# Hiatus



## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Still on my hiatus from "classical" music
I have had a break for around a month or so.
Mainly Jazz and the spoken word taken it's place
What do you do for a break?


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

If I: need a break from Beethoven, I listen to Schoenberg; need a break from Bach, then Xenakis, need a break from Haydn, then Shostakovich...


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I listen to several genres as well as audiobooks and podcasts. I suppose the latter is my break from music, but it's always a healthy mixture anyway.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Silence is the best relief from sound, of course, and that I do quite regularly, not afraid to have 'nothing' running in my environment. And reading is also generally unaccompanied, not music running then, either. 

Staying within the sound medium:
I jump eras - radically to get out of mindset, timbres, harmonic procedure of one -- I suppose that could be criticized as jumping out of one frying pan and into yet another fire -- but if you jump back to gregorian chant, say, after the denser polyphony of the 20th / 21st century, that's pretty cathartic.

I jump cultural matrices - go to Gamelon music, Ritual court music, ala Gagaku, traditional Japanese Shakuhachi or Chinese Guqin musics.

Silence, if you can stand it (many cannot, whether it is music or radio or television running, with voices in the room, they've gotta have something on) is something I strongly advocate when you need a break from it all.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Silence, if you can stand it (many cannot, whether it is music or radio or television running, with voices in the room, they've gotta have something on) is something I strongly advocate when you need a break from it all.


Yup, I find that peace and quiet is what I mostly prefer. I work in a rather noisy and busy environment, and when I get home I frequently just don't have the strength for any more aural stimuli, least of all dramatic stuff. The result is that as much as I love classical music, I actually spend rather little time listening to it. But when I do I enjoy it more, I think.

When I am in the mood for something less challenging, I put up some New Age music, which is smooth and non-intrusive.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I don't need no stinkin' break from classical music!

[Usually I only listen to it a couple hours over any three day period, unless I'm transferring it from LP to CD-R.]


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

cwarchc said:


> . . . What do you do for a break?


As a professional classical organist there is no such thing as a "break" ... we keep going from bar to bar :lol:

Actually, classical music has always been in my life - I never tire of it ... well ... except for hearing those long winded
divas with the really wild vibratos on the radio while on the road.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Measure for Measure.....


Krummhorn said:


> As a professional classical organist there is no such thing as a "break."


That life, morning through late evening teaching, playing a gig, listening to what is new or old, requires even more at least that annual break... if it can be stretched to one month, so much the better ... of 0 music, no playing, your instrument left far behind, no audio, portable or otherwise. Maybe, just maybe, the meted out allowance of attending a concert or two. Otherwise, cold turkey.

This was the advice from teachers when I was in early middle school, at a summer camp, my total lesson / practice occupying a constant 11 months per annum, as similarly had their lives run from early childhood on. I've found it sound advice (pun intended.)

Coming back from that total break, technique a hair rusty (it flakes off within a day or two of use) your mind and ears are truly refreshed for more, the benefit of your not being in a rut, stale, and even the most familiar of works sounding fresh, and your having a fresh perspective on them as a performer.

If you are highly in demand and getting nine or ten K per performance, I suppose you are going to make hay while the sun shines, but even those performers need a break or it gets old and stale, as do their performances.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

Until June this year I had listened to very little Classical for a few years. So at the moment I am having a hiatus of listening to 'what they call' popular music


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Maybe after 20 years of listening to classical music every single day I will want to take a break from it. For now I am rather thinking: "What the heck have I been doing all these years when I could have been exploring all these treasures?"


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Generally, it is silence, but when I yearn for a musical alternative, I go to metal. There's something in it that fiercely contrasts classical music -- I think it is its absolute refusal "to submit or yield" to a dreamy or contemplative mood. I find it inferior as music, but it can cure me from that excessive dreaminess that is the result of overexposure to Brahms and Mahler.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

cwarchc said:


> What do you do for a break?


I sleep soundly at night and occasionally close my eye's for ten seconds in between movements if they are longer then 30 minutes... 

/ptr


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I agree with PetrB, silence has always been the best break for me. When I walk around campus from class to class, I don't have an MP3 player with me. I already am so immersed in music day to day that simply being outside in a nice break.

Nowadays, I've been switching it up and listening to some non-classical, but that stuff tends to numb my mind more than refresh it, unless I find the right stuff.


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## Gilberto (Sep 12, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Silence, if you can stand it (many cannot, whether it is music or radio or television running, with voices in the room, they've gotta have something on) is something I strongly advocate when you need a break from it all.


I will strongly advocate even when you don't think you need a break. As you observe, all of this noise all of the time is not good for the mind. I have noticed over the years that people who like to have the TV on for the sake of noise are usually people who do not have a settled mind and "need" to be distracted. This is not the place to expand on that, however.

I have never been one to be locked into one musical genre; although there are some I avoid like the plague. Both my wife and I love to read and it has been silent most of the day except for watching a film this afternoon. I played some Bach cantatas and Vivaldi early this morning and shut if off. This evening, a couple jazz albums while cooking and dining.

To each his own but I would find continually listening to one type of music boring. Especially if it is all day. And silence really is golden.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I don't take breaks from classical music. It's my favorite and always my first choice (and every choice after that). In my world, "eclectic" is an evil word.


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Gilberto said:


> I will strongly advocate even when you don't think you need a break. As you observe, all of this noise all of the time is not good for the mind. I have noticed over the years that people who like to have the TV on for the sake of noise are usually people who do not have a settled mind and "need" to be distracted. This is not the place to expand on that, however.


That reminds me of those teenagers who always have an mp3 player or iPod on and put in only one ear bud; it's really something to see :lol:


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

I think Ukko has the right idea,you can have too much of anything. I sometimes don't listen to any type of music for a couple of weeks.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I have just had a hiatus from TC & YouTube, which has meant that I didn't listen to music except when travelling in the car. It has been a nice break, but I'm glad to be back. I was interested in PetrB's advice that one should have a break from playing one's instrument too. I couldn't bear to be apart from my fiddle for even a day, but I have read of violinists who've come back after an enforced break of even several months and found that their skills had miraculously improved. 

When I am tired of baroque music, I listen to other eras of classical music; otherwise, a change of music is built into my life, because Taggart & I have the delight every week of dancing to reels, jigs & strathspeys. Heuch!


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

I listen to crows outside :lol: Or some retro r'n'r, rap or metal music...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Ingélou said:


> I have just had a hiatus from TC & YouTube, which has meant that I didn't listen to music except when travelling in the car. It has been a nice break, but I'm glad to be back. I was interested in PetrB's advice that one should have a break from playing one's instrument too. I couldn't bear to be apart from my fiddle for even a day, but I have read of violinists who've come back after an enforced break of even several months and found that their skills had miraculously improved.


That break -- or how long the hiatus is, anyway -- is contingent on how long you've been playing. The more advanced, the more time is constantly spent within it. Once professional (of which full-time conservatory study is a very good prep and similar experience), it is literally full time, far more than the eight hours a day other jobs demand. Then, that two to four weeks away from it is literally refreshing, i.e. both technique and the repertoire fall out of near complete habituated thought and action: returning after that break allows for fresh perspectives (and perceptions) of what you are doing in both the technical and interpretive.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

PetrB said:


> That break -- or how long the hiatus is, anyway -- is contingent on how long you've been playing. The more advanced, the more time is constantly spent within it. Once professional (of which full-time conservatory study is a very good prep and similar experience), it is literally full time, far more than the eight hours a day other jobs demand. Then, that two to four weeks away from it is literally refreshing, i.e. both technique and the repertoire fall out of near complete habituated thought and action: returning after that break allows for fresh perspectives (and perceptions) of what you are doing in both the technical and interpretive.


I do this technique not so much with my flute, but with my _music_. There are pieces that I worked on in the Summer for a Masterclass, and which I plan to perform in April for my Junior Recital, but I have barely looked at some of it over this semester. I feel that like with exercising, I play flute every day in order to _keep _up my stamina, it's not just a matter of improvement. I don't want to lose what I've already accomplished. My tone and articulation quality _does _suffer if I don't play enough everyday, as well as my breathing. It's fragile memory. But that's not the only reason I practice everyday... I actually enjoy even the "boring" stuff of practicing, scales, tone warm-up, etc.

I have discovered ways to mix it up with my practice so that I don't tire of practicing individually 2+ hours every day. Because I've been careful enough, I never feel I need to take a day off, it's just like any other kind of exercise routine. It's a push do to more than 3 hours though, so I don't do it unless I really feel it's necessary. There were some points this semester that I went into energy conservation mode and practiced only 1+ hour day, because those nights I had 3-hour opera performances which really were exhausting... it's about having a good balance.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

When you mention the Flute i was listening to classical music on sky fm and the host said that sound of flute is the closest to birds natural sound of all the instruments...Interesting


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Flamme said:


> When you mention the Flute i was listening to classical music on sky fm and the host said that sound of flute is the closest to birds natural sound of all the instruments...Interesting


In the same way, it's the closest sound-productionwise to the human voice. The flute was meant to be an extension of the voice, human or bird.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I'm at TC during my breaks.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

The only time I'm pretty much completely music free is when I'm on vacation (not the trip to and from, of course...that car stereo goes non-stop).

I never play exclusively classical music, though, so maybe I don't require a "break" from it as much as others do.

And, I really don't play my instrument much at all these days. So, as far as practicing goes, I'm on one long extended break.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

B-B-Break?! From CLASSICAL? NEVER!!!

But yeah sometimes I'm in the mood for jazz or rock


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