Music it's good to have met.

I suspect, however, that my relationship to visual art is a lot more superficial than my relationship to music. In fact, this sounds kind of like the same level I was at in second grade: I can recognize the difference between Paul Klee and Winslow Homer, and that's good enough for me?

Last night I took a percocet to help me get to sleep. I dreamed about an animal coming into my room. At first I thought it was something like a racoon. Then it became a porcupine, and I was thinking: how am I going to keep this thing calm so it doesn't attack? I think it was at that point that I threw something at it (oddly enough). At any rate, it next turned into a small, rather radiant, tiger. At that point I had had enough and said to myself in the dream, "That percocet is making me hallucinate." Actually, it was just giving me weird dreams.

I've found this to be true for a lot of 20th century instrumental music, modern classical or real-modern jazz typically -- my encounters with Ornette Coleman, Arnold Schoenburg, Cecil Taylor all involve infrequent but regular (twice-yearly per piece average ?) encounters with that particular subset of their work -- and each time is better, and maybe the first few times were more difficult.

Conlon Nancarrow, Anthony Braxton, Borbetomagus I can check in on a bit of every so often -- listening to one of the five Nancarrow pianola volumes arbitrarily right through makes no sense, but listening to 3a, 3b and 3c this time (for instance) is great -- I'm glad I own some of this stuff that I can go back to when I so feel. I think Nancarrow is better owned than summarily digested via the library, for instance -- the pianola studies were his 'cantos', his major life work that he lived with every day I guess as the works unfolded over 50 years. I don't need it daily myself, but I'm glad it's there when I want it. Personally I can't recommend that pianola 5 Volume Wergo set enough, even if you have to buy all five at once (I think you save money per disc with the bulk deal anyway). They are lot's of fun each listen !

I understand Sonic Youth called their 1988 lp Sister because they wanted it to be like an old friend, like your sister, (hopefully) reliable and there if needed, and I think that being record collectors themselves that's a really nice aim, more ambitious perhaps than producing addictive pop music conceits, but I do find I use that lp in that way more often than straight-to-the-glands rock'n'pop 'n stuff ..

I'd go so far as to say that the best albums are the ones that hang around, that get listened to occasionally, and that provide this incremental or marginal value per listen. Aren't they the only records worth owning ? You can hear the other stuff and get the idea and all at someone else's expense. Too much rock'n'roll with only vague long-term value is a waste of too much money in a red herring 'quick thrills' sort of way. These one-dimmensional records give record collecting the lifestyle its stightly dodgy yet undeserved reputation.

I have to admit that from an economic point of view, I don't want to buy too many of the sort of CDs that it's only nice to listen to rarely (even if that's over a matter of years).

Sometimes recordings from styles of music I used to listen to heavily work their way into the category of things to listen to occasionally. I hardly listen to any hip-hop anymore, though I might dust off my Public Enemy recordings once a year. But that's not exactly the same thing, since at one time they were in heavy rotation. That's sort of like an old friendship that is on its way out.

I'd go so far as to say that the best albums are the ones that hang around, that get listened to occasionally, and that provide this incremental or marginal value per listen. Aren't they the only records worth owning?

I have to disagree with this. At the risk of being conventional (gasp!(snort!(chortle!))), I tend to place more value on the recordings that I am able to listen to repeatedly over a long period of time. I often do tend to value things that have taken time to grow on me more than other things, but only when they've grown on me to the extent that I can listen quite frequently. (My favorite, overused examples: Sun Ra's "Out There a Minute" and various Oum Kalthoum recordings.)

Maybe the experience of music it's good to have met tends to be more cerebral in some sense. I'm not sure how cerebral my experience of any music can be, since I don't know music theory and I don't typically sit there thinking about the music while listening to it. In general I want some sort of emotional impact from music (and preferably not an unpleasant one, though sometimes music which is supposed to be disturbing is not disturbing to me). Oddly, something like Varese, as dramatic as it is, doesn't have that much emotional kick for me. In some sense modern classical music seems excessively specialized to me. There's something good there, but it doesn't satisfy enough on an emotional level. Well, that's a pretty sweeping comment and not the direction I necessarily mean to send this thread in, but flames are welcome. (I never meant this category to only include modern classical music.)

My personal preference is for records with fairly rapid payoffs which gain their added-value as you look at them in the light of other records, the rest of the culture, and the development of your own life.

My own approach tends to be, at least in theory, more "purist" than this, more focused on what's in the music itself, rather than its relationship to other records, the culture at large, and my own life. However, if I thought about it, I would probably find a fair number of recordings that take on much of their value partly due to these things. Especially in that last category I can think of two examples: I just bought a Roberta Flack collection and some of the appeal of these songs is no doubt nostalgic. (On the other hand, there was something I liked about them when they were new and I first heard them as a kid.) Certain songs I heard in salsa clubs a couple summers ago now bring me back to what was going on then, and also tend to give me the slightest flashback of post-dancing exhilaration. I'm not sure that in the long term this is going to be as satisfying to me as finding new layers of things to enjoy in the music itself.