# OCD tendencies with Classical music



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

What are some of your OCD tendencies when it comes to classical music, if you have any?

For example, when I am planning to collect the symphonies by a composer, I feel sooooo uneasy until my collection is complete. I absolutely hate seeing my collection like this, with a bunch of a holes in the collection:

Symphony #1
Symphony #3
Symphony #8

I don't feel good about it until I can see this:

Symphony #1
Symphony #2
Symphony #3
Symphony #4

All lined up, in order, with no holes in the collection. Ahhh...that's better. I can sleep again 

As you can guess, this means I go for box sets more often than not.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I am a completionist at heart. I looked for recordings of Villa-Lobos' fifth symphony for a long time, because I had all the others. It was only later that I found out the piece is lost, so I have to accept that gap now as permanent. It still bothers me.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Art Rock said:


> I am a completionist at heart. I looked for recordings of Villa-Lobos' fifth symphony for a long time, because I had all the others. It was only later that I found out the piece is lost, so I have to accept that gap now as permanent. It still bothers me.


That's exactly how I am. I hate when composers works are lost and I can never complete that gap too.  That happened to me with Pettersson's first symphony. I bought the big BIS box set of his symphonies and after unboxing it I spent a good 30 minutes searching the individual jewel cases thinking, "WHERE ON EARTH IS THE FIRST ONE!?" hahaha.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

violadude said:


> What are some of your OCD tendencies when it comes to classical music, if you have any?
> 
> For example, when I am planning to collect the symphonies by a composer, I feel sooooo uneasy until my collection is complete. I absolutely hate seeing my collection like this, with a bunch of a holes in the collection:
> 
> ...


Yes, I completely agree! And my digital music folder cannot have any mistakes. All formatting must be the same for each work. So if I have Op. 3 No. 1, I can never have op. 2 no. 5 (note the capital letters). It takes much time out of my day when I have to go around fixing things.... It bothers me until I do it!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

mstar said:


> Yes, I completely agree! And my digital music folder cannot have any mistakes. All formatting must be the same for each work. So if I have Op. 3 No. 1, I can never have op. 2 no. 5 (note the capital letters). It takes much time out of my day when I have to go around fixing things.... It bothers me until I do it!


Oh ya! That's another OCD tendency of mine. I HATE! when I rip a cd and it looks like the guy who encoded the titles onto the tracks was drunk off his @$$, ect sym. #1..mvt 1, symph no. 1 mov. 2

AHH!


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

I'm so bad in this area that when I got the Brilliant Boxed Set of Mendelssohn (recorded according to type of music and not according to dates or opus numbers), I created my own list of Mendelssohn's works in chronological order, including the non-numbered works, began I-Tune-buying as many missing works as I could find and re-ordering them on my own CDs for as complete a chronological set of discs as I could get.

And, Mendelssohn isn't even close to being my favorite composer......


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## Guest (Sep 6, 2013)

I'd have to think about this, as my OCD tendencies are more in terms of iTunes organization. Everything has to be named/organized/etc. properly according to my rules, or all hell breaks loose.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I have the opposite tendency: I seek a collection *with* those gaps... gaps *very* studiously planned, so that my collection is just the very finest and none of the lesser. As a result, I occasionally purge and, years later, rebuy mistakenly purged albums. In the cases of my most favourite composers, the gaps *do* get filled in over time and as my knowledge and familiarity increases.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

What's frustrating is when there are no available recordings of a fine work. For instance, I was thinking of spending the money for the Henze DG box, but the requiem is on Sony, and it's out of print.


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Yep, I have all the issues mentioned so far...maybe we are actually normal.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

A very human thing. That's why auto manufacturers can sell us all those high-priced accessories and optional equipment. After all, spending all that money, you don't want to end up with just *part* of a car, do you?


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

One thing nice for me to know is when something was composed. For modern music for instance to know what year or decade, not easy to find for some more obscure works though.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Recently my wife and I have had fights because I spend too much time on iTunes getting the labels correct. But seriously, you can't have one track labeled "WA Mozart Symphony No. 40" and another one labeled "Mozart: Symphony #40." Things have to be done right, and by right I mean my way, and consistently so.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I am not happy with having multiple recordings of one work, I tirelessly search for the one that will fit my views on how the work should be performed and then (if I have money) I buy it and don't look for any more. 

Then I get all worked up when I find something I like better!


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## Turangalîla (Jan 29, 2012)

I can't stand when only part of a set of pieces is included on a recording. (For example: Chopin Etude Op. 10 No. 12). Either learn the whole thing, or don't play it at all.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> Recently my wife and I have had fights because I spend too much time on iTunes getting the labels correct. But seriously, you can't have one track labeled "WA Mozart Symphony No. 40" and another one labeled "Mozart: Symphony #40." Things have to be done right, and by right I mean my way, and consistently so.


I have no such OCD affliction when it comes to complete sets of works, etc.

I don't think doing a very normal and expected alphabetizing of works on your shelves or in any sort of player playlist really qualifies -- _that_ -- is really pretty "normal."

Whether you have the Mozart works under "Mozart" or "W.A. Mozart" is merely a matter of personal preference and convenience.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Whether you have the Mozart works under "Mozart" or "W.A. Mozart" is merely a matter of personal preference and convenience.


Yes, but under *both*? Never, I say! This sort of higgledy-piggledy approach destroys any structure in life, is a poor example for others, shows weakness to our enemies, and leads to the decay and fall of civilizations.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Yes, but under *both*? Never, I say! This sort of higgledy-piggledy approach destroys any structure in life, is a poor example for others, shows weakness to our enemies, and leads to the decay and fall of civilizations.


I thought constancy was implied -- us lazy folks can be efficient due to our laziness; I wouldn't want to take the time to think or remember if it is under "W.A." or "Mozart." To have that music listed under both is a scramble that takes unnecessary time and effort to recall what is where.

I do think I may 'own' less recorded music than anyone on this site... so that makes life simple enough in that quarter.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

My formatting is like this: 

"Artist" (yes, I know, supposed to be composer  ): Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. 
Song Title (again, I know): Mozart - Piano Sonata No. 2 in F Major 

And exactly that.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

I'm only really particular about play counts. I obsess over how many times I've heard a piece compared to others in the classical repertoire. This is why I love the Itunes play count so I can evenly listen to my collection and not wear anything out. And it's also the one thing about Spotify that drives me crazy(not having one).


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Dustin said:


> I'm only really particular about play counts. I obsess over how many times I've heard a piece compared to others in the classical repertoire. This is why I love the Itunes play count so I can evenly listen to my collection and not wear anything out. And it's also the one thing about Spotify that drives me crazy(not having one).


Glad to see someone bring the issue of play-counts up. I go nuts when I'm listening to a multi-movement work and see there are uneven play-counts for individual tracks--be it a concerto or Chopin's nocturnes. I'll listen to everything with lower play-counts to try to get everything even.

I've got a lot more to say on the subject, but this will have to do. I could write a book about these sorts of calculations.

I disgust myself!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Blancrocher said:


> Glad to see someone bring the issue of play-counts up. I go nuts when I'm listening to a multi-movement work and see there are uneven play-counts for individual tracks--be it a concerto or Chopin's nocturnes. I'll listen to everything with lower play-counts to try to get everything even.
> 
> I've got a lot more to say on the subject, but this will have to do. I could write a book about these sorts of calculations.
> 
> I disgust myself!


Well, I disgust you too, probably, but neither of us disgust me, so let's try to see this from my point-of-view.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Dustin said:


> I'm only really particular about play counts. I obsess over how many times I've heard a piece compared to others in the classical repertoire. This is why I love the Itunes play count so I can evenly listen to my collection and not wear anything out. And it's also the one thing about Spotify that drives me crazy(not having one).


My opinion -

The media player of the near future will be something like facebook, where you can invite friends to see your library, get recommendations, etc. Of course there'll have to be an option of hiding certain play counts - I'd never invite y'all to see how much I've listened to that first three tenors thing. Officially the answer is, "Three tenors? Was that one of Offenbach's unfinished operettas? I think I read about it somewhere but I can't recall clearly." _Officially_.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

My only genuine idiosyncrasy is concerning storage - I'm very particular as regards alphabetic and subsequent categoric filing of my collection. As mentioned in previous posts some people may think this is actually practical rather than odd, but what is more questionable on my part is a tendency to go through my entire collection on a weekly basis to ensure nothing has been misfiled.

And I get into a fairly advanced state of dither if I find that a piece has broken off any of my CD cases.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> My only genuine idiosyncrasy is concerning storage - I'm very particular as regards alphabetic and subsequent categoric filing of my collection. As mentioned in previous posts some people may think this is actually practical rather than odd, but what is more questionable on my part is a tendency to go through my entire collection on a weekly basis to ensure nothing has been misfitted.


I agree! My music folder is constantly scrutinized by myself for errors.... Just today I spent approximately two hours on putting my entire music folder on my phone, deleting all pictures, videos, etc. that would take up system storage.... And meanwhile finding what seems like tens of hundreds of mistakes in my folder. I am also thinking of changing everything minor to German moll (e.g. Sonata in B-moll). So, it's a pretty big deal - I'll see what I can do.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

You're all nuts! All that matters is music.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

I used to be this way, until spotify and youtube convinced me to forget about trying to build a personal collection. Now if only spotify could get a better search engine...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

bigshot said:


> You're all nuts! All that matters is music.


I figure that if I don't spend at least a third of my music time organizing, I'm quite remiss.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I feel guilty if I'm sorting and not listening.


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

http://imgur.com/46U8o


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

When posting on fora such as this, I will spend considerable time revising and editing my posts until they look just right. I figure that this is (relatively) permanent, so I want to make sure that I can leave the best impression possible, or as close as I can get: it's not possible to examine all of the angles ;-)


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

haha! spellng counts! hahaha


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

mstar said:


> I agree! My music folder is constantly scrutinized by myself for errors.... Just today I spent approximately two hours on putting my entire music folder on my phone, deleting all pictures, videos, etc. that would take up system storage.... And meanwhile finding what seems like tens of hundreds of mistakes in my folder. I am also thinking of changing everything minor to German moll (e.g. Sonata in B-moll). So, it's a pretty big deal - I'll see what I can do.


Oh, I don't keep a reference spreadsheet or anything like that - by checking my collection I meant actually physically combing the contents of my shelves. As I use Microsoft packages at work I'm not too sure I'd like to have too much to do with them at home! Good luck with your system, though.

:tiphat:


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## themysticcaveman (Jul 9, 2013)

I don't know if this could be classed as an ocd tendency, but i am young, and i absolutely love Mahler as well as a load of other composers, but Mahler just does it for me all i want to do is listen to his symphonies all day everyday, but i actively try and go for weeks and months on end not listening to him because i know his catologue of works is so small and i don't want to wear them out as i have a long life ahead of me, my rule of thumb is if i listen to a composition that i know really well no matter what composer i make sure i am fully focused of the music eyes closed and in it, and new stuff i'm getting used to i listen to while doing my daily tasks, except i never bloody have anytime to just sit and fully concentrate on my favourites so i just have loads of new stuff piling up, weird i know


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

bigshot said:


> You're all nuts! All that matters is music.


Well, maybe to you - but I have more important things to attend to! Some of my playlists are out of order.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

graaf said:


> http://imgur.com/46U8o


This. If I had OCD then I might be OCD about the constant misuse of the term OCD but I don't so I don't so I don't. I suppose it is much cooler than being called 'fussy'.

The thing about Scarlett Johansen is interesting too.


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