How long do you listen?

[mikealdren]

Lance,
Your post on recent discs made we wonder, how many hours a week do people spend listening to music? My answer is as much as possible but often while doing other things, purely sitting down and listening, probably nmo more than 2 hours per week.

Mike

[val]

When I listen, I never do anything else. I use to spent one or two hours each evening, listening to new recordings or to the old ones.

[absinthe]

Averaged over a month, about 20 mins/day* for attentive listening.
Pre-sleep, MP3 player/earphones about 3/4 hr.
Travelling, average about 30 mins/day*
When working at home I usually play radio 3 background.

*very piecemeal - could be 2 hours 1 day then nothing for a week.

Excludes concert-going.

[Ken]

For me it's a rare treat to sit alone and focus solely on music, but I'm not one of those talented individuals can do absolutely nothing else while they listen to a record. I often become restless with nothing to look at (unless I'm watching a concert DVD, that is), and usually do some light writing or reading (or eating!) during my 'concentrated listening'. This amounts to about a CD per day, so perhaps seven hours per week.

Of course, I have music playing almost all the time when I'm at home; usually in the form of BBC Radio 3, but I also often let my own music play while I'm occupying myself with other tasks.

[Istvan]

When I was working most of my free time - mornings, afternoons and frequently evenings too were spent listening. Now that I am retired, I don't find so much energy for listening (I never do anything else at the same time) and it is limited to two hours or so each morning. Since the CD collection continues to grow, each one gets played relatively few times. I used to tape radio concerts too but now find the sound coming from a cassette deck unsatisfactory.

[Chalkperson]

I start listening to music at 8.45 each morning and continue at the Studio and then back at home until around 2am, sometimes I watch a Movie/Opera/Live Performance/Documentary in the evening but only about 2-3 times a week, I am also a fan of "Music from the Other Room, where I will activate the speakers in the bedroom or bathroom whilst I am in another part of the apartment, I use my main system most of the time because I live in a loft type apartment with curved walls that only go eight foot high (I have 12 foot ceilings) I also have good mini speakers at my desk at home and at the Studio...I stop and listen intensely for a couple of hours each evening, sometimes the music is so good and so well played that I have to literally stop everything I am doing and just sit in the chair and wallow in the music...my whole place has five sets of speakers and I can direct the sound to any or all of these whenever I feel like it because of my digital library...

When commenting on CMG I have access to my entire collection of about 15,000 CD's so I can easily play a piece instantly so as to comment here but I am also able to set up, for example, six pianists playing the same piece back to back...I have spent nearly four years ripping every CD as Apple Lossless files, the advantages this gives me far outweigh the time spent compiling my library...

[maestrob]

Am listening now, and will continue until about 1:30PM or so. Generally, I listen in the AM to classical.

Concentrated listening with a score rarely happens nowadays, as I'm no longer working.

[Ken]

Chalk, what do your neighbours think of your home audio set-up and domestic listening habits?

I received a couple of complaints in my last apartment, which also had 12-foot ceilings and would essentially turn my living room into a giant amplifier for the rest of the building.

[mikealdren]

Chalkie,
You've got my interest with Apple lossless capture. How do you catalogue it? Do you use their on-line listings and, if so, do you/can you correct errors and add more data where required? What software do you use to access your catalogue? Just Apple playlists? Do they work for 'classical' music?

My more meagre collection (1700 CDs + similar LPs) is all fully catalogued on my own database but I find that commercial on-line links usually don't give adequate details of performers or have inconsistent ways of capturing the names, opus nos etc of works. I'd love to get all my CDs onto a hard disk system and I'm sure that a decent DAC would give me good sound quality from the computer.

Mike

[Chalkperson]

Chalk, what do your neighbours think of your home audio set-up and domestic listening habits?

I received a couple of complaints in my last apartment, which also had 12-foot ceilings and would essentially turn my living room into a giant amplifier for the rest of the building.

Nobody can hear me, I live in a buildng near Wall Street that was originally a Manufacturing Operation, the ceilings are solid concrete, the walls are triple layers of sheetrock (in the seventies people in Manhattan would break into apartments by going straight thru the wall instead of the door) plus underneath me is the storage area for the building, the only comments I get are complimentary when on occasion I open the front door and my neighbors pass by, I picked my apartment very carefully and was upfront with the Co-Op board about my love of music, after all you can hardly upset people with a Bach Piano disc or a Haydn Piano Trio, of course I never play Schumann as that is something my neighbors would definately not appreciate...

[Chalkperson]

Chalkie,
You've got my interest with Apple lossless capture. How do you catalogue it? Do you use their on-line listings and, if so, do you/can you correct errors and add more data where required? What software do you use to access your catalogue? Just Apple playlists? Do they work for 'classical' music?

My more meagre collection (1700 CDs + similar LPs) is all fully catalogued on my own database but I find that commercial on-line links usually don't give adequate details of performers or have inconsistent ways of capturing the names, opus nos etc of works. I'd love to get all my CDs onto a hard disk system and I'm sure that a decent DAC would give me good sound quality from the computer.

Mike

I will post a screengrab of the Dialog Box (Command - I) that I use to record the information in, it only takes a few minutes to do for each disc...and I have 69 different Genres, that's the key to it all...

There are lots of USB DAC's available now...

[mikealdren]

Thanks, I look forward to trying it.

Mike

[RebLem]

I tend not to give my undivided atention to music, but I like to listen to things I love with most of my mind, perhaps eating at the same time. Sometimes, I watch a sporting event on TV with the sound off. In works of minimal interest, I may do food prep at the same time, but usually not actual cooking. That means establishing a mise en place, peeling and cutting carrots, thawing meat or chicken, getting things ready for cooking, or preparing a salad, which usually requires no cooking. At least a couple times a week, I like to listen to a concert length program. Lots of times, I will watch a talk show, and turn the sound off for commercials and guests I am not interested in and listen to music. Even though I am retired, I tend to do most of my listening on the weekends, because there is less on TV I am interested in on weekends, so I tend to fill it up with music. Sometimes I listen on my computer system, but since its sound quality is not as good as my LR system, it tends to be music with a limited dynamic range--solo instrumental and chamber music and such. I seldom listen in the car, though what I do, it tends to be what ya call semi-classical; I have a multi-disc Willi Boskovsky set of Strauss family waltzes and marches in the car that I'm doing that with now, before that I listened to a Jessye Norman recital album with some classical selections, but mostly spirituals and such. Mostly, in the car, though, I listen to Air America talk radio. Occasionally, I listen to one of the local NPR stations, or to KHFM, our local commercial classical station. I probably listed to classical music in the condo about 10-15 hours a week altogether, but sometimes I binge, and will listen for a straight 4-5 hour stretch. on a Saturday, Sunday, or holiday.

[Seán]

On weekdays, Monday to Friday, I am inclined to listen to music for about one to two hours in the evening. At the weekend I listen to music for several hours on Saturday and on Sunday. If I am very tired I don't listen to music at all. I rarely listen to Jazz now it's almost always Classical music.

[Ken]

...I picked my apartment very carefully and was upfront with the Co-Op board about my love of music, after all you can hardly upset people with a Bach Piano disc or a Haydn Piano Trio, of course I never play Schumann as that is something my neighbors would definately not appreciate...

Of course--if I had only listened to less Schumann and more Satie, I'd have surely received fewer complaints.

[Lance]

I am constantly listening to music ... I'm delighted to say many hours every day. I audit material for forthcoming radio broadcasts, and general listening. I often listen to music (very seriously) even while working on CMG. When I am working on a piano action for a customer, I can listen intently whilst filing and shaping hammers, setting "touch" on a piano, and myriad other "quiet" procedures. I listen either to CDs available at hand or to NPR broadcasts. For me, music is like having regular meals; it's a very important part of my existence. What I cannot do, however, is to read and listen to music seriously at the same time. I cannot listen to great music as background music. Even as I write this, I am listening to a new recording of Mendelssohn's two two-piano concertos with Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas on MSR Classics label with the thought of broadcasting this wonderful recording. Even whilst driving, I am listening to NPR broadcasts, live opera on Saturdays, etc., et al.

[Fergus]

Attentive listening gets one hour each evening.
Repeated listening gets about one to one and a half hours each day.
Those times can be doubled at the week end.

[Lance]

And just think ... we do this listening for our own enjoyment and edification and, of course, we learn along the way. We get to take it all to the grave, too!

Attentive listening gets one hour each evening.
Repeated listening gets about one to one and a half hours each day.
Those times can be doubled at the week end.

[Corlyss_D]

I listen as long as I'm awake and not watching TV. Either the radio is on or I'm listening to www.concertzender.nl, at least until they go off the air, as is projected now, in Nov.

[Donaldopato]

I work from home, but am in and out and on the phone a lot, so not much during the day. In the eve, if home, usually from about 7-10 or so each day is involved in listening.

[thisolehouse]

Though I start listening to music as early as the 8 AM hour, my most intense strictly listening period is probably the couple hours while I am walking and during my workout time.

The rest of the listening time varies because of my wife's and my work hours, when I am a writing, painting, or other commitments.

(Music is a distraction, for me, while I am creating. Some of my artist friends say that they need music to create.)

After I begin listening I have something mainly from my collection or the radio playing almost continually. It probably adds up to about 3 hours a day of focused listening.

Bill

[piston]

Tremendous daily variations, depending on my domestic and work obligations.

I think that I listen most to classical music when the camp is all set up and everything is at hand, perhaps seven to eight hours of it on a given day. Otherwise it varies from 0 to 4 hours a day.

[Fergus]

And just think ... we do this listening for our own enjoyment and edification and, of course, we learn along the way. We get to take it all to the grave, too!

Attentive listening gets one hour each evening.
Repeated listening gets about one to one and a half hours each day.
Those times can be doubled at the week end.

Ah yes Lance....but consider the enjoyment factor also
Music is an integral part of the human species' make up and for those poor souls like us, an indispensible part

[Fergus]

....Music is a distraction, for me, while I am creating. Some of my artist friends say that they need music to create....

Hi Bill,
I can understand music being a distraction for you while you want to be focused on something else.... but I would like to ask you as an artist is music in any way a visual thing for you....or is it completely intellectual?

[petervk]

When commenting on CMG I have access to my entire collection of about 15,000 CD's so I can easily play a piece instantly so as to comment here but I am also able to set up, for example, six pianists playing the same piece back to back...I have spent nearly four years ripping every CD as Apple Lossless files, the advantages this gives me far outweigh the time spent compiling my library...

Wow, that is impressive.
I digitized my relatively small collection (1200+) last year, which took me six months. I encoded it in ogg with high bitrate, but lossless would have been better, indeed. I'm not going to do it again, though.

One of the things that is possible now is to generate random playlists out of all tracks. iTunes has a function for that (iTunes DJ). I do this quit a lot. Sometimes I do great discoveries in my own collection

[Corlyss_D]

(Music is a distraction, for me, while I am creating. Some of my artist friends say that they need music to create.)

Very right-brained activities. There was a period in the early 80s when I would retire to the basement to bind books. I listened amost exclusively to Idomeneo, Rosenkavalier, and Brahms Clarinet Quintet. I could start out at the end of a Friday workday, and "wake up" 8-10 hours later without feeling tired at all. For me it was better than sleep.

[Ken]

^ Why didn't you opt for recordings by Rudolf Buchbinder?

[thisolehouse]

Hi Bill,
I can understand music being a distraction for you while you want to be focused on something else.... but I would like to ask you as an artist is music in any way a visual thing for you....or is it completely intellectual?

Hi Fergus,

To me the answer to your question,generally speaking, depends on the individual piece of music. There are works I enjoy purely as a pleasing aural experience without any extramusical sensations being created.

And listening intently and as hard as I may to try creating a visual picture and even though they may have a descriptive title for me I cannot.It is an intellectual exercise.

For me, music from the Baroque is the epitome of this type of music.

But other pieces, though not program music at all, bring pictures or emotional sensations to my mind. A melody, key change, the tempo, or something will evoke some response that the composer very likely did not have in mind at all. Making my response something all my own.

Bill

[stephenjohn]

I have music on when I am driving or occasionaly when doing another activity. I don't count that as me listening [although I occasionally stop the car is a piece of music captures me so that I need to listen fully]. I sit down an average of 90 minutes per day to try and exclusively listen. Sometimes a movement has ended and I realise then that I got lost in my thoughts. I don't count that as listening either. So maybe it isn't that much a few hours per week, but it is wonderful when I manage it.

[Fergus]

....But other pieces, though not program music at all, bring pictures or emotional sensations to my mind. A melody, key change, the tempo, or something will evoke some response that the composer very likely did not have in mind at all. Making my response something all my own.

Bill

That is music and Art in general though, Bill....something very subjective

[thisolehouse]

l

That is music and Art in general though, Bill....something very subjective

That’s true, Fergus, it is true every time. Whether a work of visual art, the written word, or a piece of music what an individual does with it is subjective.

[slofstra]

Something to try is a "fast" from listening to music. I don't do this deliberately, but on this last vacation there were long stretches - a couple of weeks - without listening to anything. The thing is that when you listen again everything is very vivid and fresh, kind of like fasting before having a steak dinner.

To answer the question, I listen an hour or so most days. Sometimes longer. I take a SUDOKU book with me in case I'm distracted but often I will become totally immersed in the music. Then I like to turn out all the lights and even dim the LEDs on the amp and player and just listen. Next I fall asleep and wake up 3 hours later, the CD is over, I only heard 3 minutes of it, and I have a crick in my neck. Ah, well.

At work I listen to my much vaunted Internet radio programmed with every classical music station that you could think of. I do this while working on more routine tasks. According to my daughter, music improves efficiency while performing routine tasks and decreases efficiency while performing intellectually demanding tasks.

On this last trip we put on over 10,000 kilometres so I played quite a few CDs in the car. You're really only listening in snatches in this scenario, and many of the softer passages and detail are totally lost. However, I worked through quite a few sets of CDs while driving - I estimate somewhere between 50 to 100 CDs.

[slofstra]

We get to take it all to the grave, too!

Hey, it's just something to do while we are here.

[lmpower]

I try not to do anything else while listening to classical music. Most of my life I averaged two hours a day of attentive listening. I agree with the idea of fasting from music occasionally. I spent a month in a Buddhist monastery where I heard nothing but Buddhist chant. I was surprised that the slow movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony came surging up out of my unconscious mind during this relative fast. It had never been one of my favorite pieces, but something about the experience brought it up into my consciousness.