# Ever listen to a piece over and over and over again?



## humanbean (Mar 5, 2011)

Once and a while I will find a work, or movement that I end up listening to non-stop for hours. The most recent example of this was when I found the following John Sheppard track. It's a piece that struck so much beauty that I ended up lying in bed several hours past my normal sleep time listening and absorbing its magnificence.

Have any of you had similar experiences listening to a piece repeatedly for several hours?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Lol, yes. Oh, yes.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

humanbean said:


> Have any of you had similar experiences listening to a piece repeatedly for several hours?


Not since I started the medication.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

The only time I listen to a piece more than once is when I am comparing versions by different conductors/orchestras/artists. Mostly I do that to try and narrow down which version I like best. And I only do this with my most favorite composers.

Kevin


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Sometimes, and far beyond 'concentrated listening' after one or two times.

I had four youtube links running on repeat (four windows open):, an electronic-ambient drone piece, another new-age electronic-ambient near drone, a John cage piece and a Morton Feldman piece. At different tempi and overall duration, they all ran in phase: I let this run for ca. + - 36 hours. including when I was asleep, or when I'd be out of the studio for errands. Once in a while I would slightly shift the balance of volume of one or several of the pieces.

I enjoyed the Sheppard, yet another of so many composers I have not read of or heard about, but it did not 'rock my world' as it seems to have rocked yours


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## Guest (May 9, 2012)

The Goldberg Variations is one that I return to more and more, in particular the recording by Rosalyn Turack but I must add that I am not obsessed.


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## humanbean (Mar 5, 2011)

PetrB said:


> I enjoyed the Sheppard, yet another of so many composers I have not read of or heard about, but it did not 'rock my world' as it seems to have rocked yours


I think it has something to do with the various (correct me if I'm wrong) dissonances that occur throughout the piece in rather odd spots, which add nice color to it. For example, if you listen to the 1st alto at about 7:10-7:14 singing the "glo-ri-am e", there is a very unsettling dissonance at about 7:13, which after looking at the score (last notes of the fourth-to-the last bar) appears to be an augmented (or diminished?) octave. Kind of a moment of sadness in an otherwise heavenly work.

Oh, and the performance is off of "The Golden Age of English Polyphony" box set by The Sixteen, if you're interested.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I do I do!! When I find a new piece that I fall in love with, sometimes it will be just about the only thing I'll listen to for 1-2 weeks lol. The most recent example for me would be Rachmaninoff's second symphony...After I heard it I put the third movement on repeat for like a week, and played the whole thing a couple times in between. Finally I just said enough is enough, there's hundreds more things I haven't listened to yet, just waiting for me! And yes, I know I can be a bit obsessive at times .


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

From Beethoven's hauntingly magnificent *Symphony No.7 in A Major, this: 



*


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Lol

Its Martinů, the 1st mvmt. toccata from "Toccata e Due Canzoni"
http://www.youtuberepeat.com/watch/?v=WMZw0uoRc4w&fmt=18


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

I sometimes listen to a piece repeatedly for one reason or another, most usually because I want to do some form of choreography to that piece of music and I am working through it mentally, simply imagining the possibilities. 

More often, I will listen to a piece several times in the space of a few weeks. Often to get a feel for a piece I am reviewing. 

And then with the ballets I attend the ballet often in a season (eight times in the recent season of Giselle) and I also see the ballet or extracts from it on YouTube several times during a season.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Not really, sometimes I play a piece two or three times in a row if I REALLY want to chew the juices, but no more than that. Last one of those has been a section from _Lohengrin_, "Morgenrote/'Heil König Heinrich'" i.e. the beginning of the third scene of the third act. That's a... juicy part.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Some of the compositions deserve my obsession! So I may listen to them 3 or 4 times but it rarely happens (mostly among marches, polkas and short works)


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Wow, I've never done that. However, when I'm supposed to write an arrangement for a piece, I run the piece through my head constantly until all my bad ideas go away and something inspired pops up.


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## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

No, In the end it would spoil the piece for me, no matter how good the work is.
Anyway life is too short to hear all the music I want to, so I'm not going to waste time hearing the same piece over and over again.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I'm doing that right now with Medtner's A minor piano concerto.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

yes, when i really like a piece i often listen to it in a obsessive way.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

My goodness,...let's see,...every, single Haydn symphony...Mozart symphony...Chopin this, Chopin that...Beethoven piano works...Rachmaninov piano works...Dukas and Holst symphonic works...anything ever recorded by Earl Wild, Rene Leibowitz, Glenn Gould or Neville Marriner and The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields...

Pretty much, if I _don't_ listen to a work over and over and over and over then I probably don't love it...problem is, I love too many daing works!


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## tgtr0660 (Jan 29, 2010)

Well, pretty much everything I like.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

all the time, I used to listen to the Grosse Fugue for 6 months straight (4-5 times a day), then I moved on to Schnittke Viola Concerto for 2 months, and now, Alkans Etude Fire in the Neighbouring Village has been playing non stop for me as well.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Constantly! I can't understand how anyone can make snap judgements about pieces after 1 or 2 listens. I know there is an insurmountable amount of music to listen to, but I would prefer to spend time understanding a piece rather than 'collecting' the experience of having merely heard them. Of course, I don't have a lot of musical training and maybe others have an advantage there. Maybe other people instantly click and get every detail, but I doubt that most mere mortals manage that. I also listen to music while do other things and so it doesnt always sink in very quickly. Or I might not be in the mood for a particular piece and then listen to it a month later and suddenly like it. Listening to something many times helps promote understanding and eliminate bias of mood or lack of attention. Furthermore, some very long works are impossible to take in without multiple listens, though it is time consuming.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

One time last year I listened to Nyman's _MGV_ on repeat for two months straight. Never got bored of it.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> I'm doing that right now with Medtner's A minor piano concerto.


I meant sonata. Oops....


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Only when the voices tell me too


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## Guest (May 11, 2012)

I suppose a lot depends on your state of mind, I know that if I listened to *any* piece repeatedly and nothing else I would go nuts and finish up disliking it.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I tend to do this with difficult non-tonal 20th century works such as Boulez and Carter when first hearing them on recordings because it's so difficult to follow how this extremely dense ,complex, non-melodic music unfolds. 
This music is the exact opposite of minimalist music ; there is virtually no repetition of any kind, and the music is in a constant state of flux. It's extremely diffiuclt to get your bearings . It's ocmpletely unlike the kind of musi c written from the time of Mozart,Haydn and Beethoven through the 19th and early 20th centuries, where you have recognizable forms such as sonata, rondo, theme and variations etc.
In the music of Carter,Boulez and Babbitt etc, there is no sense of principal theme, second theme, return to principal theme, arriving at the end of the exposition, developement and recapitulation . There is no feeling of modulating from one tonal center to another , or returning to the home key. 
It's rather like being caught in a maze and you can't figure how to get out or find your bearings .
A while ago, I took out a recording of the piano concerto by Milton Babbitt, and after repeated hearings, I still could not make head or tail out of it . Even Schoenberg's 12-tone works have recognizable motives .
But not in Carter, Boulez or Babbitt etc.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

It is really easy to listen to short piano pieces over and over. Beethoven's Bagatelles, especially No. 52, and things like Deux Arabesque by Debussy and Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes by Satie.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

As stated earlier by me I usually don't unless I am comparing versions and I recently listened to around 15 different versions of Puccini's "*mi chiamano mimi*" from La Bohème. Unfortunately the consequence of that is getting a melody stuck in your mind for long periods of time. Even in my sleep! Anyway, I know of far worse melodies to have stuck in my brain! 

Kevin


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

I've just spent an hour or 2 listening to different interpretations on Satie


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Very, very easy to do. I own just about everything Satie ever composed and many interpretations.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> Very, very easy to do. I own just about everything Satie ever composed and many interpretations.


How many recordings do you have of _Vexations?_ :lol:


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Vexations is actually the only piece by Satie I can think of that I don't own. I've really wanted it for a while now but I have yet to get it.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Now I've moved on to Medtner's "Meditazione" from Forgotten Melodies second cycle.


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## humanbean (Mar 5, 2011)

Lately I've been listening to Stravinsky's Concerto in D major on repeat thanks to PetrB's recommendation in a post a few days back. Good stuff.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I had Bach's _Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin_ in my CD player for weeks on end a few years ago. I still haven't tired of it.

When I got the Ligeti box, Clear or Cloudy, near the start of 2013, I discovered his _Piano Concerto_ that I could not stop playing. I had to hear it numerous times a day for a few weeks.

The same thing happened with Carter's _Concerto for Orchestra_, that I got around the same time.

In the summer of 2013, I got just as hopelessly hooked on Prokofiev's _Fifth Piano Concerto_. I could not stop listening to it and even had it on an mp3 Walkman, so that I could have it with me while bicycling.

Oh, how goofy. I forgot to mention the one I am currently stuck on: Shostakovich's _Symphony 14_.


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

Frequently,usually for one of two reasons-quite simply because for a period of time I am enjoying listening to a particular piece repeatedly or because the work is gradually'unfolding' and through increasing familiarity is becoming more and more comprehensible-often these two factors work together........I have spent the last few days almost transfixed by the first movement of Moerans symphony......during the summer I listened over and over to certain works by Martinu that I had not heard before-the symphonies and the cello concertos in particular...the excitement as the 'secrets' or logic (call it what you will) of a work become apparent is for me one of the great 'emotions'....I often follow the same process with jazz recordings,most recently Bobo Stensons Indicum.....


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

I've always had a thing about the Polonaise from "Eugene Onegin" and I still years later play it over and over.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

I sometimes play Handel's 'For Unto Us a Child is Born' or 'And he shall purify' over and over, those things get you pumped .


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> 'And he shall purify' over and over


earworm alert! I never play that one just once, either. Although I sing it _and he shall putrefy_ in my head...


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

deggial said:


> earworm alert! I never play that one just once, either. Although I sing it _and he shall putrefy_ in my head...


you must not be very religious. I'm not either, but if the music's excellent, why complain?


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

I try not to listen to the same classical piece too many times. Too many times spoils it for me. I appreciate a piece most the first time I appreciate it (which may not be the first time I hear it). 

But I can listen to the some popular/rock song many times and not get tired of it.


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