# How many times per rotation?



## ProudSquire (Nov 30, 2011)

Assuming that you enjoy a piece of work a great deal, so much so that you find yourself completely at its mercy.
By your own admission, how many times a day do you listen to a piece that you favor considerably? Do not try to extricate yourself by means of a fallacious conjecture, else, you'll find that death has never been quicker to alight for your soul. 

All joking aside, do try to be reasonable with your response. 

I believe I'll kick things off!

It recurs to me that, I have listened to:

Schubert's string quartet No. 15 in G major 7, often less, times per rotation for about a week. That was when I first became acquainted with this magnificent piece. Schumann's second symphony in that regard shines even brighter, for it holds the astounding record of ten times per rotation, but that was for one calender period. These numbers are not illusory, they are in fact just, and the queen of the angels can vouch for their accuracy. If you wish audience with her, I suggest you start your voyage at the tavern of truth! :lol:

Now it's your turn!


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

TheProudSquire said:


> Assuming that you enjoy a piece of work a great deal, so much so that you find yourself completely at its mercy.
> By your own admission, how many times a day do you listen to a piece that you favor considerably? Don not try to extricate yourself by means of a fallacious conjecture, else, you'll find that death has never been quicker to alight for your soul.
> 
> All joking aside, do try to be reasonable with your response.
> ...


I don't understand this!


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

depending on the length, of course, 3 to 20 times a day...


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## ProudSquire (Nov 30, 2011)

deggial said:


> depending on the length, of course, 3 to 20 times a day...


Indeed, the length does play a pivotal role. I must say, 20 times is rather impressive, looks like my record is rather meek when compared to yours. 



> I don't understand this!


I'm sorry!


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I rarely listen to the same piece... or the same recording of the same piece more than once in a week... let alone in a day. I simply have too many alternatives. The exceptions: I may listen to works/recordings which are new to me a couple of times after purchasing them before placing them in the shelves. I may also play a piece again if I was interrupted or fell asleep or failed to give it the proper attention for whatever reason.

The last big exception that I can think of is Engelbert Humperdinck's _Hansel and Gretel_, which I first listened to this past summer. I was so immediately taken by it that I played it again... and then purchased 2 alternative recordings which I listened to in rapid succession.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

oh, I'm just obsessive  the repeat button is always on. As much as I like to be wowed by the new, I derive more pleasure from a bit of familiarity - anticipation and resolution etc. I am also pretty good at listening "as if it was the first time" after a break.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Maybe twice a week. Four times if it's life changing! I mean really, there is so much music out there. . .


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Weston said:


> Maybe twice a week. Four times if it's life changing! I mean really, there is so much music out there. . .


I'd say that's my track record as well.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

The only time I do this is when I'm trying out an unfamiliar work of some complexity . I know all the standard works backward and forward, so as much as I love them, I don't want to hear them over and over .
If it's arecording something by Carter, Boulez, Babbitt etc, I do listen repatedly, because their music is so difficult 
to follow ,even for a highly trained an dexperienced musician like myself, you can't possibly grasp it on one or even two hearings .


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

A good deal of the things I post on current listening thread I listen to twice (or sometimes more) in the space of a week, esp. in terms of the 'meaty' things (like Bruckner who I've been recently listening to quite a lot, or Mahler, Shostakovich, etc.). I just tend not to post them too many times within that period. I like composers that work in a unified way with themes recurring/being developed in a single work, so repeated hearings reveal more in the music, more of those links. The beauty of all this is that even listening to a piece after a long break (like 6-12 months) I end up getting so much out of it, I hear new things, new connections every time.

But my 'record' work, as far as I can remember, is when I got Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony, and I connected with it so much I listened to it at least 12 times in two weeks. I don't know how/why it happened, upon the previous listen to that about 2 years before, I found the work too dark and kind of leaden, even dull. But getting back to it, something made me connect with it in a way that I wanted to hear it again and again. I just needed it at that point in time for some reason, and since that time I got other pieces by him, he's turned out to be a favourite of mine.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

These days, if I find myself wanting to listen to something again and again in a short period of time, I listen to something else or do something else entirely. I have learned that extensive repeat listening has a tendency to "ruin" a piece for me, I've lost interest in a couple of excellent recordings that way already, and I don't much want it to happen again.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I remember, from my distant youth, my sister playing her Elvis LP over and over and over and over and over... My harried father finally took matters into his hands and found out how hard it was to break those flexy LPs. He had, of course, grown up on 78s. His frustration was both impressive and frightening.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

If I'm totally spellbound by a piece of music... at maximum it's twice a day, but much more likely once a day even then.


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

Unless it's a new disc of unfamiliar material I rarely play a recording more than once a day - even my favourites can be ignored for weeks as I have a reasonably large collection now so I try to give more attention to works that are given relatively few airings. I'm more inclined to have an occasional blitz on one particular composer where I may only play his music exclusively, the overall duration depending on how much of his output I have, but once a piece is over I move onto another.


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

No matter how much I like a new piece, one listening the first day then again maybe a day or two later. Then again maybe a week to 10 days later.


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

deggial said:


> depending on the length, of course, 3 to 20 times a day...


Yeah, me too :lol:. It might not be a good thing though.


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## Conor71 (Feb 19, 2009)

Sometimes I will play the same piece 2 or 3 times in a row if I am really enjoying it. I always have lots of different music that I want to hear (too much sometimes!) so I cant stick with the same piece for long


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

More so when I was younger and had a hookup on Shostakovich, then I could obsess and listen to the same work (albeit in different interpretations) over and over again to get to know the works intimately often with the score in my lap!
Today I rarely listen to the same work/recording more then once a week, often more rarely! I'm not very single work obsessive, I don't have the time, there's so much music to discover and so little time! 

/ptr


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## CyrilWashbrook (Feb 6, 2013)

At one stage I was listening to the Dvorak cello concerto anywhere up to six or seven times a day. When I was cooking stuff, it was a convenient timing mechanism: e.g. if something needed to cook for 12-15 minutes, I'd just listen to one of the movements. (The one downside of this method was that if I was using the first or second movement, I had to make sure I didn't accidentally listen to the next movement and forget that I'd put something in the oven...)


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Until recently I'd have been one of the "I never do that" guys. 

But. 

I missed the deep engagement and familiarity that I had with my music back in the days when, as a poor college student, I had only a few dozen CDs and had to listen to them repeatedly. 

I wanted to have that kind of engagement with the music that I have now, but I have far, far, far too many CDs to do that now. So I've selected a few dozen recordings to limit myself to, and I'm listening to them over and over, sometimes even the same thing repeatedly.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Listening pleasure for me seems to follow a curve. For Opera (a fetish of late) three or four times before I _force_ myself to move on. However, given that an Opera is generally two and a half to three hours (or more) in duration, even this modest number of replays - in a week that is - is a demanding and duanting task, especially in light of all the other genres/eras I wish to survey. Add to this the need to noodle, write and practise my own material and time is really very precious. The curve I refer to is the number of times I have to listen to a piece before it reaches the peak of listening pleasure - somewhere betwixt the familiar and friendly, but still stimulating with sprinkled challenges remaining. The curve varies with the particular piece and its length...


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