# What do you do while you are listening to music?



## TxllxT

I would like to know, whether among you are also those who have these bodily inclinations to start 'conducting in private', when you listen to music you love the most. I like Gergiev and it happens to me, that sometimes I'm imitating him a bit  Music is not only mind-activity, is it?
Also I would like to know whether listening to music is an all-consuming activity/passivity, so that you don't engage into something else at the same time. I am often surfing on the internet *and* having David Attenborough showing his latest nature explorations without sound on BBC Four *and* have Classical music fill the room.
Like to hear your _Confessiones_ on this....


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## jhar26

I don't do anything else while I'm listening to music. It would be impossible for me to properly focus on either the music or whatever else I'd be doing.


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## Art Rock

I usually surf the internet whilst listening.


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## Polednice

It depends on what I'm listening to.

If I'm talking to people online, or generally surfing the internet, then I'll have music playing, but it will usually be an assortment of favourites that I'm familiar with. I don't like to have music I'm unfamiliar with playing in the background, because even if I'm just reading an article online, I end up simply not hearing half the music.


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## sospiro

I don't have enough spare time to just listen & do nothing else. I have opera playing most of the time at home but then I'm female so I can do more than one thing at a time ...


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## Weston

I do use music as a kind of ambient audio wallpaper when doing other things, especially at work where I am trying to drown out the chatter around me so I can focus on the problem I'm trying to solve. (Actually I have found white noise works better for this, but music is more pleasant.) 

But about once or twice a week I sit down and do nothing but listen to music, giving it all my attention. I do not air conduct exactly though once in a while I find myself air drawing. Smooth motions for beautiful transitional passages, fist pounding for Beethovenian stabs, etc. I say "air drawing" because I have likened drawing to a kind of dance. If you truly do it from the shoulder and not just the fingers you can get your whole body into it for more graceful lines. We even refer to this as a gestural quality, relating nicely back to the air conducting idea. So for me air drawing it is.


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## gurthbruins

sospiro said:


> I don't have enough spare time to just listen & do nothing else. I have opera playing most of the time at home but then I'm female so I can do more than one thing at a time ...


I don't _want_ to just listen & do nothing else. It's not enough, either the work is too familiar or else not worth attention.
I only hear what other people play as they work around me or play chess with me. Sometimes I do get carried away by the music and go to listen more raptly. When I used to go to recorder weekends (mostly baroque) I used to prefer dancing to the music of the others than play with them, and they preferred that too. Not that my playing was not in demand... but *I* didn't like it all that much. I was a better dancer.


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## Pieck

Am I the only one who reads while listening?


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## TxllxT

Pieck said:


> Am I the only one who reads while listening?


You mean reading a book? Such a thing made from felled trees?


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## gurthbruins

Pieck said:


> Am I the only one who reads while listening?


Possibly; when I read I like to concentrate on what I am eating.
(I prefer to leave smilies to the imagination). Why? Because everything is a joke anyway.


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## Almaviva

I'm unable to listen to classical music without moving my hands and air conducting. I do it in the concert hall as well, which must annoy the hell out of the seat neighbors. When my wife is in attendance with me, then I hold her hand and do little finger percussions on her hand, to my other seat neighbor's great relief because it is more discreet.

At work, when I'm doing paperwork I often have my iPod on with a large selection of my favorite opera numbers that I play in shuffle mode. During my commute I either have Met Opera Radio on, my iPod, or opera CDs playing.

At home I listen to operas in two different ways. I should say, I watch operas in two different ways, because I rarely listen to opera CDs at home and rather watch DVDs or blu-rays. One is for major works that I immensily admire and/or for my favorite DVD's/blu-rays, which deserve the full set-up of my large screen HDTV and surround sound receiver at the family room, and then I do nothing but watch it, and it is done in one sitting except for a couple of breaks that I make coincide with the end of acts. I'm fully absorbed and don't even talk, even if I'm watching with my wife. The other one is for explorations of the fringe repertory or a review of an alternative DVD of a work that I know well. Then I usually use the guest room where I have a more humble set-up with one of these cheaper home theaters and a smaller TV, and then I often watch while I'm here posting on Talk Classical from my laptop, and browsing the forum. Sometimes I type my review of the work while I watch it.


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## Huilunsoittaja

When I'm listening to music, I'm here often.  Or on email/facebook.


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## haydnfan

When doing brianless work I'll listen to music, else it's in the beginning of the day or the end and the most I have to do is eat breakfast.


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## Couchie

I seem to have three levels of listening:

1. Background: Either working, reading, surfing the web, with earphones.
2. Normal: Lying or sitting, concentrating on the music. This is usually the case for listening to new music.
3. Active: This is the case for old favourites. It usually involves me wailing my hands around a lot and throwing myself around the room like a total idiot. If it's symphonic music, I will "conduct" it, if it's a violin or piano concerto I will "play" it, and opera I will usually act out, mouthing along in psuedo-german/italian. It's not uncommon for me to break a sweat during the more enthralling movements. I assume that if anybody were to walk in on me doing this I would have a hard time living it down!


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## Conor71

Most of the time I listen while reading on the internet or in bed and sometimes while resting during my lunch breaks.


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## haydnfan

Conor71 said:


> Most of the time I listen while reading on the internet or in bed and sometimes while resting during my lunch breaks.


And then you look to the left... you look to the right... time to air conduct!


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## Pieck

haydnfan said:


> And then you look to the left... you look to the right... time to air conduct!


 It looks like people are really addicted to that.


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## TxllxT

haydnfan said:


> And then you look to the left... you look to the right... time to air conduct!


I must say that I find the term 'air conduct' a bit demeaning and not so appropriate for what is in real happening: you hear the music, you *know* the music and you direct & lead the music, from this present to the next 'present'... with your hand (feet, whole body).:wave::clap:


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## haydnfan

Perhaps we should call it 'holistic listening' instead, we engage both our mind and body.


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## Ravellian

When I'm in a learning mood, I follow along with the score.
When I'm listening to Tchaikovsky or Brahms, I just relax and do nothing else but listen.

Most of the time, however, I surf the net or do something else while listening.


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## Huilunsoittaja

haydnfan said:


> Perhaps we should call it 'holistic listening' instead, we engage both our mind and body.


:lol:

I may air conduct sometimes... but usually I air smash a piano.


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## haydnfan

I've air smashed my way through plenty of Beethoven sonatas!


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## Delicious Manager

I _LISTEN_ to it!


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## delallan

When I am listening to music I am generally driving. I have a nice long drive to and from work every day, so that's the perfect opportunity to listen to music. I also like to listen while I am busy at home. If I am listening to opera (and when I listen to opera I generally like to be watching the opera over MET online or a DVD or something) I have to be totally engaged in the process.


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## Huilunsoittaja

I also occasionally listen to music while I'm listening to music...   my mind needs that much stimulation sometimes. Believe me... doing scales and long tones leaves like 80% of my brain out of it.


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## Ravellian

^ You mean you listen to music while practicing music? Bad, bad, baaaaaaad!


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## Huilunsoittaja

Ravellian said:


> ^ You mean you listen to music while practicing music? Bad, bad, baaaaaaad!


:lol: I knowwww, it's a bad habit, but scales really do get boring. It's not like I'm _not_ listening to myself, I just dislike the silences between the notes. I can actually read an article or book or something while I do scales, enough of my mind is clear enough to comprehend completely. If it's hard music, or I'm sightreading, then I don't listen to anything else.


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