# How long is your concentration span?



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Mine used to be wonderful - could concentrate for the whole hour of a lecture, for example. But with age & exposure to TV & the internet, I'm now just as impatient as the average teenager. 

I imagine that on Talk Classical, people are much better than me? 

What's the longest you can listen to a piece of music & not get bored? (Wagnerians - are you the super-athletes at the Concentration Olympics?) 

Anecdotes welcome...


----------



## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

You know the time scales they have to use to measure reactions in those high speed particle accelerators?

Pretty much that.


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

There exists music that alters time. I have listened for a few minutes and then learned that an hour has gone by.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> There exists music that alters time. I have listened for a few minutes and then learned that an hour has gone by.


The opposite is true as well. "Parsifal is the kind of opera that starts at six o'clock and after it has been going on for three hours, you look at your watch and it says 6:20." -- David Randolph


----------



## Guest (Apr 1, 2013)

*How long is my concentration span?* Well, it does depend on what I'm doing, but generally it is as long as I can hold my breath.
Which is how I judge a melodic line.


----------



## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Sorry, what was that?


----------



## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Ingenue said:


> (Wagnerians - are you the super-athletes at the Concentration Olympics?)


probably true. Opera fans in general should be pretty good. I routinely watch opera in one sitting, occasionally I watch a production twice in a row - if I've the day off. I can read all day long, work all day long, have "fun" all day long etc. I'm a tad on the obsessive side  my boast to fame might be reading A Hundred Years of Solitude in one go.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I think two hours and forty five minutes...an abridged version of Einstein on the Beach...that's the longest I've ever been able to sit and concentrate on one piece of music for.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

It depends on the piece and the performance. I recently sat through Klemperer's Bruckner 4 almost on the edge of my seat. If it's good, I'm in hands and feet. If it's not, my mind wanders almost immediately.


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

The funny thing about Klavierspieler's post is that it is true for me. I am sleep deprived and am thinking somebody made an april fool's thread, so I'm looking for some joke that isn't there...My concentration is not good at all these days. I need help.

Also, looking at the partial title, I wasn't sure what length you were inquiring about, but was relieved and dissapointed to find it was only my attention span.


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I think two hours and forty five minutes...an abridged version of Einstein on the Beach...that's the longest I've ever been able to sit and concentrate on one piece of music for.


Musical concentration is one thing...but still that's pretty impressive.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Musical concentration is one thing...but still that's pretty impressive.


It's easier than a Wagner opera which I would usually have spread over two nights to watch...


----------



## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

If I'm honest,

about 15-20 minutes.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Klavierspieler said:


> If I'm honest,
> 
> about 15-20 minutes.


That's not bad, not bad at all.


----------



## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

My work is very number intensive, so I've been able to train myself to have a very long span of concentration.

I can focus on something for 4-5 hours uninterrupted. Beyond that, I am in desperate need to move around. But I have definite moments of inability to focus on anything for more than ten minutes.


----------



## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

7.5". Oh wait, you were asking about my attention span. Oops...


----------



## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Mine is without any known limit. Sadly, back in my planetarium days I used to create and run shows up to an hour long. Toward the end I found myself forced to make them no longer than 22 minutes thanks to today's attention span. It'll only get shorter, too.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

You all seem to have the necessary concentration to produce these gloriously witty responses! I look forward to more.

Hmm, the title of this thread... 
As an ex-English teacher, I should have noticed the double-entendre before I posted it. Concentration definitely not what it was!


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

3'44" Depending on the conductor of course :lol:


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> 3'44" Depending on the conductor of course :lol:


Just enough time to listen to HarpsichordConcerto's magnum opus.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Just enough time to listen to HarpsichordConcerto's magnum opus.


Your a fine judge of timing and music, obviously..............:tiphat:


----------



## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

I've never tested it to its limits. Reading a book, my attention span varies depending on the book. Reading music theory books, I find myself rereading paragraphs quite often. Listening to music, I'm easily able to listen to and air-conduct any Mahler symphony without losing concentration.


----------



## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Reminds one of the story about Relativity:

An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him.

"Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like
an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an hour seems like a minute."

The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?"


Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"


----------



## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I am the most patient person I know... I think I could have easily been a monk. I don't remember ever getting bored. That emotion is foreign to my brain. I still play the same computer games that I played 20 years ago, not for nostalgia, but because I never stopped; they still hold interest for me. I like watching the same films over and over again, and reading the same books. I'm a Wagnerian, too. I never lose my temper, either. When I go to a museum, I have to force myself to move on to the next object. When I was 5 or 6 years old and had my piano lessons, once I went to knock on the teacher's door at the appointed time, but he was not there, he had forgotten the lesson. So I sat in front of the door and started to wait. I don't know how long I waited... probably hours... but eventually my father came to take me away... I would probably have waited the whole day there if he hadn't. I remember that he was rather astounded by my patience and stubbornness.


----------



## JCarmel (Feb 3, 2013)

It depends just how much Sherry Trifle is in the bowl but usually I'm 'good' to get my spoon onto most of it!
Though it depends how much Sherry is in the Trifle.......
... Hic!


----------



## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

I love drifting away when listening to music.


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Ravndal said:


> I love drifting away when listening to music.


Oh yeah, that happens. I usually don't go very far away, and the music stays the propellant, but I'm pretty sure the composer wasn't going there.


----------



## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Xaltotun said:


> I am the most patient person I know... I think I could have easily been a monk. I don't remember ever getting bored. That emotion is foreign to my brain. I still play the same computer games that I played 20 years ago, not for nostalgia, but because I never stopped; they still hold interest for me. I like watching the same films over and over again, and reading the same books. I'm a Wagnerian, too. I never lose my temper, either. When I go to a museum, I have to force myself to move on to the next object. When I was 5 or 6 years old and had my piano lessons, once I went to knock on the teacher's door at the appointed time, but he was not there, he had forgotten the lesson. So I sat in front of the door and started to wait. I don't know how long I waited... probably hours... but eventually my father came to take me away... I would probably have waited the whole day there if he hadn't. I remember that he was rather astounded by my patience and stubbornness.


I have to have a similar temperament to work night audit in a hotel. I know that feel, bro.


----------



## Guest (Apr 3, 2013)

My students used to ask, when I set them some written work, "how long does it have to be, miss?" I would reply, "how long is a piece of string?" and, hilariously, some of them would actually try and calculate that until some kid up the back would yell, "shut up you bloody idiot, there's no answer to that question". 

It's a very wicked thing to be an English teacher and derive fun out of perplexing the students with left-of-field answers. It certainly kept them paying attention!! But, with their reduced attention spans, they didn't dwell on any bit of irony long enough to realize they were being sent up!! (I did teach them how to write an essay, BTW.) Let me drop you right into my bottom Year 9 class with a mental image:

Me: "Be quiet Daniel - I'm not going to ask you that again. See me at lunch. All of you will unless I hear total silence!" 

Daniel: (talking while copying straight notes from the board) "I'm doin' me work but, miss"!!
Boys: "Yeah, shut up you idiot - you're disrupting our learning" (smug looks and 'scholarly' 
goody-goody behaviour).
Daniel: The finger!!
Boys: "Does that mean we don't have to stay for detention miss?"

You cannot survive in teaching without an excellent sense of humour and a keen sense of the ridiculous!!:lol:


----------



## Zabirilog (Mar 10, 2013)

I am a Wagnerian, and watching his operas are like an another world to me. It just takes me, and I do not get bored. It's just because I love them so much. 
(btw, actually I nearly slept once in Tristan act three. But it was night, so...)


----------



## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I've been concentrating on this question for two day's now and there just do not seem to be an end to it...

..in the concert hall I'm often so concentrated on the music that I find the interval incredibly disruptive!

/ptr


----------



## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

There are some pieces of music which command your concentration to them, like this one.
I can't take my concetration away from it even, if i try.


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

KenOC said:


> The opposite is true as well. "Parsifal is the kind of opera that starts at six o'clock and after it has been going on for three hours, you look at your watch and it says 6:20." -- David Randolph


In Parsifal the characters are significantly developed to undergo drastic transformations after astounding realizations of self-truth. That explains why it is much longer than Italian opera, which is mostly a set of caricatures wasting 2 hours before ending in humor or tragedy.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Ooh-er, Couchie - sounds a bit sweeping!


----------



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Couchie said:


> In Parsifal the characters are significantly developed to undergo drastic transformations after astounding realizations of self-truth. That explains why it is much longer than Italian opera, which is mostly a set of caricatures wasting 2 hours before ending in humor or tragedy.


For me Parsifal is an opera where all possible concentration dissipates into clouds of sound. The slowliness of "Bist du ein Tor?" (Are you a fool?) is impossible to concentrate on so long and disintegrates, disperses itself into the musical flow. I guess that this is Wagner's intention. So the question (having Wagner in mind) should also be reversed: How long is your distraction span?


----------



## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Couchie said:


> That explains why it is much longer than Italian opera, which is mostly a set of caricatures wasting 2 hours before ending in humor or tragedy.


... or both.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

ptr said:


> I've been concentrating on this question for two day's now and there just do not seem to be an end to it...
> /ptr


Me too, but I keep forgetting what the question was.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Manxfeeder said:


> It depends on the piece and the performance.


Same with me.

& even if its a very long work I can split it up, listen to it bit by bit, movement by movement (Bruckner is a good example - esp. his longest symphony, the 8th). Then come back to a hearing of the work in full when given time, mood, etc.

I'm anti Wagner but the operas I've listened to in full by him (or seen on DVD) I do it one act at a time. But those occasions are few and far between.

With music I enjoy its easier though. The longest I get into one sitting is Bruckner and Mahler's longest symphonies, and with other opera I prefer highlights albums rather than the whole thing (an exception is operas on the short side - Berg's Wozzeck being one, its over in 90 minutes). Even then, the highlights albums can be long (pushing 80 minutes).

Even in my fav genre of chamber, my current limit is Morton Feldman's 80 minute String Quartet #1, which is long enough for me. His 5-6 hour long second string quartet is something I'm NOT rushing to listen to at this point.

With solo piano, I got Messiaen's Vingt Regards (which is about 2 hours in full). That I quite like but last time I listened to it, I heard it in two sittings.

& sometimes when a performance of a work is lengthened by constant repeats, its not long before I get thinking "when the hell will this end?"...


----------



## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

I actually think younger peoples concentration spans have got shorter. 
I blame the media particularly TV, everything is short clips darting all over the place.
Even films, action all the time, watch an older film and it’s all paced much slower and better for it.


----------



## belfastboy (Aug 3, 2012)

What was the question


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

TxllxT said:


> For me Parsifal is an opera where all possible concentration dissipates into clouds of sound. The slowliness of "Bist du ein Tor?" (Are you a fool?) is impossible to concentrate on so long and disintegrates, disperses itself into the musical flow. I guess that this is Wagner's intention. So the question (having Wagner in mind) should also be reversed: How long is your distraction span?


About 15-16 hours. I do find Goodall's Ring starts to drag by the 17th hour.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Couchie said:


> About 15-16 hours. I do find Goodall's Ring starts to drag by the 17th hour.


Wow!

(That's all I really can say to that; though I have to add this, so it exceeds ten characters & I can post it.)


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Couchie said:


> About 15-16 hours. I do find Goodall's Ring starts to drag by the 17th hour.


Show off..............


----------



## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Once, when I was sick, I decided to watch some films, as there was little else to do. Getting the films and starting them must have taken about 2 hours by itself, seeing how it was difficult to do the most simple things such as walking up stairs, but at some point I managed to grab _Seven Samurai_ and get it rollin'. I had only seen Kurosawa's _Rashomon_ before, but I was expecting a good ride. However, I was also very thirsty, so when I figured I was about 25 minutes in, I decided to pause the film.. It turns out I was already _2 hours _in! That certainly stumped me.


----------



## Ryan (Dec 29, 2012)

It's around abou


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Cheyenne said:


> Once, when I was sick, I decided to watch some films, as there was little else to do. Getting the films and starting them must have taken about 2 hours by itself, seeing how it was difficult to do the most simple things such as walking up stairs, but at some point I managed to grab _Seven Samurai_ and get it rollin'. I had only seen Kurosawa's _Rashomon_ before, but I was expecting a good ride. However, I was also very thirsty, so when I figured I was about 25 minutes in, I decided to pause the film.. It turns out I was already _2 hours _in! That certainly stumped me.


It is weird how you can be 'grabbed' like that. From nowhere, it seems, I have developed an obsession with the music of Lully, and am mesmerised by watching clips of his ballets/operas on YouTube. None of them are that long, obviously - but at one time I wouldn't have given 'that sort of thing' thirty seconds. Now I'm riveted!


----------



## Mesa (Mar 2, 2012)

Last week i watched the full 10 odd hour Beatles Anthology documentary in pretty much one go.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

"How long is your..." is far too personal a question for a public forum.... 

I think you'll find that generally, if the interest is great, the concentration is there and focused attention along with it; like anything involving a sort of 'stamina' - that stamina is from a long sequence of a regime of pretty regular 'work outs.'


----------



## Zabirilog (Mar 10, 2013)

I've thought of watching the whole Ring in a row. Maybe I'll just come crazy.


----------

