# Listening to short pieces at home



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I often find it difficult to get to know shorter pieces of music (say, those less than 10 minutes long). Many of them were published and recorded in sets but not with the intention that they be played together. Individual pieces can lose their capacity to delight when they are played in a long succession of broadly similar pieces but neither do they add up to the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. One way around this is to get recordings of recitals where a performer has programmed short pieces to each stand out through contrast and building a musical narrative over the arc of the recital. For pieces I know I can programme my own recitals - which can be OK - but I can't do that with pieces I barely know. 

How do you programme your listening to shorter pieces?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> How do you programme your listening to shorter pieces?


I never thought to do that.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ So how do you listen to new-to-you shorter pieces and retain the freshness of each?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> I often find it difficult to get to know shorter pieces of music (say, those less than 10 minutes long). Many of them were published and recorded in sets but not with the intention that they be played together. Individual pieces can lose their capacity to delight when they are played in a long succession of broadly similar pieces but neither do they add up to the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. One way around this is to get recordings of recitals where a performer has programmed short pieces to each stand out through contrast and building a musical narrative over the arc of the recital. For pieces I know I can programme my own recitals - which can be OK - but I can't do that with pieces I barely know.
> 
> How do you programme your listening to shorter pieces?


If I’m interested in the music I don’t have the problem - I know WTC2 pretty well, given that I don’t play it, and the Ferneyhough sonatas for string quartet. Because I’m interested I’ve listened often and carefully, I’ve read about the music and discussed if in detail. 

If I’m not interested then it’s quite another matter, and so if I listen to D Scarlatti sonatas or Francois Couperin’s keyboard music, its role is just to create a baroque ambience.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Something I've always done is something I call "immersion therapy" I make a short playlist (back in the day I would pick just one side of a record) and then I listen to that to the exclusion of all else for a few days.

I'll do something similar when I'm at work. Whatever I want to work on in the evening, I'll play it in the background at work all day, then when I get home and start working on the piece, I feel more familiarity since I've had it in my ears all day

doesn't work for everybody, but it works for me, or at least I believe it works so I keep doing it


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

I listen to short pieces the same way as I do long pieces. I never have any of problem just putting it on


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I usually listen to "portions", if the short pieces are not already organized in a standard/fixed collection (like e.g. Chopin's etudes). That is, I listen to a bunch of them, not only one or two but rarely a whole disc (often too long, unless one knows the pieces quite well already).


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

iTunes has options for Smart Playlists. Choose Create Smart Playlist, then select Genre: Classical, and Time: < 6:00 (or whatever time you like)

You could also use the search feature (search for "Classical") in conjunction then sort by "Time (shortest to longest)", and the shortest will be first, with each piece being longer than the last [Shuffle Mode 'off'].


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

The Purcell orchestra suites work together or individually same with the Bach suite/partita's or Beethoven Bagatelles or Chopin piano works and Liszt works.
The 24 Capricio's by Paganini also and Sor Estudios for guitar.

David Ludwig wrote a series of Microludes for Saxophone quartet


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## golfer72 (Jan 27, 2018)

Ive been listening to a lot of Medtner lately. Mostly the Sonatas but i also sprinkle in some shorter pieces. I see them as sort of building blocks to the sonatas. Can also be done with Schubert etc


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