The first time...

I suppose one might consider this diametrically opposed to the best sound recording for testing your system thread.

In that you are listening to a piece you know in order to expose your setups lows/highs.

In the first listening of a piece I am looking for a musical and emotional involvement which, to me, is like losing your virginity, it only happens once.

I am alone in this?

I vividly remember the first time I put "Bellybutton" by the band "Jellyfish" on the turntable. I bought it on a whim, & can't even remember why I'd give them a try. Certainly not from friends recommendations (nobody had heard of them) or radioplay.
But Wow. I had to stop what I was doing, & listened to both sides twice, rapidly followed by phoning up some mates to come around & give it a listen.
I guess it just captured a moment for me. Marvellous what music can do.
matt.

Hi!
As Fredrik wrote once there're different levels of listening.
When i get records i usually give them more chances at different levels of listening because many of them have a hidden trace to find out between the lines.
Some of the records i like most slept for years on a shelf.
That's life.

To be sure there is the pleasure of the new, however there is also greater understanding and in a really wonderful record one is always finding new things to enjoy.

I once heard the great Charles Mackerras say that he always conducts with the score, rather than from memory, in order that he doesn't stop noticing new things. He said that he'd been reading the score to one of the Dvorak symphonies recently and had noticed something that hadn't stood out to him before (and, of course, he is one of the pre-eminent conductors of Dvorak). One of the reasons I keep coming back to his Beethoven symphonies is that every time I listen the seem as fresh and new as the first time.

regards, Tam

p.s. Looking back over that I realise that Gianluigi has said much the same much more succinctly.

I guess it reveals the multi layered benefits of music reproduction.

I do find pleasure in discovering a subtle nuance in a familiar piece of music but I still crave that 1st impression, that initial reaction, that intake of breath, that wow factor.

I've said it before (on this forum) but for me its the still point of the turning world. That perfect moment which can be reproduced but never recreated.

I was thinking about a perfect music utopia where each member passes on a disc to the next, you play it, sieze that moment and then pass the disc to the next member and eagerly anticipate the next still point in the turning world.

sorry, once a writer, always a...

Too some extent I agree with you.

Whenever I buy a recording of Wagner's Siegfried the very first thing I do is put in the disc that has the Woodbird's bit. Why? Because when I met the work for the first time in Scottish Opera's Ring cycle that part was sublimely sung and staged (and was my first introduction to a really lovely bit of music). No recording I have ever heard captures that. Nor the beauty of Donald Runnicles' placement of the post-horn in Mahler's 3rd last summer.

I love hearing something 'new', I think it is one of the greatest pleasures there is (and one of the things that hooked me into Wagner - the use of all the anvils in Rheingold is a masterstroke of orchestration). Similarly, during Radio 3's Bach experience I really enjoyed hearing the Loussier trio's jazz approach to his music (and at some point amazon will pull their fingers out and send me the CD). It's why I love Miles Davis so much, since he was constantly moving his music forwards. I could go on.

Clearly that sort of moment will never be recreated, except with the next new discovery. However, I think my point is that music goes on to become satisfying in a different way.

regards, Tam

quote:

Originally posted by Voltaire:
I was thinking about a perfect music utopia where each member passes on a disc to the next, you play it, sieze that moment and then pass the disc to the next member and eagerly anticipate the next still point in the turning world.

I have one problem - all the discs that really move me I want to keep. That said, I got great pleasure from giving my Abbado Brahms symphonies to Fredrik - I hadn't cared for them at all and so they would have sat on my shelves unloved for ages, but they are now being appreciated. Similarly, giving someone a copy (legally, of course) of a disc that has moved you is in ways even more rewarding.

regards, Tam

I agree Tam , but the replaying for me is like looking at a photograph of a perfect holiday.

Do you know what I mean?

The "wow factor" is the one that you sometimes feel when meeting a woman for the first time.
Right from the second evening out you start feeling just like running away.

I'm not dismissing replays, just advocating 1st impressions.

I have a large cd collection so I am living prooof of the benfits of replaying...

quote:

Originally posted by Voltaire:
I agree Tam , but the replaying for me is like looking at a photograph of a perfect holiday.

Do you know what I mean?

I know exactly what you mean. Often I play the concert in my head and use the cd almost as an aide-memoire.

regards, Tam

quote:

Originally posted by Voltaire:
I have a large cd collection so I am living prooof of the benfits of replaying...

I use this when i realized i did spend too much to the local store and feel somehow guilty.

Voltaire
I also have Compulsive CD Purchasing Disorder. I think it actually works against replaying - I am always working down the stack of just receieved discs. I sometimes make myself pick a couple of discs at random just to remind me of what else I have!
Now if only there was a cure for CCPD ( other than self control, with which I struggle!).

Dear Chris and Voltaire,

It might easily be said that you don't have to compulsively purchase CDs to post here but it helps!

I would say how long the backlog on my 'to be listened to shelf was' but that would require me to go and count them (I would be astonished if it was below 50). My problem, you see, is compounded because I both love to find new things and explore the old. Still, of all the problems to have it isn't a pretty enjoyable one.

regards, Tam

Yes, I have certainly also experienced the charm of a new piece of music. But in the long run I prefer less accessible music, which reveals its quality little by little, and which in the end proves to be much more rewarding than the easier accessible but also fast tiring music.

For me some of the magic of playing that new album for the first time has gone. This is, I suspect, because I no longer have a TT. Back in the good old days BCD (Before CD)there was a sort of ritual I enjoyed which bordered on a religious experience. First a trip to Brighton's best record shop (selling only classical recordings and run by a monk like chap with an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music)the shop itself was quiet - just like a library. People who shopped there spoke in hushed tones of reverence.

Having got the vinyl home I would love to take it out of its sleave for the first time, all shiny and virgin and squeeky clean and hold it up to the light and marvel that not one speck of dust could be found. Then laying it gently on the TT mat and then the ever so careful cueing of the arm and lowering the stylus into the grove and suddenly hearing the whole system energised as stylus and groove unite. A few seconds of hushed expectancy and then the music - an exciting mystery tour of new sounds and then the same hightened sense of expectancy for side B.

CDs just dont do it for me. Maybe I should some of those Japanese jobbies which are packaged better. There is something flimsy, mass produced and cheap about CDs to my mind, something altogether less substantial and musical. Something less magical.

The best vinyl albums opened out with the record in a sleave on one side and extensive notes and photos on the other. The print could be read. I dislike the tiny little books in Cd cases and the cases themselves are so prone to cracking or even breaking. Cheap plastic tat.

I miss my TT and my precious record collection is long gone.

Erik,

You make me feel sad for you.

I agree with all you just said about vinyl, being as that it is my only medium. I love the ritual of unveiling the new and listening for the first time, but I actually prefer the music somewhere from the 5th or 6th listen onwards. Only when the music has started to become familiar does it really open out for me and allow me to explore its nuances. Then it just improves with every listen.

Perhaps this is like the difference between a one night stand and a long term relationship! ........Except I still play with my records after fifteen years!

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by Chillkram:
Erik,

You make me feel sad for you.

Mark,

No need to feel sad for me but thanks anyway. The most stupid thing I ever did was sell my house in Cumbria, put all my things in storage and then embark on some more expensive IT training just before the IT contract market crashed. I stopped paying my monthly storage fee as the girl there said it was ok as the value of the contents far exceeded what I owed.

Later the company was taken over and the new manager was mailing me at an old address demanding payment. I did not know this. Eventually everything was auctioned at give away prices or destroyed without my knowledge. A whole house full of expensive furniture, a book and record collection to die for, HiFi, personal letters, wedding photos, photos from school, ex girlfriends, travel and the Army and of family, documents, certificates, a collection of buddha statues and shrine items, paintings, you name it. All gone. Hardly a week goes by that I dont remember something else I that I have lost amongst my old treasures.

But not one tear did I shed. Things change just like that. Grasping at permanence in an impermanent world only causes pain. I think I did a good job of letting it all go and that was on top of having had my Range Rover and motorbike stolen in Dublin the year before. The RR had not been insured for Ireland and I lost a bundle on it. Sometimes you have to let old stuff go to allow new stuff in. Im very aware of the 'tyranny of possesions'. The whole thing was a lesson in impermanence and letting go. Every day is a mini death and a mini rebirth. Every moment too if you analyse it deeply enough. Liberation comes from letting go.

My only regrets are that I have no photos of myself that are more than 5 years old and that I will never be able to show them to my children (if I ever have any)but that is all. I can probably get a collection togather from my siblings so that is not a great problem but it would be nice to have my record collection back.

Erik

Erik

I understand what you mean about possessions. I tend to cling on to things that have some memory of or attachment to people. My LP12, for example, I could never part with because it was my dad's from new and we enjoyed our hi-fi hobby together when I was a teenager.

Still we shouldn't hijack this thread. Why not start a thread on possessions in the rubber room?

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by Chillkram:
Erik

I understand what you mean about possessions. I tend to cling on to things that have some memory of or attachment to people. My LP12, for example, I could never part with because it was my dad's from new and we enjoyed our hi-fi hobby together when I was a teenager.

Still we shouldn't hijack this thread. Why not start a thread on possessions in the rubber room?

Mark

I think I did here

but joking aside it might be a good idea as long as it does not fall into a willy wagging thread.