How Many Times Do You Have To Listen To Understand A Piece Of Music?


Speaking solely about popular music, broadly speaking, it takes 2 to 3 listens to figure out if I like something.  Roughly meaning do I want to hear it again.  To get to the point where I think I understand the piece can take dozens of listens.  A big factor in how digestible a piece is whether it's a genre, artist or song I'm already familiar with.  At least for me truly new music is harder to get into.

Just curious as to how others experience new music.

onhwy61

Showing 1 response by emergingsoul

Rap about five seconds. It’s absolutely horrifying. I don’t understand opera. Classical from Rachmaninoff is a challenge to understand. Frank Zappa challenging I just wish he played music rather than interrupt with all this weird stuff he likes to do.. Lots of chord progressions and jazz proposition that can be complicated. don Ellis an amazing trumpet jazz player from the 70s has remarkable arrangements but sometimes he does weird stuff that I don’t understand, I do like pussy wiggle stomp Don Ellis that’s done in a very unique time. Oscar Peterson handles very complicated playing and makes me wish I had taken piano playing so I could understand what he’s doing but I can just sit back and really like it though. I don’t understand why we can’t listen to Christmas music all year long.