# Listening Preferences



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I’d like to explore TC members' listening preferences in two particular areas - familiar vs. unfamiliar and expected vs. unexpected music.

Familiar vs. Unfamiliar

Familiar music would be works that one has heard several to many times. Unfamiliar music are works that one has never heard or that one doesn’t remember hearing. How much are you drawn to listening to works you know (familiar) compared to exploring new works (unfamiliar)? 

Expected vs. Unexpected

As we listen to music, we sometimes anticipate the remainder of a phrase or section either because we know the work well or because the form may lead to certain expectations (e.g. a cadence or resolution). I think we all like music that has some surprises, but some music is less predictable than other music. Some TC members have posted that they prefer music that is unpredictable (unexpected). They enjoy being almost constantly surprised by what they hear rather than having a sense of what will come. Mozart is sometimes described as predictable (expected); whereas, Boulez is less predictable. Obviously, the better one knows a work, the less unpredictable that work becomes. 

I’m not thinking of whole works here but rather the joy small parts of works bring. As the cadenza in the first movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto comes to an end, I anticipate the sublime beauty of the measures following the entry of the orchestra. Though I have heard Boulez’s Sur Incises many time, I have no such expectations as with the Brahms. Still, I love hearing the gestures and figurations as they flutter around the ensemble. The Brahms is expected while the Boulez remains unexpected. Do you have a clear preference?


----------



## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

There are times I want the unfamiliar and unexpected, but I have no idea what the percentages might be.

I do listen to numerous unfamiliar works for the games that I run. However, that's more out of a feeling of obligation than anything else. Truth is, I find that most obscure music deserves its obscurity.


----------



## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

It depends for me. I like to spend some hours every week trying to discover great music I'm unfamiliar with (it's like an welcome challenge for me), and overall when I do so I think I prefer to listen to unexpected music - as an evidence for such claim, I would like to say that the discoveries of King Crimson in rock and Berlioz in classical were amongst my most pleasant.

Yet, I'm always coming back to some familiar, expected music, particularly when I put something for me and my mother to listen to in ambient sound. I understand that it's much easier to enjoy things that we already know and like than those that we still have to assimilate.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I rarely buy familiar music anymore. Maybe if a recording gets special praise I might check it out. But I mostly buy music I have never heard before, music that is long forgotten (sometimes for good reason), or even new music. So my listening time is probably 75% unfamiliar, obscure and rare. But there are times when something tried and true, something well-known and loved just needs to be heard. Last evening I satisfied a nagging desire to listen to the Saint-Saens 3rd Symphony "the Organ". Had a great time and it reminded me of why music like that has outlived a lot of other dreck from the same period.

When I listen to unfamiliar music it is that sense of discovery, that "what's going to happen next?" and "Where is this going?" that is so much fun. Some of the neglected, rejected music is utterly predictable- there's no sense of discovery at all. And that partially explains why it's forgotten.


----------



## Guest (Sep 1, 2019)

I think you'll find that the answers you get will vary according to how long the individual has been listening to classical music, and where they are currently in building up their collections, or in some cases possibly winding them down. I guess that the younger people with less experience will tend to say they are happy with the unexpected, and vice versa.

When I first started listening to unfamilar music ages ago it was a challenge and often rewarding, and I enjoyed the process. So much so that I hardly knew when to stop collecting. I finished up with about 700 composers in my collection spanning 800 years, and I don't think that anything of any importance is missing. I enjoyed collecting as much as I could, thinking at the time "I ought to have this", without proper regard to whether I really liked it. I became very interested in the biographies of several famous composers, and spent a lot of time reading up on them. 

Now, I have found that I listen to only a tiny fraction of it, and it's reducing smaller by the year. I tend to focus on works I know well, and this is becoming more and more concentrated on Austro/German 19 th C and 20th C English piano solo and chamber music. I have become less and less interested in grandiose orchestral and choral works, but if I do listen to any of that variety it's usually to a narrow range of composers whose works I know very well. I have become less interested in former favourites in the Mozart/Beethoven era, due to over-exposure in the past. Several years back I had a "fling" collecting more modern music (Carter, Boulez, Cage variety etc), but to honest I've become fed up with most of it and hardly ever play it.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I like a mix. Sometimes I want something familiar (but perhaps in an unfamiliar account) and sometimes I want something new to me. I find it more difficult to answer about expected vs unexpected. I recognise that I get what I expect in music I know (but I can still get excited by the parts that used to excite me when the work was quite new) and I am not sure I could say that familiar music has unexpected parts. Some contemporary music can take me quite a while to become familiar with, though, but I would call that "music that I am becoming familiar with". Sometimes it works that I listen a couple of times, quite enjoy the unexpectedness of it but then don't really want to hear it again. Often, though, I might get the inkling to listen to it again, perhaps a year or more later. I usually know exactly which piece I want to listen to and when I do it makes a lot more sense so that it begins to become familiar.


----------



## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

The answer, of course, will vary from one person to another, but I'm sure we all enjoy pulling out a disc with which we are familiar. We get to ride the music to its destination, almost like we were in charge, enjoying motifs along the way which guide our voyage and give us recognizable landmarks on our way to its conclusion.

I'm sure we all also enjoy discovering new works with which we are unfamiliar. Sometimes we can anticipate a resolution and revel in our "I knew it" moment when the music goes exactly where we thought it would go; or, even better, be completely surprised when the music takes us to a completely unexpected place and we have no idea what's coming next. The element of surprise can be very effective in getting a listener to "snap to", "pay attention", and "watch where you're going".

I would apologize for making the repeated analogies between music and travel, but for me, music often lets my soul "take a ride". To continue the analogy further, I would say my listening is very much like taking a new road to a destination. When done over and over, the trip suddenly seems to be shorter, much quicker than it used to be. Instead of having to pay attention to each and every landmark, intersection, etc., you get to just relax and enjoy the voyage. For me, familiarity often allows sensations of relaxation, contemplation, and gratitude. These sensations, all very positive in their nature, make me want to experience the process again, and again.

When I buy new music, I will often listen to the work several times within the next week(s). I find pleasure in the process of making something unfamiliar familiar. Sometimes this results in a new "favorite" that I'll be able to return to. Sometimes I'll decide that its just another good piece of music to have in the collection, but not in my personal favorites. When a disc sits on the shelf for a long time, sometimes years, and I finally give it a listen, recollections of the initial listening experience can come back to mind.

Just as I've matured over the years (a very dubious claim unless we strictly focus on chronological age), my tastes have evolved. I find one of the most pleasurable things with music can be to pull down one of those discs which has been sitting for years and years, giving it a listen, and being blown away by it. Finding such a treasure in my collection gives me immense satisfaction.

So, to answer the question,* "Do you have a clear preference?",* I would have to say no. They are both different sides of the same coin; which, like Tolkien's character Gollum would say, is "Precious" to me.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I'm on a years' long project to replay all my classical music CD's, going alphabetically by composer (but mixing it up a bit, so as to avoid playing 300 Bach CD's in a row). This includes works that are very familiar, as well as CD's I've played only once or twice. In addition, I still get new CD's in (be it bargains on the internet or in thrift stores), also a mix of well-known works in different versions (e.g. Mahler boxes) and works that are new to me (e.g. de Cabezon box). All in all, a rather eclectic mix, ranging from renaissance to contemporary.


----------



## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I'd say familiar/expected constitutes up to 90% of my listening, but that doesn't mean that I don't pick up something new in a repeated listen (in particular when I listen to a new recording of a familiar work).


----------

