How to listen to music to really enjoy it?

*send a cheque for $50 Australian to Tim (e-mail for address) for a copy of the full study. Hurry while our dollar is at an all time low!

This is a fun excercise, to give an album complete attention for its duration, not reading or doing anything else. When I think about it, it's something I do rarely.

I'm not as sold on headphones for "serious" listening. To me, I like to hear how music sounds in an acoustic space. I listen to headphones plenty when walking around town and so forth but very rarely at home. Alone, sitting in my favorite chair accross the room from my speakers, with the volume way up, is my favorite listening situation. I wish I was there right now!

For the last year or so I've mostly listened to music walking or while at my computer. Walking is by a long chalk my favourite way to listen to it but I tend to prefer 'songy' stuff like that.

1) Just varying the equipment. Some songs just sound best when I hear them on my little trannie radio. Hearing things on a friends stereo, or in a car, or on a walkman can make all the difference. Variety is the spice of life.

2) Turning up the amp a lot.

3) Taking drugs.

As for the deeper sense of 'how to listen to music', I don't really like sitting in front of the stereo just listening to a record. It's a bit of a weird thing to do, if you think about it. I like music to be background music, even if it's just the soundtrack to smoking a cigarette.

just picked up _matrix_. it sounded amazing in the store.

Also, lying in bed when you're physically but not mentally tired in the evening or not quite awake on a Saturday or Sunday morning (to substitute for the effect of drugs, not that I would know :))...

Bumpity.

so I've been wondering - do you guys stop everything you're doing and concentrate on the music? put it on in the background? how many times do you listen to an album before you 'give up' on it?

I generally listen to it either (a) in my car or (b) when I'm sitting in front of the computer. Mostly (b). Rarely am I *really* paying attention. This sucks, and I'm burnt out.

Depends on the album. There are some I'm still working on after twenty years... I listen to most things on the subway these days, or while cleaning the house. Not an ideal environment.

For old stuff, I'll listen while reading, playing with my kids, in the car, etc. It's never strictly background music but then there are times when it's not primary, either, if that makes sense.

New stuff I try to listen to in the car for maximum focus. And if something I'm just checking out doesn't grab me right away it rarely gets a second listen. There's just soooo much "good but not great" stuff out there I can't afford to waste time giving something a second listen if there's not SOMETHING that grabs me or sticks in my head.

I have it on all the time, which makes me cheap and crass and ignorant. I always laugh at people who think you have to sit in a chair and not do anything else to truly enjoy a "CD"....If you are a music scholar or musician or music writer I think this is okay but...

I'm always amazed by people on this board who are able to actively pay attention to lyrics and extract narrative meaning from whole songs, even albums, after only a few listens. normally it takes me at least 5, maybe 10 listens before certain lyrics start to stick, and even then I find it hard to focus completely on what someone is saying for an entire song, especially rap songs.

I think narrative meaning is personal, or should be. That said I can't stand really confessional lyrics....although how do you know if a song is truly confessional? I hate when people tell me what a song is about. If you spend too much time on lyrics you end up slighting something that might seem superficially silly but has great merit.

minus the "especially rap songs" part, I'll cosign dyao's post with the further caveat that even after a bunch of listens I'll still barely have any idea what the lyrics are about in a lot of cases. all that means, though, is that I'll need to change the way I listened to songs and records if I ever wanted to start to really getting the lyrics. not doing all of my listening in front of the computer, half-paying attention wouldn't be such a bad first step, and indeed I should probably start focusing more on the music itself and stop half-focusing on five things at once sooner than later

it's not just the lyrics that I'm not really absorbing, though. this thread is the "How to listen to music to really enjoy it?" thread, and of course the lyrics are only one aspect of the music. I used to enjoy listening to stuff way more a few years ago, and yeah, part of the might've been because I was younger, but another huge part of that is that I did a lot of listening on my iPod -- while I was at my high school job shelving books at my local library, while I was driving around in my car, while I was lying in bed -- now I listen to the stuff I'm most interested in exclusively in front of the computer, and the only other music listening I really ever do is in my car, but that's only the radio nowadays, and it's mostly the same songs I've been hearing for years over and over again plus the same few current hits over and over again

I'm bemused by the people I see on public transport who have their headphones on but are also reading. What's the point of playing music if you're going to pay it almost no attention?
I listen to a lot of music in my car, but because 95% of the business of driving is autonomic for me, my mind is free to fully absorb the music and lyrics.

the people who read and listen to music "on public transport" at the same time probably just have the music on to help them focus more on their reading than on all the noise around them

probably none of them are actually trying to listen to the music and read at the same time

Well, I'm perfectly able to filter out the background noise when I read "on public transport". (Why the quotes?)
What's their problem?

I put the quotes around "on public transport" because that's not a phrase I hear many ppl use where I live -- I'd probably just say "on the T," but that's just because that's what ppl near Boston say

anyway, they don't have a problem, they're just more easily distracted than you

I still catch myself saying "The T" when I mention the trains here.

did you used to live in or near Boston? or is that a thing elsewhere too?

Yeah, in Boston.

Anyway, music is fairly useless on the trains here, which are so loud that you couldn't be distracted by someone having a conversation next to you.

Plus, most people just aren't that attentive, so reading while listening to music is probably a semi-arbitrary decision influenced by not having anything else to do.

Well, I admit that the issue for me is that it bugs me to see music being used as a sensory killswitch (e.g. functioning simply as a method of blocking out other sound sources). I only want to ever see it being actively engaged with.
But then, I am an intolerant purist.

at least you admit it

i almost always have on instrumental music when i read. you don't have to concentrate on every note or whatever to enjoy music.

I'm actually slightly envious of anyone that can do that because for me listening to music while doing anything else that is remotely mentally taxing is like trying to listen to two conversations at once. Can't do it.

i'm sure ned raggett who seems to be such an expert listens to music in a totaly different way than a person who just listen to the Radio to the hits

Ned -- what say you?

[...] like trying to listen to two conversations at once. Can't do it.

Yup. The night I lost my virginity, there was a Talking Heads record playing in the room downstairs. Quite honestly, what I remember most about the experience is David Byrne's voice.

i lost my virgnity to david too but you dont see me braggin about it

most of my listening is on the computer.... i clean the house and turn on an album i havent listened to yet and take it in. if i like it, i put it on my mp3 player. if it really like it, i burn it for the car.

this is my life. this is my story.

xpost to ilxor

The "mention Ned and he immediately appears" trick only works during the week.