Do Any of You Just Sit and Listen, Anymore?

[RickW]

When I was a lad in my teen years, we used to get together, sit around, and just listen to music, whole albums all the way through. Sometimes I'd do it by myself. Often we would do it while, um, our listening was somewhat enhanced. But we did it a lot.

I find I don't take enough time to do that anymore. I often feel like I should be doing something. I love it when I make the decision that I'm going to do it. But I don't know newer albums like I used to get to know them, like I still know old albums today - they're burned into my brains after numerous intense listens.

So, does anyone do that anymore? I'm thinking I need to do more again. It's pure pleasure, complete escape, musical education, and as such, totally worthwhile.

[Doug]

Same. Used to. should but don't.
Remember laying on the floor with the speakers on either side of your head?

[RickW]

Yes! Just lying on the carpet. Yes, yes.

I love music now. Now sure if I love it as much as I did then, just letting it wash over me like that.

[dradtke]

"Remember laying on the floor with the speakers on either side of your head?"

O god, ya. The problem now is that when I sit still for that long, I fall asleep.

As for an "enhanced state", I remember listening for hours to a Moody Blues song, floating along and drifting it seemed like forever. Imagine my surprise a few years ago. flipping through old albums, to find it was a two-and-a-half minute song.

[Deleted]

I've spemt countless hours "just listening" to music. I still do. Many evenings, after the spousal unit has retired for the night, I'll put on some music and my headphones and just listen. Sometimes classical, other times, jazz or rock or whatever suits my mood. In fact, I'll be listening tonight.

Tom

[paulschlimm]

One of my fondest memories from my teenage years was hanging out with my brother in his room listening as the local radio station played "In Through The Out Door" all the way through for the first time.

In college, we used to listen to a lot of music with nothing else going on.

I seldom do that anymore. I listen to a lot of music, but I'm usually pecking away at the keyboard or driving somewhere. With three kids, the time I have to just sit and listen is limited.

[Village Idiot]

I'll sit and listen when I can, and try for a whole album. But by the time I wake up, it's the same song I most likely fell asleep to because I put the cd on "repeat". I have made it through several songs, though, and it is enjoyable.

[mccoyblues]

There was no better activity I could think of than tearing off that shrink wrap from a brand new double LP, putting it on the turntable and listening all the way through all four sides. Studying the artwork on the album cover, reading every single liner note down to the tiny preint of the copyright information and just listening.

Dropping the needle on a brand new album was a real treat. Something I looked forward to with every payday.

Today I actually have CDs I've never even listened to, not once.

[Tamarack]

Most of my listening in recent years has been on a boom box in the workshop while doing something else. Lately I've been trying to listen more often thru headphones, which deliver music to the brain with fewer distractions. Sometimes this is done for the express purpose of falling asleep. Vaughan-Williams and seranades for strings by Tschaikovsky and Dvorak are particularly good for this purpose.

[Russell Letson]

My attention span seems shorter, though my perceptions are much sharper. If I put on the classical station while falling asleep, I find that most pieces make perfect sense--I can hear the voicings, follow the modulations, trace most of the parts in a symphony or quartet. I think I listen faster than I did 40 years ago. Of course, I now have that 40 years of data to draw on, plus a decade of playing some pretty sophisticated tunes with some pretty sophisticated players to guide me.

But it's hard to sit still and just listen for more than a few minutes unless I'm resting (and dozing) or driving. (I try not to combine those two modes, though.) On the drive to the Orlando airport yesterday, I heard the end of Die Walkure--the scene that the "Magic Fire Music" is drawn from, which I listened to at least a hundred times in college (one of my first LP purchases in 1962 or so) but probably haven't returned to in a two or three decades. I found it very easy to follow the motifs as they came along--but then, Wagner is pretty easy to follow that way. I should try that with one of the late Beethoven quartets for a real test of real-time comprehension.

[chak]

Mar 26, 2009 20:10:32 GMT -5 dradtke said:

The problem now is that when I sit still for that long, I fall asleep.

This is typically my experience! ;D

[Cornflake]

No. Too bad.

[Doug]

I'm altered (different then those days, just wine drunk cause we got invited to a wind tasting that ended up a wine drinkin) but I'm giving it a try what I came up with was bessie Smith.

I'll let yall know in the morning if I make it.

[Deleted]

I have nearly 1500 CDs and I don't spend nearly as much time listening to them as I ought to ... and I'm retired.

[RickW]

And one of my daughters has run off with my good headphones.... sigh.

Sleep - yes, that's part of my problem, too. Tough to sit and listen at night, because I'm guaranteed to doze off.

I have CDs I've listened to once. But I had lots of LPs I only listened to once as well - mistakes in purchasing, so to speak.

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, and Echoes, from the backside of Meddle - spent way too much time in an altered state listening to those.

[Dub]

Mar 26, 2009 20:10:32 GMT -5 dradtke said:

...The problem now is that when I sit still for that long, I fall asleep.

Yeah, me too... and I usually listen to whole albums in the car!!!

Mar 26, 2009 20:10:32 GMT -5 dradtke said:

I remember listening for hours to a Moody Blues song, floating along and drifting it seemed like forever.

We used to listen to whole albums in an “enhanced” state.

- Dub

[jdd]

"...we used to get together, sit around, and just listen to music, whole albums all the way through. Sometimes I'd do it by myself."

"Remember laying on the floor with the speakers on either side of your head?"

"Yes! Just lying on the carpet. Yes, yes."

***

Paul kind of touched the answer to that--way back at that "used to" time, there wasn't any internet (or internet radio, or youtube). I think most people would have more free time without the web, and besides, you could lie on the floor instead of being at a usable angle to a screen and a keyboard:

"I listen to a lot of music, but I'm usually pecking away at the keyboard..."

Driving was also mentioned--commutes are longer now than when living on (or just off) campus. No wives/kids then, either.

Also, what with ipods and headphones (altho I could rant about the distracted, closed-off walkers and joggers on my favorite bike path), people can either listen while doing other things, or just tune out completely:

"I've been trying to listen more often thru headphones, which deliver music to the brain with fewer distractions."

I know several people who swear by noise-canceling phones on planes, which is not too far from stretching out on the floor between the speakers.

[guitone]

I used to both by myself and with friends. With friends it was very often in an altered state and we got into those really heady conversation, you know, those '60's raps. Now i do so only once in awhile, I do put music on, usually doing things in the house when I have it on, so just listening is an event now where it was part of my everyday life for many years. Also in college the turntable was always spinning no matter where we were.

[millring]

One of the biggest perks to working for myself is that I can and do listen to lots of music. Probably more than anyone I know. I used to listen to cassettes (I still have a wall of them in my shop. Then it was CDs. In the past couple of years I've put my CDs onto my computer and downloaded mp3s on top of that and I listen on random play most days.

But, no, I don't just sit and listen. I work and listen, or if I hear a song that I think...(hmm...I wonder....), I dry off my hands, grab the shop guitar or mandolin, and try to play along.

[billhammond]

I listen to a lot of music via headphones at work. WKSU for classical, Folk Alley for acoustic stuff.