Casual listening

@rvpiano I think you've opened up an interesting topic. There are various ways of attending which are between "critical" and "casual." Sometimes they teach this in meditation or martial arts. A way of being "at rest" but still "active," mentally. 

When I think of the term "critical," I think of problem solving. As I see it, the puzzle becomes, how does one remain an active listener without also remaining in problem-solving mode? 

I agree. I hate the “head in vice” listening mentality.  When I listen which is virtually every day, the music is “on” and I’m about my business. I have an open concept house so this is easily to do. Just turn your system on and listen to it, don’t evaluate it! 

For me, listening to recorded music involves three essential factors. The first is the quality of the playback system. Unless there's a new component in the system I already know what it sounds like, so at the moment I'm listening there's not much point in analyzing it whether I'm listening casually or critically.

The second factor is the quality of the recording itself. Someone else here said that listening isn't analyzing how the music is recorded, but rather analyzing how it's played. For me that's true to some extent, but if it's simply a bad recording I think it's hard to ignore no matter how casually I'm listening since it's going to affect my ability to accurately analyze the music. I may or may not put with it depending on how interested I am in that bit of music. But if it's a reasonably good recording, and one can usually tell pretty quickly, then there's no point in analyzing it further.

The last factor, of course, is the quality of the music being played. I tend to save my critical listening time for music that's at least a little more complex and that requires full concentration to "analyze" and appreciate. Then there's the less complex stuff that I might listen to while reading or doing something else that shares my attention. That music will normally be played at a lower volume, and I'm hearing it but I'm not fully engaged in it, i.e., listening casually. Of course, there have been many times when I've been hearing but not "listening" to a piece of music when something yanks my attention away from whatever else I was doing and requires me to turn it up and shift into critical listening mode. I love those moments!

@ezwind 

   Although I’m not happy about it, I too tend to have problems listening to poorly recorded music no matter how good it is. However if it’s historically significant, I can make allowances for the sound and go right to the performance. 
 Also, if I start off listening softly, and I find myself getting into the music I will turn the volume up.

there is a major difference between being immersed in something, feeling the music -- vs -- being evaluative or analytical in your focus - both are types of intentful listening, but quite different -- one is for enjoyment, the other might well be an enjoyable process for some, but it is ’work’ of sorts as it is being quite analytical and evaluative, trying to judge, parse, decipher, gauge, compare what one is hearing against something else, or some ideal we have in mind

a trained musician can listen to a piece of music and be evaluative also, but not of the sound, but rather, the construction of the music and/or the technique, say, of the pianist or singer...

so it is really about mindset, are you willing to engage in a way to be moved, transported, etc... versus asking yourself, what is good/bad/right/wrong?