Do you give your music the attention it deserves?

[trancedigital]

We are living in the age of information overload and this applies to music too. There is too much music out there to consume. So within your favorite genre, let's say you regularly purchase or download the music you want to listen.

 

How do you listen and digest your music? Do you give it the attention it needs? It has happened a few times that I would listen to an album and not like it in the first listen, but after repeated listens the music would grow on me. But in this age of too much music, there is a risk of not giving an album ample listening time to appreciate and digest the music, in different ways, through a loud system and headphones.

 

A good strategy would be to just stop collecting too much new music and give the albums you already have more attention, time and dedicated listening sessions. I feel multitasking also affects the way we listen to music. I'd rather be selective and give the music proper attention. Not only would this increase the shelf life of the art in question, but also curb the anxiety associated with having to listen to loads of new music in an effort to consume everything out there.

 

What are your thoughts?

[Starkraver]

Good topic.. I actually feel sad a lot of times when I bump into my fav tracks & realise I haven't heard them recently. U just know when a track or an album deserves much more attention/respect/listening but ur busy hunting down new/unheard music.. It's just SAD!!

[radi6404]

This is a subject that depents on the taste you have. In my world there is not too much good music, there is not even enough good music. This is the reason why I regurarely listen to Astral Projection, Electric Universe, Etnica, Pleiadians, Transwave and all the other oldschool artists. I listen to some ambient and newschool from time to time and when something is good, I will play it again. But even tough a lot of music exists these days, there is not a lot of music out there that can compare with the masterpeaces from Etnica or Pleiadians for example. This is why oldschool is still mostly in the playlist of my media player and will be for the next ten years at least.

[Rotwang]

I just don't buy that much music. I find that if I try listening to new albums at a rate of more than about one per fortnight I don't give the albums enough attention to form a reliable opinion of them. Most of my all-time favourite albums are ones that I didn't know what to think of the first few times I listened to them and it took a while for me to start to love.

 

This is the reason why I regurarely listen to Astral Projection, Electric Universe, Etnica, Pleiadians, Transwave and all the other oldschool artists.

regurarely

 

regurarely

 

regurarely

 

regurarely

[Starkraver]

regurarely

 

regurarely

 

regurarely

 

regurarely

Progressive Regurarity Rotwang? 😆😆😆

[Blair Thaumic]

I've been collecting music like a fiend all year so far. Now I want to stop and savor everything I have. I don't plan on buying any more music in 2014, except for maybe one or two compilations on Suntrip/DAT.

 

If I want to check out something new, youtube gives me all I need, and if I want to try a new style of music or just have some new-ish background sounds there's always di.fm. But this is the year that I really want to get deeper into my album collection and have lots of sit down, start to finish listens.

[Starkraver]

I've been collecting music like a fiend all year so far. Now I want to stop and savor everything I have. I don't plan on buying any more music in 2014, except for maybe one or two compilations on Suntrip/DAT.

 

If I want to check out something new, youtube gives me all I need, and if I want to try a new style of music or just have some new-ish background sounds there's always di.fm. But this is the year that I really want to get deeper into my album collection and have lots of sit down, start to finish listens.

+1

[Ormion]

To be honest no. I keep bying stuff saying to myself that I'm gonna dedicate time to dig deeper to them, but I don't. It's some kind of disorder.

[Oopie]

Very well thought idea for a topic, something I've thought about myself recently as well.

 

It's hard to pin-point the exact problem that I'm facing with music on a personal level. I don't enjoy anything as much as I used to and I reckon it has much to do with this ever speeding information overload. How the society runs its course is forever connected to way we experience music and even to large extent, the physical manifestation i.e. what kind of music is written.

The way I see it we have too many options and basically, on a collective level, don't give appreciation for any artist/music more than a few moments before rushing to the next thing. This is something that means we're attached to the music on a very superficial level and one could say we're almost on the level of just consuming it. I don't say that's right or wrong thing, it's just my observation.

In the end, the pace of the whole western culture is rapid and there's hardly moments of pure relaxation and collective mentality. Concerts and festivals perhaps. What I'd like to see is more intimate, close, collective musical experiences in cyber reality. Maybe that's the next big thing...

[Penzoline]

I find myself having to keep shuffling through compilations and albums just to listen to a half a track then I start up next one. Usually something I've been "meaning" to, or really wanting to listen to, just to repeat the cycle. It's totally crazy with immense amounts of data just for one genre and with such limited time to listen to it, especially after I developed a condition that almost halved all my listening. It really became like fast food to me at some point because of the sheer amount of it. When I really start enjoying something it's often because I've forgotten it on, or I go out biking and it comes up on my MP3 skipping and shuffling is a lot harder. I think half of the time I'm not even paying real attention, but this could be consequential with what I do while listening. Filler tracks really feel like a waste as well, because there's just so much of the good stuff, so why even bother with the less than great? I could spend my minutes better, right? Also in general with Goa this skip culture develops really fast for me, because the other genres duration usually goes from 3 to 6 minutes, rather than 7 to 12 minutes, that's a lot less time having to spend on 1 thing.

It can really be quite frustrating. But also when it's really good then things start to differ. I can appreciate and enjoy tracks but there is always a difference with the things that resonate with me the most, where the attention it gets is on another level, however this also correlates with mood and situation, changes in perspective.

I hope that makes some sense.

tl;dr
sometimes

Very well thought idea for a topic, something I've thought about myself recently as well.

It's hard to pin-point the exact problem that I'm facing with music on a personal level. I don't enjoy anything as much as I used to and I reckon it has much to do with this ever speeding information overload. How the society runs its course is forever connected to way we experience music and even to large extent, the physical manifestation i.e. what kind of music is written.
The way I see it we have too many options and basically, on a collective level, don't give appreciation for any artist/music more than a few moments before rushing to the next thing. This is something that means we're attached to the music on a very superficial level and one could say we're almost on the level of just consuming it. I don't say that's right or wrong thing, it's just my observation.
In the end, the pace of the whole western culture is rapid and there's hardly moments of pure relaxation and collective mentality. Concerts and festivals perhaps. What I'd like to see is more intimate, close, collective musical experiences in cyber reality. Maybe that's the next big thing...

What do you suppose this collective experience could be?

And yes it's consumption, but I don't know if it could be called superficial, because it's still something people connect on an emotional level. Even with my endless skipping and mass consumption it does make me feel and take me to a different level of just being, even if I don't pay a lot of attention to it sometimes.

 

Really, before my condition, I basically hid myself in the aural worlds that music generates every single day.

[ollylovesgoa]

I go through phases of listening to what I already have thoroughly, but I have to admit the majority of the time it's download > listen briefly to see if I like it > file it to a playlist to be listened to in a few months. There's so much music out there and I want to be aware of so much of it that it's an impossible task to digest it all properly.

[mars]

I go through phases of listening to what I already have thoroughly, but I have to admit the majority of the time it's download > listen briefly to see if I like it > file it to a playlist to be listened to in a few months. There's so much music out there and I want to be aware of so much of it that it's an impossible task to digest it all properly.

+1

[GapTheMind]

I probably don't, but i'm well aware of it. It all depends on where i listen to my music and what i do while listening. Usually when i'm listening i'm sitting at home in front of the computer, and it can be hard to get a good grip on the music while your studying or playing some strategy game. If i put on a new album at home i find that i almost forget it's playing. My best experiences with music (other than parties of course) are when i'm riding my bike or the bus, or generally just outside. Maybe it's because i'm forced to give it my full attention, but it could also be because you give the music meaning through the new input you receive. Alot of my old music brings me straight back to memories of old bike rutes and how the weather was back then.

[franki]

I do find doing justice to all the albums I buy a problem.

I love pretty much all genres of Psytrance, let alone chill, techno and any other music I like. This means I struggle to keep up with being able to: a ) afford all the new releases I want and b ) devote enough time to listening to all the music I buy.

The fact that I only ever buy music on CD cuts down what's available somewhat, but at this moment, there are about 45 titles I want and another ten at least, will be released before the end of June.

There's so much great psytrance currently being released IMO, that I rarely get chance to catch up on buying back-catalogue music. There are six albums out this week alone that I MUST HAVE!!!

 

I try to listen to new purchases a few times, but not so often they get stale, but I get distracted by old releases I haven't heard in a while and playing one album will often lead me to play all the albums by a particular artist or on a particular label! (I played the first 3 Free-Radical Records compilations last night for example.)I keep newer purchases in CD wallets so they're all together and to keep them in the forefront of my mind, before they head to their cases on the shelves. That way I've got all my recent purchases easily to hand.

 

There aren't too many CDs I've bought and disliked enough not to play at least a couple of times. I'll sometimes leave one I'm not keen on for a few months and play it again to see if I still feel the same. Occasionally I change my mind.

[Tatsu]

Well, there's lots of older music I listen to very rarely (I'm talking about psy/goa here). Mainly because I'm not that much into them anymore and because I've heard them too many times. For me the availability of so much music on beatport for example does not make me appreciate the newly bought tracks less. First of all lots of available music does not mean there is lots of music I like. So I only buy the stuff I rate as top and that I'm willing to play when I'm DJing. Since I buy the music for DJing I do give the the bought tracks the attention they deserve. Because I use them to train my skills and also because I need to know them if I want to create nice sets with them. I also like to listen to my sets to check if they might work and to rearrange them. More play time for the tracks again...

 

From the appreciation point of view I can recommend djing a lot. Also because you tend to listen to music in a different way. Because you not only listen to it passively but more actively with hearing the rhythms, the melody build ups and you think about similar track to mix in.

[Paul Eye]

From the appreciation point of view I can recommend djing a lot. Also because you tend to listen to music in a different way. Because you not only listen to it passively but more actively with hearing the rhythms, the melody build ups and you think about similar track to mix in.

Seconded.