Appreciation of Music
Posted by: mikeeschman on 23 January 2010
When you begin to really listen to music, the whole world is your oyster. Everything is available. One day, you find that you have favorites, and have preferences. When that day comes, your options are circumscribed.
If you listen long enough, there is a tendency to listen in a closed loop. The closure is gradual. I'm not saying this will happen to everyone, just that it is one possible outcome.
Three basic methods make themselves apparent to open the loop, or to make it sustainable. Learning the favorites so well, they are committed to memory, seeking out the unfamiliar and revisiting the rejected.
Discussion on a forum has proven to be very successful in all three areas. Buying on my own, with only reviews on the web and Amazon sound clips, about 1 in ten CDs are "keepers". On this forum, I'm running about 5 in 10, and 10 in 10 taught me something about music I didn't know.
I have my collection organized by decade of performance. I can't really say why, it's just the way it is. Sometimes it is interesting to trace a single piece across five decades. This is very illuminating in understanding the orchestra, for example. You can see how people change musically.
I would very much like to hear how you grew your collection, if that would be of any interest.
If you listen long enough, there is a tendency to listen in a closed loop. The closure is gradual. I'm not saying this will happen to everyone, just that it is one possible outcome.
Three basic methods make themselves apparent to open the loop, or to make it sustainable. Learning the favorites so well, they are committed to memory, seeking out the unfamiliar and revisiting the rejected.
Discussion on a forum has proven to be very successful in all three areas. Buying on my own, with only reviews on the web and Amazon sound clips, about 1 in ten CDs are "keepers". On this forum, I'm running about 5 in 10, and 10 in 10 taught me something about music I didn't know.
I have my collection organized by decade of performance. I can't really say why, it's just the way it is. Sometimes it is interesting to trace a single piece across five decades. This is very illuminating in understanding the orchestra, for example. You can see how people change musically.
I would very much like to hear how you grew your collection, if that would be of any interest.
quote:Originally posted by mikeeschman:
One day, you find that you have favorites, and have preferences. When that day comes, your options are circumscribed. If you listen long enough, there is a tendency to listen in a closed loop.
This made me smile at myself. My first reaction was a very strong "I've never been in a closed loop". Then I re-read it. Properly. And then I realised it had happened to me in the 80s.
I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have been a teenager in the 60s where boundaries were being broken down and as part of a close circle of friends we'd consider almost everything fair game. As money was tight we had a rule that no-one of us would buy something someone else had so we made the most of what was out there. Except Country and Western and Trad Jazz (that was right out)!
And that spirit has kept with me ever since - I've never stopped wanting to try new genres. I'm a new music junkie, even if that music was made decades or centuries ago.
But you made me realise how I'd gradually become closed into that loop you mentioned. I'd thoroughly enjoyed punk (as a hippie I wasn't supposed to, but hey) and post-punk etc. But that outflowing of innovation dried up coincidentally with me moving to The States...
We got the salary/cost of living/setting up home equations horribly wrong and spent the entire time scraping by. We had a wonderful time otherwise and it taught me a lot, but it meant I couldn't afford many records and so I went very safe and only bought stuff I knew I'd like - so fell into the trap of only buying artists I already had stuff by. It wasn't helped by being well out of a major city and restricted to a dire diet of Madonna/Foreigner FM station fodder and no friends to pick new stuff off.
By the late 80s, when we'd come back, I was in that closed loop - having lost contact with what was contemporary and essentially living musically in the past.
Fortunately in the early 90s a friend introduced me to house/trance and the ambient spin-offs and I was off again, and latterly the internet has fuelled everything to a huge degree - whether that's radio, forums (over a period of 10 years this particular forum has provided a lot, especially in the early years) or just following bread-crumb trails on Amazon. I love it.
My collection is therefore all over the place (but strictly alphabetical) with just two divisions - classical and everything else (note that I split Terry Riley and Philip Glass between the two divisions and Indian Classical, rather bizarrely, doesn't sit in the Classical section).
For those that are faintly interested:
Here's Classical
Here's "Everything Else"
With the advent of CDs my classical collection mushroomed but then stopped once I'd got to a certain point - I thought I'd exhausted the repertoire (that sounds pompous doesn't it, but I'm not a great 19th century fan or opera - post 1750 - and I've never seen the attraction of buying multiple versions of stuff) but in recent years I've been pushing myself into new areas - particularly 20th century, though admittedly the more accessible sort, so minimalism, Bartok, and odd niches off the mainstream of French music.
Not sure where all that came from and not sure I even answered your question
I had a quick look at your " Everything else" list, we coincide in artists about 50% or so. You must get more Tangerine Dream I think? 
Is that just CDs then Gary?
How are you hosting your lists?
I keep everything too.
Is that just CDs then Gary?
How are you hosting your lists?
I keep everything too.
quote:Originally posted by BigH47:
I had a quick look at your " Everything else" list, we coincide in artists about 50% or so. You must get more Tangerine Dream I think?
Is that just CDs then Gary?
How are you hosting your lists?
I keep everything too.
Tangs have just overtaken The Grateful Dead with most titles. I clearly need more Richard thompson though :-)
I'm surprised we overlap to that degree Howard, maybe I'll try and turn you on to Acid Mothers Temple one day ;-)
I have my own little chunk of webspace which I use for odd bits of junk like my record collection (offsite storage like a good boy).
I got it a few years ago as the first step in a stunt I was going to pull on you lot. I think Mike Lacey and a few others were waxing lyrical about various Pink Floyd tribute bands, so I planned to invent a bogus one called ydpinkfloydp (from New Zealand) made up of the Tunbridge Wells Riders in disguise.
So, I got the webspace and the URL, obtained various photos of the TW Riders and Tom Alves photoshopped them to make us look like a band and even started to write copy for the website, with a couple of kiwi Forumites prepped to give eye-witness accounts and some bona fides.
Sadly I got fed up and legged it from all Forum life (except for an Aston Villa one) for nearly a year and the slender point of doing it in the first place evaporated.
Do you think I've wibbled enough for today?
Back on Topic...
Like Gary, my stagnation came following a life changing move...
I grew up with three much older brothers who, between them, covered much of the spectrum of 60's pop and rock music. So I grew up surrounded by the music of the Beatles, Beach Boys, Stones, Who, Hendrix, Pink Floyd etc. etc. I picked up on prog in the 70's then the post-punk era at the cusp of the 70s/80s when I was a wastrel student spending too much money on beer, concerts and lps. On graduating, I moved to Bristol, which, at the time had a vibrant local music scene and many live venues. I was able to attend gigs most nights. I continued to buy lps and eventually bought my first real hi-fi (LP12 and 42/110).
I then moved to darkest Hampshire, where I met Mrs S and settled down. The local area was dreadful for live music, and although London was in reach I always hated gigs in the Smoke so often didn’t bother. Kids soon followed and my record buying dwindled to a trickle.
Strangely, what lead to the real change was getting a job for a global consultancy which meant I often spent much time driving up and down the motorways of GB. Spending so much time in the car lead me to digging out my tape collection (and even recording new tapes for the car) and listening to the music channels on the radio more.
I then began looking to buy some new music and found that it was increasingly difficult to find on vinyl so I started buying silver discs (despite not having a hi-fi quality player). I was beginning to think about buying a CD player when my 110 died rather spectacularly. I found my local Naim emporium and took it in to be sent to Salisbury for some TLC. I arranged to audition some CD players on its return.
I also found this place (which was in the midst of the Stand Wars at the time) and found refuge in the Music Room. I started to buy new (to me) music on the say so of complete strangers, many of whom I have since met. I'm not sure that my tastes have broadened particularly but I now have much more music to listen to (though it is but a small raction of Gary's epic collection).
I even started having musical gatherings with friends playing our favourite music to each other in the vain hope of finding new converts (I noted the lack of any Chameleons albums in your collection Gary
).
I do still play albums from the 70s/80s which still form the backbone of my collection, I guess they always will.
Like Gary, my stagnation came following a life changing move...
I grew up with three much older brothers who, between them, covered much of the spectrum of 60's pop and rock music. So I grew up surrounded by the music of the Beatles, Beach Boys, Stones, Who, Hendrix, Pink Floyd etc. etc. I picked up on prog in the 70's then the post-punk era at the cusp of the 70s/80s when I was a wastrel student spending too much money on beer, concerts and lps. On graduating, I moved to Bristol, which, at the time had a vibrant local music scene and many live venues. I was able to attend gigs most nights. I continued to buy lps and eventually bought my first real hi-fi (LP12 and 42/110).
I then moved to darkest Hampshire, where I met Mrs S and settled down. The local area was dreadful for live music, and although London was in reach I always hated gigs in the Smoke so often didn’t bother. Kids soon followed and my record buying dwindled to a trickle.
Strangely, what lead to the real change was getting a job for a global consultancy which meant I often spent much time driving up and down the motorways of GB. Spending so much time in the car lead me to digging out my tape collection (and even recording new tapes for the car) and listening to the music channels on the radio more.
I then began looking to buy some new music and found that it was increasingly difficult to find on vinyl so I started buying silver discs (despite not having a hi-fi quality player). I was beginning to think about buying a CD player when my 110 died rather spectacularly. I found my local Naim emporium and took it in to be sent to Salisbury for some TLC. I arranged to audition some CD players on its return.
I also found this place (which was in the midst of the Stand Wars at the time) and found refuge in the Music Room. I started to buy new (to me) music on the say so of complete strangers, many of whom I have since met. I'm not sure that my tastes have broadened particularly but I now have much more music to listen to (though it is but a small raction of Gary's epic collection).
I even started having musical gatherings with friends playing our favourite music to each other in the vain hope of finding new converts (I noted the lack of any Chameleons albums in your collection Gary
).I do still play albums from the 70s/80s which still form the backbone of my collection, I guess they always will.
Gary did you just forget to list the Rush albums in your collection? Some mistake surely? 
Yes more Richard Thompson , there is a rule you can't have enough RT.
Yes more Richard Thompson , there is a rule you can't have enough RT.
quote:Originally posted by BigH47:
Gary did you just forget to list the Rush albums in your collection? Some mistake surely?
Yes more Richard Thompson , there is a rule you can't have enough RT.
mmmm it's sometimes easy to forget the music and just get sucked into the equipment.
Paul