# Listening to CDs



## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

Last year I began a new way of listening to my music collection. I have found it so satisfying I would like to recommend it.

I found that I was listening to the same CDs repeatedly and neglecting others. Many I had only listened to once, at the time of purchase, then abandoned. This could not be right, and I decided to be more systematic. Here is the new regime. I pick one composer and listen to *all* my CDs of that composer in roughly chronological order. As I am getting hear the end of that composer I will allow myself to begin another composer, but I must then go through all *that* composer's works in the same way, not beginning composer no. 3 until I am nearly through no. 2, and so on. In other words, I must go through all my composers listening to no more than two together.

Every CD must be played through. If I come to a CD containing even one piece I cannot bring myself to listen to, that CD must be given to the poor. An inflexible rule.

If you take up this scheme you will find it has a number of advantages:

* The benefit of following each composer's musical development

* The happy discovery that (in some instances) music you had dismissed as poor, and set aside after one listening, turns out to be better than you had thought.

* Money saved on unnecessary impulse purchases. That boxed set of Haydn piano sonatas might look tempting, but do you really want to listen to all of them, as frequently as the rest of your collection, as the method demands?

* Space saved as your collection is pruned

* An inner glow of righteousness as you take your redundant CDs to the charity shop

* Development of a spiritually healthy self discipline. Your musical entertainment is now firmly governed by order and method and not by your whims and fancies - the worst form of tyranny.

* The pleasure is now being brought to you (the rule or method being the master) rather than you reaching out for it. The poets have told us for centuries the superiority of the former. 'Pleasures are like poppies spread, you sieze the bloom, the flower is shed'.

I urge all music lovers to adopt this method.

Happy systematic listening everyone


----------



## littlejohnuk (Jun 9, 2010)

I am doing a similar thing with early Beethoven - I've listened to his first two symphonies continuously and also his early piano concertos.


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I have the opposite problem. I tend to jump around too much and never get a chance to know (that is mentally memorize) any one piece except the old workhorses I've heard for decades.


----------



## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I used to listen to one opera & then another & wasn't learning anything. Now I listen to the same one over & over until it becomes embedded in my memory. I listen on mp3 player & as soon as the CD ends I just press the button & start it again.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I'm in the process of cataloging all of the cd's I have bought to date. I will tick each cd on the printout as I listen to it. I want to listen to my whole collection over the next six months (about 2 cd's per day - I have about 300 cd's). I don't think I'll prune any of my collection, as I tend not to make "impulse" buys in the first place...


----------



## KaerbEmEvig (Dec 15, 2009)

Chris said:


> Last year I began a new way of listening to my music collection. I have found it so satisfying I would like to recommend it.
> 
> I found that I was listening to the same CDs repeatedly and neglecting others. Many I had only listened to once, at the time of purchase, then abandoned. This could not be right, and I decided to be more systematic. Here is the new regime. I pick one composer and listen to *all* my CDs of that composer in roughly chronological order. As I am getting hear the end of that composer I will allow myself to begin another composer, but I must then go through all *that* composer's works in the same way, not beginning composer no. 3 until I am nearly through no. 2, and so on. In other words, I must go through all my composers listening to no more than two together.
> 
> ...


I'll neglect the rest of the post and focus on the parts which struck me the most. I think that you shouldn't get involved with charity, when you clearly have no idea about the ideals behind it.

Charity isn't supposed to stand for giving away things you don't need - charity is about sharing with people things you have and crave for. Giving away useless things isn't charity - that's pity and those people don't want pity.


----------



## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

KaerbEmEvig said:


> I think that you shouldn't get involved with charity, when you clearly have no idea about the ideals behind it.
> 
> Charity isn't supposed to stand for giving away things you don't need - charity is about sharing with people things you have and crave for. Giving away useless things isn't charity - that's pity and those people don't want pity.


Hang on a minute.

The charity shop is where a charity - say the local hospice - sells second-hand goods for hard cash.

And for most charities hard cash is not "useless goods" and pity doesn't enter into it.

Everyone benefits - the shoppers who get second-hand goods at a low price, and the charity which is usually delighted to receive goods to sell.


----------



## Head_case (Feb 5, 2010)

_


mamascarlatti said:



Hang on a minute.

The charity shop is where a charity - say the local hospice - sells second-hand goods for hard cash.

And for most charities hard cash is not "useless goods" and pity doesn't enter into it.

Everyone benefits - the shoppers who get second-hand goods at a low price, and the charity which is usually delighted to receive goods to sell.

Click to expand...

_You're talking about the material and social construct of what constitutes nominal 'charity'.

Kaerbemevig is referring to the spiritual quality of charity; intentionality and the intention of the charitable mind.

It was a little careless of the OP to post those words in a rather flippant manner, but we know he didn't intend any harm.

It's okay guys - you can be charitable to one another and let it slide 
*

Back to CDs then.

*
The more I listen to mine, the more I'm aware of their technical limitations. They just don't have the richness of vinyl LPs. I will never have the fastidiousness to catalogue my CD collection; that would be as useful as cataloguing all my Apple Lossless tracks. Hold on a minute! My Apple iPod does actually tell me how many times I've listened to a track, and which tracks aren't listened to .... hmmm.

Perhaps I find myself on the opposite pole ~ against systematisation; against the dogmatic practice of applying a principle for 'how I should listen' to music. I can't say that I worry about CDs which aren't played. If a visitor comes and finds a CD they really like, I'm more than happy to give it to them if they derive more pleasure from it than I do. Thankfully, none of them like what I do and most tend to think what I listen to is scarey modern trash


----------

