# Are there any pieces you listen to but you have no idea if you like them or not?



## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

I'll try to explain what I mean.

I was just on the eliptical machine and listening to Prokofiev's Piano Concerto 2, and it dawned on me that I have no idea whether or not I like it. I've listened to it about 10 times (the 3rd as well,) and I can't for the life of me decide if I love them or hate them. It's sort of how I feel about Laphroaig whisky. I drink Laphroaig quite often, but I can't figure out if I like it. Same with those two concertos, I continue to listen to them, but I don't know if I like them.

When I listen to a Beethoven piano concerto, I know immediately that my response is "enjoy." Absolutely without a doubt. 

With Prokofiev's, it's more of "interest," but I don't know if that equates to "enjoy." Whatever it is, I want to continue listening so perhaps I will figure it out.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

I'm that way about Mahler.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

It's not clear to me why you think you need the "I like this" signal. My estimate is that a pretty small percentage of Prokofieff's music generates that response; the 1st symphony maybe, and the suite for 'Love of Three Oranges'. Much of his other music, for me anyway, generates _interest_ and a retention of focus. After it's done is when I think "Ooh, that was good".


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## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

Hilltroll72 said:


> It's not clear to me why you think you need the "I like this" signal.


I don't think I need that response. I just normally get that response from things I'm interested in, but in this case I don't. I genuinely can't figure out if I enjoy the pieces or if I'm just interested in them. Either way, it's probably irrelevant since my interest keeps me going back to them.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

I understand what you mean. Usually I give a piece several listens before it will click with me but, if it doesn't, sometimes I go back to it. Usually I remember how it goes and my focus is redirected to bits that didn't leap out at me the first few times. Then I can't get enough of it. If you are listening to something 10 times, I suggest leaving it and going back to it in a couple of weeks time.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Stravinsky's neoclassical works! I just don't know how to react to them. They generally are enjoyable but they don't have the energy (except for Dumberton Oaks maybe) that his earlier or later stuff had.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Ooh, I feel this way towards lots of stuff! Sometimes it pays off quickly, moreoften not. But I wouldn't want it any other way - of course it's wonderful to love a piece of music, but I've come to appreciate the "trial period" on its own as well.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

I love Elgar generally, but the Violin Concerto and the Second Symphony are real head-scratchers for me.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

I'm listening to Takemitsu right now, and I definitely don't know how I feel about his music yet. It's so very different from anything I've listened to before.


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## Taneyev (Jan 19, 2009)

I've never listen twice to a piece I didn't like first time. And I've no doubts after first listening if I liked or not. I know that clearly since the beginning.


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

Nope sorry, you're all barking mad.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Bartok, Mahler, and some Stravinsky is like that. I just sit there thinking, what? Why am I listening this... why am I still listening this, turn it off.... why haven't you turned it off yet? (inner conflict)

They have good qualities, but some terrible qualities as well. I think they even out for me for some works, others more or less.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Odnoposoff said:


> I've never listen twice to a piece I didn't like first time. And I've no doubts after first listening if I liked or not. I know that clearly since the beginning.


Really? I envy your sureness of judgment. I'm like that for other things like movies, but i have a lot more doubts about music. Sure there are things that i love from the very first listen but there is a lot of music that at first and sometimes even after many listening that i don't really understand. Some of my very favorite musicians at first didn't say a lot to my ears.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

There are two pieces I've never been able to parse for some reason... Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. I'm sure it's my fault and not the pieces themselves.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Odnoposoff said:


> I've never listen twice to a piece I didn't like first time. And I've no doubts after first listening if I liked or not. I know that clearly since the beginning.


Wait till you go through a growth spurt in your musical appreciation. You'll surprise yourself.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I've concluded that there are pieces I like and there are some pieces I appreciate. 

By that I mean, there are pieces I admire for their structure, harmonic content, historical significance, whatever, but I don't necessarily like them; I appreciate them for what they are. So I still derive a degree of pleasure from the effort; it's just more of an effort.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

EricABQ said:


> I'll try to explain what I mean.
> 
> I drink Laphroaig quite often, but I can't figure out if I like it.


I like Laphoraig, but prefer Jura
It's all a matter of taste.

Some you like more than others
Some are just OK
same with music


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## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

cwarchc said:


> I like Laphoraig, but prefer Jura
> It's all a matter of taste.


I go for Highland Park or Talisker for pure enjoyment. I pick Laphroaig when I want to have an adversarial relationship with my drink.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

EricABQ said:


> I go for Highland Park or Talisker for pure enjoyment. I pick Laphroaig when I want to have an adversarial relationship with my drink.


Just enjoying a glass of Talisker right now.  A birthday gift that I intend to savour.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Nyman's Double Concerto for Cello and Saxophone. I have heard it a couple of times and can't make up my mind what I think of it.


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## Toddlertoddy (Sep 17, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Nyman's Double Concerto for Cello and Saxophone. I have heard it a couple of times and can't make up my mind what I think of it.


(Surprised that it was on yt...)

It's an interesting piece, I quite like it... I like the folk elements in it and how the cello blends well with the saxophone (surprisingly).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I agree what Manxfeeder said above. One can appreciate different types of music for different qualities. But it can take effort. But sometimes it hits me and grabs me at a time I don't expect, probably depending on factors like my mood.

But to answer the OP, the things that spring to my mind are Delius, Takemitsu and art-song, esp. sung in German, maybe Russian too (I quite like French and others, & love Ives' songs). But I have acquired some recordings of Delius which I want to listen to soon.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

I don't know what I think of Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier'.


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## Taneyev (Jan 19, 2009)

Ravndal said:


> I don't know what I think of Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier'.


I do know. It bored me. I'm aware of the inmense wisdom of LvB, but I couldn't ever listened the piece to the end.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Odnoposoff said:


> I do know. It bored me. I'm aware of the inmense wisdom of LvB, but I couldn't ever listened the piece to the end.


I agree. I feel it lacks the 'spark' and passion, most of his other sonatas got.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

for awhile, this was the case for me and total serialist music like Boulez. I already enjoyed Webern and Schoenberg and Dallapiccola, but total serialism was very challenging because the continuity is almost non-existent in a perceivable way. But things like Boulez's piano sonatas have recently been growing on me  There's a sensuality to them, beyond the violence and brutality that is apparent on earlier listenings. Still is tough music though XD I generally prefer the older 12-tone composers, and ones who don't serialize everything (Schnittke, Schwanter, Crumb), because the music is more directly engaging, more connecting. Its kinda like comparing seeing some event on the news as opposed to being told it by a real human being who conveys their feelings about the event. 

However, Babbitt's music I feel I can connect with pretty well even though it is total serialism. It feels like Babbitt isn't afraid to let his heart show in his music. While some of Boulez's works have rather technical titles (Structures 1a, 12 Notations), many of Babbitt's have very funny, cute titles full of great wit and puns (World Series, It Takes Twelve to Tango, The Joy of More Sextets). Not that Babbitt didn't also use some technical titles, and Boulez also has more poetically titled works too, its just something kinda leaps out at me in Babbitt's writing. Its total serialism that doesn't always sound spastic or upset. It has attitude to it, like the music of Ives and Zappa. Alot of charm.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> for awhile, this was the case for me and total serialist music like Boulez. I already enjoyed Webern and Schoenberg and Dallapiccola, but total serialism was very challenging because the continuity is almost non-existent in a perceivable way. But things like Boulez's piano sonatas have recently been growing on me  There's a sensuality to them, beyond the violence and brutality that is apparent on earlier listenings. Still is tough music though XD I generally prefer the older 12-tone composers, and ones who don't serialize everything (Schnittke, Schwanter, Crumb), because the music is more directly engaging, more connecting. Its kinda like comparing seeing some event on the news as opposed to being told it by a real human being who conveys their feelings about the event.
> 
> However, Babbitt's music I feel I can connect with pretty well even though it is total serialism. It feels like Babbitt isn't afraid to let his heart show in his music. While some of Boulez's works have rather technical titles (Structures 1a, 12 Notations), many of Babbitt's have very funny, cute titles full of great wit and puns (World Series, It Takes Twelve to Tango, The Joy of More Sextets). Not that Babbitt didn't also use some technical titles, and Boulez also has more poetically titled works too, its just something kinda leaps out at me in Babbitt's writing. Its total serialism that doesn't always sound spastic or upset. It has attitude to it, like the music of Ives and Zappa. Alot of charm.


I like the 'violence and brutality' in the sonority of integral serialism, my problem is that I get bored very quickly by its homogeneity. My feelings are captured in this quote by Boulez:



> "...one organizes rhythm, timbre, dynamics; everything is fodder for that monstrous polyvalent organization... What has led to this 'punctual' style? The justified rejection of thematicism. This was, however, to give a slightly naive solution to the problem of composition itself -- charging a simple hierarchy with substituting in the role formerly played by thematic relations. The structural plans renew themselves in parallel fashion identically; at each new pitch, a new duration affected by a new intensity. The perceptual variation -- on the surface -- has engendered a total absence of variation on a more general level."


And Ligeti:



> "Now that hierarchical connections have been destroyed, regular metrical pulsations dispensed with, and durations, degrees of loudness, and timbres have been turned over to the tender mercies of serial distribution, it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve contrast. A flattening-out process has begun to absorb the whole musical form. The more integral the preformation of serial connections, the greater the entropy of the resulting structures; for -- in accordance with the relation of indeterminacy mentioned earlier -- the result of knitting together separate chains of connexions falls victim to automatism, in proportion to the degree of predetermination.
> 
> "The finer the network of operations with pre-ordered material, the higher the degree of levelling-out in the result. Total, consistent application of the serial process negates, in the end, serialism itself. There is really no basic difference between the results of automatism and the products of chance; total determinacy comes to be identical with total indeterminacy...


This characteristic is not good nor bad, but you can't blame me if it bores me sometimes.
(I must say that I'm a very anxious person, so my period of attention is very short to homogeneous things, so it's obviously related to my subjectivity too)


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

aleazk said:


> This characteristic is not good nor bad, but you can't blame me if it bores me sometimes.
> (I must say that I'm a very anxious person, so my period of attention is very short to homogeneous things, so it's obviously related to my subjectivity too)


Its not my favorite style of writing.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> Its not my favorite style of writing.


oh, I was not referring to you when I said 'you can't blame me', it was just a speech resource (sorry, I'm not a native english speaker, I suppose that i could be more clear when I write)


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Bartok's string quartets (well, most of Bartok actually).


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