# What Percentage of New (to you) Music Do you Listen To?



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

When we first began listening to classical music, many/most of the works we listened to were new to us. After years of listening all of us presumably have a relatively large amount of music that we've heard. At any given time we can choose to listen to a work with which we are familiar or a work that is new. By "new" I simply mean a work that you have never heard or that you may have heard but do not remember anything about it. I assume the amount (percentage) of new works varies over time. 

In general how much new music do you listen to?

When I started becoming serious about classical music I listened to a lot of new music mostly because I had heard relatively little classical music. At that time I still listened to a significant amount of older music. When I became even more serious, I subscribed to Naxos and started listening to "everything I could". Clearly the majority of music was new.

But during the past 6 months or so, I've found myself in an even more "radical" phase. I would guess that up to 90% of what I listen to is new. I have a long list of works that I do not know, and I'm working through them. Often when I read a TC thread, I will see a reference to a work I don't know, and I will either listen to the work or add it to my list. 

I do love hearing all the new works, but sometimes I'll get in my car, turn on the radio, and hear a Beethoven symphony or a Wagner Overture. I'll wonder if I should cut back on so much new listening and hear more works that I absolutely adore. I guess the bottom line is that I love both exploring and hearing sublime beauty (and sometimes I get both at once) so it's all good.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

90% new for this listener.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Under 10 %.


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

Pretty much everything I buy now is new to me unless there is any unavoidable duplication with certain fill-ups. Over a number of years I collected multiple recordings of the symphonies by Mahler, Bruckner, Beethoven and Schubert but am now pretty much sated where they are concerned - the only works that spring to mind where I would like to obtain another version sooner rather than later are Shostakovich's symphonies (especially if the Kondrashin box on Melodiya gets reissued at a decent price, otherwise I'd like to cobble together a decent cycle by various leading Soviet-era conductors on a disc-by-disc basis) and Tchaikovsky's symphonies 4-6 (I have my eyes on Mravinsky's stereo recordings on DG here).


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

I tend to go through phases with listening to new music - like I will decide to get familiar with Someone's symphonies, say, or perhaps I buy a box set. TC has been a great place I find for finding new music. Sometimes I have to listen to new music as part of my course (whether that be Xenakis, 12th century motets or Schubert I haven't heard).

Probably under 20%, or perhaps up to 30%. Perhaps 50% of what I listen to is Haydn and Beethoven anyway, but I have yet to hear all there is to hear of those composers so it is all very exciting!



mmsbls said:


> I guess the bottom line is that I love both exploring and hearing sublime beauty (and *sometimes I get both at once*) so it's all good.


This is rare, but surely one of the most exhilarating experiences available to us!


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Recent purchases*

Interesting question. It turns out I could actually check this out. Most of my purchases are through Arkive Music and some from Amazon.

In the last twelve months I have purchased 44 cd's from these outlets. 35 of them contained music that I was not familiar with. One of them contained the Mahler orchestrations of the Schumann's Second and Fourth Symphonies. Of course I was familiar with the Schumann works but the Mahler versions were new to me. I tallied this in the 35.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Probably over 50%.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

It's starting to get hard to listen to new music. Of course, I can always find more, but I've been alive a little while (I still consider myself just as young and foolish), and while I'm sure lots of other people have listened to a good deal of music, let's just say that I am confident that I've probably listened to more music than the majority of people my age, even people with the same tastes and passions. I know that sounds really arrogant, and I'm sorry. Really, I'm very open to the idea that some or many of you have listened to music more than me. But follow me for a second here: I'm in my mid forties, and I've been listening to music for more than two hours a day since I was five years old. I'm literally incapable of remembering a day where I didn't listen to not just a little bit but a lot of music. Somehow, I've always either made time for it or listened to it while doing other things. And I'm being conservative with this kind of estimate, because I'm thinking more of when I was very young. Ever since I took band class in junior high, I've actually been listening to music for as much as two hours a day every day (or more). Most Sundays I spend pretty much the entire day listening to music, while I take it easy and work around the house.

When you've listened to music that much, it can be hard to listen to new material. There is just so much that I've already heard, that would be pretty much as fresh as something new if I came back to it. I can't even count the number of times I've looked up something I thought was new and listened to it, and ended up remembering that I had already listened to it. I kid you not: I've listened to all of Sorabji's ridiculously long works, and most of them I've heard in one day. I'm not totally sure, but I think I've actually heard everything that has currently been cataloged as a composition of Bach. That is, unless some of it hasn't been recorded. And I can almost say the same for Telemann and Graupner.

But I've been extremely fortunate to have the opportunities I've had, to have the family I do, and the access to music that I've had. One thing I'm also sure of, that should blunt my ego as regards this subject, is that there are other members here who know more about music than I do. Stlukesguild, I would assume, has probably read more literature on music than myself, because, if I remember correctly, his collection is just astounding. Dude, I am seriously jealous of your collection.

As regards the actual percentage, I don't think I can give an estimate, because I'm just not sure enough to give any percentage at all, really. It's just so sporadic for me. Sometimes I want nothing but new stuff. Sometimes I wallow in the most familiar places for months on end. My only consistent musical habit is that my musical habits always change.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I'm a slow and systematic explorer. I pick some composers, three or four, and I explore their music very deeply during a couple of months. Then I pick another set of composers and repeat the process.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I go through phases. I usually have to take on a different attitude when I listen to more new music, realizing that I am not sure or even likely to get a deeply satisfying experience with each piece I approach. Usually I tackle a bunch of new pieces when I'm overly entrenched in things I know well, and often these new pieces cease to be new very quickly in a literal sense(no longer new on second listen) as if I see progress happening, I will keep listening to them for a while. 

Lately, I've been reserving new to me experiences of music for concert going.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I also go through phases. Over the past few years, I've heard a lot of music I hadn't heard before, or only heard maybe once on radio ages ago. There has been a lot of discovery and rediscovery.

So the percentage of new (to me) music would be quite high, some number over 50 per cent of my intake. 

I am similar to mmsbls, some 'discoveries' I made by reading posts on this forum (eg. Hovhaness is one I can remember) others from my own reading of books on music or even word of mouth through acquaintances. When I hear about something that interests me, I will inevitably try to listen to it.

This year I have slowed down, and I am currently listening to things I'd collected over the past few years, as well as things I've already got but not listened to or not listened to that much. So I've got a bit of music overload, but I think that's natural.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

It really matters with the composer. When I had a phase with Arensky for several months, besides listening to things I knew, I would look up a bunch of stuff by him, so that time was like 40-50% of totally new music. Now, when that phase is over, it's back to 10%. Now Arensky joins the 90% of things I know.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I am still in the initial learning phase of my development, so all the music is basically new to me. Perhaps 33% of the listening I do is to music that I've never heard before, perhaps 90% is to music that I've heard less than five times.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Prob 90%, but I have only been listening for a couple of years. I do listen to first-time pieces a number of times when I am getting familiar with them, however. I suspect that this percentage will fall over the next few years.


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