in my bedroom in complete isolation (fiancee in the living room watching awful TV  ) and nothing to concentrate on except the piece I am listening to.

I tend to save certain works with which I want to devote my complete attention to and then have other pieces that I might put on while doing other tasks (although I listen to the radio a lot while on the computer).
I cannot listen to music while studying or reading as I find it a distraction and I cannot completely absorb myself in my reading as I like to.

I have tended to listen to smaller works (in duration), or very popular and famous works, for listening to while I do tasks. I save the more complex, or larger works, or my absolute favourites for my solitary listening time.
For instance, I could never listen to Mahler while doing other tasks but I might put on a Brahms, Beethoven or Mozart piece that I know extremely well already (and have already devoted some solitary listening time to).

Having some lovely music playing while at work can brighten my day and pick me up when feeling down. Sometimes, however, I feel almost guilty for not having given a piece of music my full attention! 

This morning I have been listening to some Beethoven String Quartets (numbers 14 and 16) selected randomly from my local library. I have been enjoying them thoroughly but regret that I have been listening while occupied with other tasks. I have still enjoyed them but the music has not captured me in the same way as it does when I am listening alone with nothing to do but let the music wash over me.

It is still a wonderful thing, to listen to music at any time, but I must say that I prefer listening and nothing else.

So, after that rather long-winded, discursive introduction to this thread, let me hear about your listening habits! 

D.

[Florestan]

I listen mostly late at night and I fully concentrate on music.

[MN Dave]

For me, it is difficult to find time for music alone.

[Harry]

I listen about 9-16 hours a day to music, and learned after 35 years to work on the computer or in the office at home, and fairly concentrated on the music, sometimes with the score next to me.
Of those hours, half is fully focused on the music, certainly if the cd's are new to my collection.

[mahler10th]

Outstanding works which I've already listened to in depth get played in the background to remind me of their greatness.  And so do pieces like Rossini Overtures, Lieder, chorale and individual movements.  If I get something new, it gets my full attention, even if it's a different version of one or many I've already got.
Sometimes I do crazy things.  With Mahlers 10th, I imported the eight different versions into Adobe Audition to look at the wave forms  and timing, to browse where the emphasis was for each for each rise and fall, to play them all or a selection of them simultaneously, see who was doing what and when, line them up to the note and check the different tempi, etc...great fun!  I chose my favourite Mahlers 10th using this bizzare method - Kubelik and the BRSO.
There's something playing somewhere with me pretty much all the time, even in sleep...Chamber Music!

[Harry]

Outstanding works which I've already listened to in depth get played in the background to remind me of their greatness.  And so do pieces like Rossini Overtures, Lieder, chorale and individual movements.  If I get something new, it gets my full attention, even if it's a different version of one or many I've already got.
Sometimes I do crazy things.  With Mahlers 10th, I imported the eight different versions into Adobe Audition to look at the wave forms  and timing, to browse where the emphasis was for each for each rise and fall, to play them all or a selection of them simultaneously, see who was doing what and when, line them up to the note and check the different tempi, etc...great fun!  I chose my favourite Mahlers 10th using this bizzare method - Kubelik and the BRSO.
There's something playing somewhere with me pretty much all the time, even in sleep...Chamber Music!

Marvelous, that you mention Rossini's overtures.......

[Kullervo]

I listen mostly late at night and I fully concentrate on music.

Ditto.

[greg]

1) About 40 minutes a day in the car
2) Usually an hour or two a day besides that, while reading a score somtimes

'How senseless it is to let oneself be submerged by the maelstrom of life! To be untrue for even one hour to oneself [...] It's easy for me to write that down - but at the next opportunity - when I leave the room for instance - I shall certainly behave as senselessly as everyone else does.' - Mahler

where'd you get this quote from, Daedalus?

[Ephemerid]

Admittedly, because most of the day I am working (or *supposed* to be working LOL), I can't always actively listen, though there are moments where I do really tune in.  Often on weekends and on some evenings I will listen more attentively. 

When I am out driving (which is rare) I listen attentively as well.

Whenever I get a new piece of music I always listen attentively the first time round.  I will listen to it closely again at other times too, but the first time I always try to give myself over to it completely.

[mahler10th]

It is Zubin Methas fault that I like Rossini overtures.

[Daedalus]

where'd you get this quote from, Daedalus?

The quotation in my signature is from a letter Mahler wrote after having his heart condition diagnosed. I think I found it in a Mahler biography, possibly the Blaukopf one.
It just struck me as being very true and I remind myself of it when I get anxious or upset - I am a very anxious person for some reason, so that quotation goes through my head a great deal! 

D.

[greg]

The quotation in my signature is from a letter Mahler wrote after having his heart condition diagnosed. I think I found it in a Mahler biography, possibly the Blaukopf one.
It just struck me as being very true and I remind myself of it when I get anxious or upset - I am a very anxious person for some reason, so that quotation goes through my head a great deal! 

D.

Interesting...... I'll have to think about that one, too...... even though i haven't read a bunch of bios of his, the things that I have read about his personality describe me almost exactly, so much that's it's a bit shocking to read. (the exceptions being that he was less agreeable, and he had some sort of 'Mary' complex or whatever it was called)
I was thinking about starting a thread, how you can draw a relation between some composers, the music they write, aspects of your own self......

[Daedalus]

Interesting...... I'll have to think about that one, too...... even though i haven't read a bunch of bios of his, the things that I have read about his personality describe me almost exactly, so much that's it's a bit shocking to read.

Yes, I feel the same way about a number of composers and also writers. What I mean is I identify with them and their personalities. Regrettably, it seems, I lack the incredible musical and literary genius of my heroes!      I think that is how I started to get into books and classical music. I was looking for people to identify with.

Certainly, I feel Mahler's very sensitive, neurotic, maladjusted, artistic, emotional, intelligent and reverie filled personality probably appeals to many people. It certainly does to me.

You should definitely start a thread about that! I advise that you read the Blaukopf's biography - it's more of a collection of letters, of both Mahler and his contemporaries and friends, giving a range of viewpoints. A very interesting way of presenting a biography.

D.

[greg]

Yes, I feel the same way about a number of composers and also writers. What I mean is I identify with them and their personalities. Regrettably, it seems, I lack the incredible musical and literary genius of my heroes!      I think that is how I started to get into books and classical music. I was looking for people to identify with.

Certainly, I feel Mahler's very sensitive, neurotic, maladjusted, artistic, emotional, intelligent and reverie filled personality probably appeals to many people. It certainly does to me.

You should definitely start a thread about that! I advise that you read the Blaukopf's biography - it's more of a collection of letters, of both Mahler and his contemporaries and friends, giving a range of viewpoints. A very interesting way of presenting a biography.

D.

Thanks for the recommendation. While searching Blaukopf, I noticed a book with Mahler-Strauss correspondences- this page right here:

http://www.amazon.com/Gustav-Mahler-Richard-Strauss-Correspondence-1888-1911/dp/0226057682/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206986242&sr=8-1

Mahler wrote, because he HAD TO! He was puzzled by those who could not understand the depth of suffering in his music.
After just such a moment of bewilderment, Mahler asks himself, "Are people made of different stuff than I?" Upon reading this, Strauss answers Mahler's heart-wrenching question, with a single word: "Yes."

I read stuff like that and I just don't know what to say 

[orbital]

Whenever I get a new piece of music I always listen attentively the first time round.  I will listen to it closely again at other times too, but the first time I always try to give myself over to it completely.

Complete opposite of my habits in this regard: If it is an unfamiliar piece/composer, I let it play in the background a few times and start to pick bits and pieces of it as well as the general atmosphere of the music. The music that I will give my full attention to must earn it first 

[BorisG]

Whenever I get a new piece of music I always listen attentively the first time round.  I will listen to it closely again at other times too, but the first time I always try to give myself over to it completely.

Me too, but soon after that, my wife and I had sex while relistening to Bach The Art of Fugue with Aimard. We both agreed nothing had diminished. Hope this helps.

[ChamberNut]

Me too, but soon after that, my wife and I had sex while relistening to Bach The Art of Fugue with Aimard. We both agreed nothing had diminished. Hope this helps.

TMI 

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

I listen to music at home and in my car. No (other) mobile players here. At home mostly I listen while I'm doing something else... The I use a dsp which increases low levels. I prefer listening exclusively to music and doing nothing else. I'm doing this in the evening all 2 or 3 days.

[Greta]

I pretty much never get a chance to just sit down and listen to music without doing something else anymore.

I normally get some listening done while I'm working on the computer, or studying perhaps. And in the car a bit of shorter works...

Now that I have an iPod, I do listen to music before bed sometimes with the lights out, if I don't fall asleep on it! That is still magical.

I love to listen while reading scores, and could make a big hobby out of this if I had time, though it's even more fun to study the scores away from the music.

If it is an unfamiliar piece/composer, I let it play in the background a few times and start to pick bits and pieces of it as well as the general atmosphere of the music. The music that I will give my full attention to must earn it first 

I do this too. And many of those that do have ended up being huge favorites. I listen often to so many never-heard-before pieces that you have to separate the wheat from the chaff somehow...

[marvinbrown]

  Oftentimes I listen while I am working on the computer. These days I have been working at home a lot.  But in the evenings I devote one hour of serious listening before bedtime- some people read before going to sleep I listen to music and no Greta I somehow manage to stay awake while the music is playing.  Its difficult to fall asleep while listening to Beethoven's 3rd Symphony wouldn't you agree??

  marvin