The Museum vs. Galleries

Back in the ’90s and early ’00s I listened to this great public radio station (91.3 WYEP) all of the time because they were usually playing music that was out of the mainstream. (When I do turn the dial there these days, it seems as if they have pretty much gone to playing well established oldies like everyone else.) Anyway, I discovered a lot of music that way, and that is what drove the purchases of most of my CDs back then. I am not aging as gracefully as I thought I was going to, and I don’t really feel the need and/or desire to listen to new stuff.

Occasionally I'll see a SACD on MD that I am not familiar with but I think looks interesting so I'll order it.  Occasionally I am disappointed.  I once bought a SACD by Judith Sills for $19 and change because I wanted something to get into the free shipping zone, and what a mistake that was.  I should have paid the shipping.

i go through phases.   If I am busy and have less time to listen (lately) I listen to mostly things I like, because I haven't heard them for a while.  When I get a chance to go through my favorites, I'm more likely to go looking for new.  Wintertime and darkness generally results in more listening time.

Jerry

As I've aged (late sixties now), I find I can finally now generate the same interest in investigating new music that once required a partner. When I was very young, my brother (who was eight years older), led me to the new rock and roll music of his generation (he went to college in '68). He used to give me quizzes - he dropped the needle on a section of record while I was blindfolded or otherwise couldn't see the album cover - and he'd make me say the group, the title of the record, and who was singing. It was fun, and it accelerated my music interest. He was my earliest guide. 

In my early twenties, a very close friend who lived nearby and I both dove into jazz together. We'd go record hunting and read books  and call each night to talk about what we had heard at our homes. We knew nothing about jazz when we started, but within a few years, we became at least somewhat knowledgeable, and quite passionate. An older teacher at the boarding school in which I taught was a piano and organ player, and knew his classical very well. He really helped me dip my toes into all that.

Now, I am (have to be) a self starter when it comes to new music. All these guides and partners of my past are no longer with me. I still favor the hunt over having the music - I guess I still want to go to the galleries more than to the museums. But some nights I just skip about using Roon and my tablet and the hundreds of CD's I burned into my server, and play single cuts with which I sing loudly and badly. And I love that trip to the museum. 

I have many thousands of LPs and over a thousand CD's. If the streaming stopped tomorrow, I would have plenty of music to explore and re-explore. But I will confess I love streaming. In some ways, streaming has become my partner in the hunt for new music. I still use it audition an album to see if I should buy the vinyl, 'cuz that's my preferred medium, but I buy way fewer records now, and use the streaming to feed the explorer in me.

Oh, and FM Radio. Boston still has good FM radio, and I learn a lot from both excellent experienced radio hosts, and also from the myriad student DJ's. I have a very good tuner that feels almost like cheating - free music and knowledgeable guides.

Thank you for sharing your stories about music listening. I liked how humble and interested you all seem...

This has changed for me. When I was first exploring Jazz, for example, it was very exciting. It seemed like an entire universe was waiting for me to discover it and most of what I listened to was previously unknown and recently purchased.

However, as the decades have gone by, I’ve found it harder and harder to find new (to me) music that I want to buy, so I tend to listen mostly to what’s become familiar.

This doesn’t mean I don’t still spend time looking for new music to buy. I do. But now, it takes a whole lot of looking/listening to find anything that really grabs me. It’s not because there’s a lack of music. My taste /personal preference is the limiting factor and it’s very stubborn!

I used to play music from my collection (4K albums) nearly 100% of the time. With streaming sounding as good as my library I now listen to new music (or only listened to up to twice before) probably 90%+ of the time.

Streaming completely changed my approach to music.

I’d say 80% of my listening is now new or relatively new discoveries.  There’s so much great new (at least to me) and well-recorded music out there I’m finding on Qobuz that I rarely feel the itch to listen to my older stuff although it does still happen occasionally.  I’m just so grateful to have found so many new or previously undiscovered artists through streaming — it’s reawakened my love of the hobby and taken it to a new level entirely.  It’s the precious audio gift that keeps on giving. 

70...80% of my listening time is hunting for new tunes and music I haven't heard in spotify, youtube music and youtube premium. Then the titles I liked most I go shopping for vinyls or CDs around bandcamp and local record stores and play them again to enjoy far better sound vs. streaming.  I now realized that I have vinyls released after y2k started dominating my shelves because of that.

For me having first release of new band I liked is more important than having better sounding release of existing band.

Depends on the day of the week. Qobuz new releases come out on Friday. So Friday is virtually 100% listening to new jazz and classical releases. Saturday and Sunday are maybe 75% new, depending on the size of the haul. By Thursday I’m pretty much 100% old favorites, with an occasional new fav thrown into the old fav category.

Yesterday, (Wednesday) for example, I woke up with an ungovernable urge to hear Mingus Three or Four Shades of Blue which led to Philip Catherine.  Also listened to Wallace Stoney’s Stand and Nina Simone’s I put a spell on you.  All from my collection. So nothing new.  

Interesting question. Typically when I am “listening” to music I play something familiar - playlists or albums though sometimes the albums are from artists I know well but may not be familiar with that particular album. But for long sessions that typically start with listening but become background music as I start working on other tasks rather than just listening I let Roon radio take over and get exposed to all sorts of new music I’m not familiar with - like on weekends. I’m guessing this means my system plays 50/50 between familiar and new to me. I’ve discovered a lot of really great new music and artists this way. 

I devote some afternoon time to music discovery. That might be new artists or new releases from familiar ones. If I don't find anything interesting in 30 minutes or so, I'll listen to Internet radio for a while. Nighttime is comfort time with music I know I love. 

When I get in the mood for something, it is something I am familiar with.

I don’t stream; however, I went through several years in my life when I was buying CDs all the time, and I have CDs I haven't listened to for a long time and that I forgot I even own and CDs I may have listened to only once or twice or so, and occasionally I go through them and pick one of those out.

I spend most of my time with music I know relatively well, probably 75%-80% of my time. I’ve built playlists that cover so many different decades and genres that it doesn’t get old. The other 25% is spent when I get in the mood for listening to albums, both from artists I know well and from artists I know songs from but haven’t listened to the entire recording to which the song belongs, or exploring related artists and discovering other genres (jazz mostly) that I don’t have much exposure to.