How much of your music listening is classical?

[Teresa]

For me it's completely different. The vast majority of my favorite music is stuff that I either didn't know what to think during the first listening or didn't even like during the first listening.

I can only think of a couple of pieces that I loved during first listening and still love: the Penderecki Threnody and the Webern Passacaglia.

Interesting, I did mention that if I was indifferent I would give 4 or 5 more listens and then it could go to like or hate.  But really all the works I love, I loved on the very first hearing.  Nothing ever got better for me on multiple listenings, just more understandable, thus sometimes changing indifference into like. 

Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima is currently the composition I hate the most.  It was a very, very unpleasant listening experience, which I should have guessed as having an atonic bomb dropped on one and living through it would be pure agony and this does come through in Penderecki's music.  So I guess that would make it a success, it's just that I cannot endure it. 

[Octo_Russ]

For me it's roughly 75% Classical

15% Rock

5% Jazz

and then everything else makes up the other 5%, i love Classical more than any other genre, and yet i feel my listening is too lopsided, i really need to balance it out more, playing only 50% Classical would really help.

[False_Dmitry]

Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima is currently the composition I hate the most.  It was a very, very unpleasant listening experience, which I should have guessed as having an atonic bomb dropped on one and living through it would be pure agony and this does come through in Penderecki's music.  So I guess that would make it a success, it's just that I cannot endure it.

I'm going to print that out and frame it on my wall.  

Errr, that's not a good thing.

[Teresa]

I'm going to print that out and frame it on my wall.  

Errr, that's not a good thing.

Do you mind if I ask why it is not a good thing?  I think I did an excellent job of describing why it is SO unpleasant and hard to endure as a piece of music.  This really is the ugliest thing I have ever heard in my entire long life.  I kid you not, it is UGLY in the extreme!  And because of the subject matter I believe it is supposed to be ugly.  So in that case it is a success.

Did you see the film about the survivors of Hiroshima and how their bodies were deformed from the extensive radiation poisoning and the tremendous amount of daily pain they endure?  The music does fit this suffering perfectly IMHO.  Perhaps the experience of enduring Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima might be enough to keep any government from ever using an atomic bomb against another.

[jowcol]

These days I  guess its  40 % classical (mostly baroque and 20th Century), 25 % blues, 15 % jazz, 10 % rock (many periods), 5 % world (mostly Hindustani Classical and afrobeat) and 5% other stuff to diverse to classify.

I do LOVE the way the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima was used in the Movie "The Shining".   For what its worth, the name was added AFTER the work was composed.

EDIT:   Ooops.  It was Polymorphia for 48 Strings that was in the Shining.  My bad.

[Philoctetes]

Because his participation in this forum is most importantly about fulfilling his need to be a pot-stirrer, I'm guessing.

Henning is pretty spot on. Although, I wouldn't classify it as a need. It's more from the stomach, like an urge.

[Philoctetes]

For me it's completely different. The vast majority of my favorite music is stuff that I either didn't know what to think during the first listening or didn't even like during the first listening.

I can only think of a couple of pieces that I loved during first listening and still love: the Penderecki Threnody and the Webern Passacaglia.

I'm with Greg here. I tend to have to listen to something multiple times before I really start to enjoy it.

Although, the music of Satie was an instant hit with me.

[Mirror Image]

With the right classical music this is not even necessary.  There are literally thousands of classical compositions enjoyable from the very first listen and still enjoyable five decades later.  I have a list of 350 of some of the most accessible ones here: The Basic Power Orchestral Repertoire or Classical music for folks who don't like Classical music

For me the HARDER I try to MAKE myself like something that sounds like CRAP the worst it is until I absolutely despise it.  If I love it on the first listen it will become a lifelong favorite.  However for something that I just like or sounds interesting I will listen 4 or 5 more times and I will either like or hate it by the fifth listening.  If I hate it on the first listening, I will still hate it on the 50th listening. 

In my experience finding classical music one loves requires NO work, it is just being exposed to music that touches you and grabs you and makes you love it.  There is classical music out there for every human being living on Planet Earth, they just have to stumble upon the right works for them.   

Obviously, you're closed off to a lot of classical, which is fine, but I'm thankful I have never operated the way you do. I think there's alot of great music that has to be examined multiple times. Did I like Bruckner on first hearing? Absolutely not. Did I like him on the fifth hearing? Nope. Did I like him on the tenth hearing after taking several months off from his music? Absolutely, because I learned a lot during those months away. If you don't understand the music, it isn't the composer's fault, but merely your inability to comprehend it.

We are all wired differently no doubt about it, but I think a more open-mind will enable you to understand a composer that you didn't connect with right away. Also, researching a composer and their music also helps in your understanding of the music.

My buddy, and fellow GMG member, Sid, has made me realize, in terms of classical music, that an open-mind is a mind that will continue to grow and experience new things, which will increase your knowledge in the process.

[Teresa]

Obviously, you're closed off to a lot of classical, which is fine, but I'm thankful I have never operated the way you do. I think there's alot of great music that has to be examined multiple times. Did I like Bruckner on first hearing? Absolutely not. Did I like him on the fifth hearing? Nope. Did I like him on the tenth hearing after taking several months off from his music? Absolutely, because I learned a lot during those months away. If you don't understand the music, it isn't the composer's fault, but merely your inability to comprehend it.

We are all wired differently no doubt about it, but I think a more open-mind will enable you to understand a composer that you didn't connect with right away. Also, researching a composer and their music also helps in your understanding of the music.

My buddy, and fellow GMG member, Sid, has made me realize, in terms of classical music, that an open-mind is a mind that will continue to grow and experience new things, which will increase your knowledge in the process.

I am open to ALL NEW MUSIC, thanks to steaming audio on the internet.  However if I don't like something after five listenings it will never happen, not in a few months, not in a few years, not in a few decades.  I know as I have tried different performances of works I have hated and they were every bit as bad.

I love what I love and FIRMLY believe in listening to music one loves.  There is no shortage as there are literally thousands of classical compositions I love, no need to suffer with works one hates.  For one thing we only have a limited time on Earth to enjoy music.   I DO NOT BELIEVE IN WASTING IT!

Also everyone does not like the same things, torturing oneself trying to like what someone else does makes no sense to me at all!

[Mirror Image]

I am open to ALL NEW MUSIC, thanks to steaming audio on the internet.  However if I don't like something after five listenings it will never happen, not in a few months, not in a few years, not in a few decades.  I know as I have tried different performances of works I have hated and they were every bit as bad.

I love what I love and FIRMLY believe in listening to music one loves.  There is no shortage as there are literally thousands of classical compositions I love, no need to suffer with works one hates.  For one thing we only have a limited time on Earth to enjoy music.   I DO NOT BELIEVE IN WASTING IT!

Also everyone does not like the same things, torturing oneself trying to like what someone else does makes no sense to me at all!

Hate is such a strong word to use when describing something you don't enjoy. Everyone does not like the same things this is true, but I think when your mind is closed off to something that you supposedly "dislike," then you'll never find enjoyment in anything.

I take it you don't like Pettersson's music?

[Teresa]

Hate is such a strong word to use when describing something you don't enjoy. Everyone does not like the same things this is true, but I think when your mind is closed off to something that you supposedly "dislike," then you'll never find enjoyment in anything.

I take it you don't like Pettersson's music?

If you looked at that list of 350 recommended classical compositions I posted earlier, I dearly LOVE every single work, many for decades!!  Indeed I purge my harddrive all the time, weeding out the less than wonderful works, currently I have 2,294 compositions by 258 composers.  Before my last purging I had works by 319 composers.  I dearly love all that are remaining and will of course add new discoveries weekly.

I have only owned one composition by Allan Pettersson, the Symphony No. 14 which I purchased on Amazon.com as the streaming audio sounded interesting and it was only 89 cents for the whole symphony.  Ultimately I deleted it from my harddrive as I really didn't care for it.  As I said life is too short to listen to music one does not love.  If I could live to be 1,000 or 5,000 I might have kept it around for a few more listens.  But with so much wonderful music to listen to, more indeed that years left on my life.  I prefer to listen to music I love, including new discoveries.   

Right now I am listening to an absolutely fantastic piece of music: Kodály's Háry János Suite.

In short with such a large humungous stable of classical works I love I do not believe I have closed my mind off to anything, especially since I give all compositions five listenings before rejecting them.  I am way more than fair!

BTW it is the same with Rock and Jazz, I listen to the music I love.  This makes the most logical sense to me and I find it much more enjoyable to listen music that I love.

[jhar26]

What I usually do when there's music I don't like is put it away for a few months or half a year and then try again, at least when I think the music in question might be worth the effort. I don't play it five times in a row. If I don't like it at least at some level I don't insist but try again later. This is how I for example came to appreciate post-swing jazz. I had bought Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" because it's supposed to be one of the best jazz albums in history. However, my initial reaction when I first listened to it is, "wtf is this???" But I accepted that the problem was not Coltrane but jhar26. If so many people who's opinions I can respect love this music I knew there must be something there that just didn't resonate with me. So some months later I tried again........nothing. I kept on trying every four or five months until after about three years it all of a sudden clicked with me. The previous time I had listened to it it didn't do anything for me (except maybe annoy me), but now there was a breakthrough and I thought it was magnificent. It had been worth the effort because now I not only liked "A Love Supreme", but listening to Coltrane's other albums and the works of Davis, Monk, Mingus and the rest of them became much easier after that. So by investing some time (but never so much time that it became a pain in the you know what) in learning to appreciate "A Love Supreme" I had in fact opened the doors to lots of other music that I now enjoy and that I otherwise wouldn't have.

Everyone is as Mirror-Image says wired differently, so what works for one person might not work for someone else. In my experience it's not a good idea to listen to something you don't like five times in a row. If you already dislike it torturing yourself with it will only make you hate it even more. But putting that cd back on the shelves and trying again at some later point, and keep on repeating the process if necessary can get you some positive results. And in doing it that way you never waste, as Teresa says, too much of your time listening to stuff you don't like. But the limited amount of time YOU DO invest in it may be very rewarding in the end. You've gotta sow before you can reap. You can still have a bad harvest, but you'll never know if you don't try.

[Teresa]

jhar26 I don't listen to something I don't like five times in a row, I wouldn't be able to.  It is usually over a period of weeks or months, I then make the decision to keep it or sell/delete it. 

And some works I have revisited over decades by borrowing a different performance from the library or a free download.  Never has something I hated in 1970 magically turned into something I liked in 2010.  It may happen some day but I am not holding my breath.   

I seemed to be blessed with the ability to KNOW what works I love on the first listen, and what works I like within five listenings.

[jhar26]

jhar26 I don't listen to something I don't like five times in a row, I wouldn't be able to.  It is usually over a period of weeks or months, I then make the decision to keep it or sell/delete it. 

And some works I have revisited over decades by borrowing a different performance from the library or a free download.  Never has something I hated in 1970 magically turned into something I liked in 2010.  It may happen some day but I am not holding my breath.   

I seemed to be blessed with the ability to KNOW what works I love on the first listen, and what works I like within five listenings.

Well, as I said these things probably work differently for each person. I was only explaining how it works for me. Most of the time I also know immediately if I will like a piece of music or not. It's mostly when the music in question comes from a genre that I'm not familiar with at that point that my appreciation for it may grow over time.

[jowcol]

I had bought Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" because it's supposed to be one of the best jazz albums in history. However, my initial reaction when I first listened to it is, "wtf is this???" But I accepted that the problem was not Coltrane but jhar26. If so many people who's opinions I can respect love this music I knew there must be something there that just didn't resonate with me. So some months later I tried again........nothing. I kept on trying every four or five months until after about three years it all of a sudden clicked with me. The previous time I had listened to it it didn't do anything for me (except maybe annoy me), but now there was a breakthrough and I thought it was magnificent. It had been worth the effort because now I not only liked "A Love Supreme", but listening to Coltrane's other albums and the works of Davis, Monk, Mingus and the rest of them became much easier after that. So by investing some time (but never so much time that it became a pain in the you know what) in learning to appreciate "A Love Supreme" I had in fact opened the doors to lots of other music that I now enjoy and that I otherwise wouldn't have.

I had a similar wtf moment with Coltrane's OM, which is probably the wildest album from his late period.  I couldn't stand it.  Until one night, as I was struck with food poisoning, the music started playing in my head, and it made sense-- on such a completely differently level.  I can't say I listen to OM as much as his classic period, but there are times I need that does of pure energy.

[Mirror Image]

I have only owned one composition by Allan Pettersson, the Symphony No. 14 which I purchased on Amazon.com as the streaming audio sounded interesting and it was only 89 cents for the whole symphony.  Ultimately I deleted it from my harddrive as I really didn't care for it.  As I said life is too short to listen to music one does not love.  If I could live to be 1,000 or 5,000 I might have kept it around for a few more listens.  But with so much wonderful music to listen to, more indeed that years left on my life.  I prefer to listen to music I love, including new discoveries.   

How can you make new discoveries when you're not willing to examine a whole composer's output? Pettersson's Symphony No. 14 isn't a great place to start with this composer. A more approachable symphony would be his Symphony No. 7 or Symphony No. 8 in my opinion. Have you heard these symphonies?

Since you claim you're open to new music, you should try these two Pettersson symphonies out and be open-minded when you're listening. He's not like listening to Kodaly or Mussorgsky or any composer you like.

[Teresa]

How can you make new discoveries when you're not willing to examine a whole composer's output? Pettersson's Symphony No. 14 isn't a great place to start with this composer. A more approachable symphony would be his Symphony No. 7 or Symphony No. 8 in my opinion. Have you heard these symphonies?

Since you claim you're open to new music, you should try these two Pettersson symphonies out and be open-minded when you're listening. He's not like listening to Kodaly or Mussorgsky or any composer you like.

I listen to everything I can and LOVE to try new composers I never heard of.  I have put these on my listening list either as checkouts from the library or at the very least streaming audio samples on the internet.  I have listened to other Pettersson streaming audio samples and was not impressed but since the 14th is the only one I have heard completely, I will check out the 7th and 8th. 

BTW no two composers sound the same. 

[Mirror Image]

I listen to everything I can and LOVE to try new composers I never heard of.  I have put these on my listening list either as checkouts from the library or at the very least streaming audio samples on the internet.  I have listened to other Pettersson streaming audio samples and was not impressed but since the 14th is the only one I have heard completely, I will check out the 7th and 8th. 

BTW no two composers sound the same. 

Yes, check out the 7th and 8th. I would also checkout the 6th, which, along with the 7th and 8th, is regarded as one of his masterpieces.

[Solitary Wanderer]

65%+ for me.

The balance is made up of;

Pre-rock crooners
Lounge
Psych
'70s library/soundtrack etc
'75-'79 AM Gold
Instrumental, conceptual Progressive
Electro-acoustic space music

Yikes, three years on...

These days about 90% classical

the remaining 10% consists of Sinatra, some 70s Pop/Rock and 'bits'. 

[bhodges]

Hey, Chris, welcome back!  Nice to see your avatar around these parts. 

--Bruce