Your collection

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I think you both need to learn how to LISTEN TO MUSIC

No argument, but it's unlikely to happen in this lifetime. Maybe next time.

For me, audition is the least compelling sense. I have these multiple monitoring programs that are running all the time, because I can hear sounds from things around the corner, behind the furniture, and in the sky. I don't know if it's a mommie thing, or a general survival thing, or because I grew up under an air force base's approach pattern (let a jet engine burp overhead and I'm 100% alert, by golly!) I've never learned to focus on any one sonic event to the exclusion of all the others.

I do enjoy the music, but perhaps it's my inability to really focus on it that leaves me so unimpressed by Barber, and Glass, and those other tone-color-thingie dudes. (I can just see bignaf quivering in outrage at my barbarian insensitivities.) I like tunes I can whistle. I like compelling melodic themes that cycle and develop and complicate and then resolve. I adore a big brass band. My "subtle" seems to've got lost somewhere.

[jamiebk]

I think you both need to learn how to LISTEN TO MUSIC. It's a fantastic experience.

My little hole in the ground has a reasonable audio/video system, and when I put on a record, tape, CD, or even the radio, I'm listening to the music. Paying attention to it, letting it enter my soul and take me wherever it wills, catching the subtleties, the nuances, the details. Immersion in the music, surrounded by the sounds, a total experience. If you're not living it, you're missing most of it.

I listen to music in various ways. Sometimes, I am just happy to have it in the background...my ears will perk up with a favorite tune or composition. Other times, I want music to set a mood or tone for what I am doing...which can span quite a range from vigorous exercise to quiet conversation ....er, or maybe something better....

Other times, I put the music on to really, really listen. Those moments are getting rare since I seldom have any time for this (much like my reading).

So...point is, music can enter our minds and souls in a lot of different ways and levels.

[barfle]

I'm reminded of an article I once read (at least ten years ago) where the author expressed an opinion about surround sound not catching on, since when he was listening to music, he was walking around and conversing with people. My response, of course, was that his definition of listening to music was erroneous, since he was more trying to tune it out than to listen to it.

Indeed, I have noted that I play some stuff to help drown out the ambient noises around my office. I particularly recall an LP titled Wind in the Trees that got me through college. Whenever it was on, the kids outside, the traffic, the cats, the appliances all disappeared and I was able to concentrate on differential equations. I still do similar things.

But to go to a concert and get so bored you flip through the program or knit? Someone is wasting their money.

[Shapley]

But to go to a concert and get so bored you flip through the program or knit? Someone is wasting their money.

That's one reason I rarely go to concerts.

I can listen with full attention, but usually for no more than fifteen minutes, unless the piece is very interesting.

[Catmando]

I love going to the symphony hall for a concert. Because on that night, it's all about the music. All of my attention and focus is on listening to the music. Also the case if I'm alone at home, then again I can listen to music and it can be what I focus solely on.

All other times, it is always more in the background. (at work, at home when you're cooking dinner or talking with your family in the living room). It can still be enjoyable, but the music unfortunately isn't strictly the focus.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I think we've discovered some circuit deviations, here. Knitting is not evidence of boredom. Knitting is evidence of otherwise free hands. My brain works better when my hands are moving. It's like people who doodle while talking on the phone, or chew the end of the pencil while doing differential equations.

I suspect this is either inherited hardwiring, or early programming. To my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, and all the rest of the Swedes hanging about in my family tree, immobile hands are clear evidence of laziness and should be immediately given something to do. It's weird. When I'm in a group of relatives, everyone has a coffeecup beside them, and all the women get some sort of needlework out of a bag.

When I'm listening to music and knitting, and the music is really, really, good, my eyes are closed and my fingers get no attention at all. The knitting does itself, as it were.

[Shapley]

I think we've discovered some circuit deviations, here. Knitting is not evidence of boredom. Knitting is evidence of otherwise free hands. My brain works better when my hands are moving. It's like people who doodle while talking on the phone, or chew the end of the pencil while doing differential equations.

I think that is my problem with the crocheting. I used to be able to crochet. My aunt ran a knit shop and I helped out there after school sometimes. When there was nothing to do, I crocheted and tried macrame. My father and brother used to do macrame, my father learned it in the Navy. Lots of sailors do macrame, crocheting, etc. But I digress.

I never was good at crocheting, so it required too much focus. I know that, after a time, it becomes second nature and the only thought process is the counting, which can be done without robbing the mind of the ability to focus, but I had to concentrate on how to hold the hook, how to loop, counting, etc., and I never did it enough to master it.

The women (and a couple of men) that came into the shop could sit and talk, knitting and crocheting with never a look at the thing that was taking shape in their hands. Periodically, they'd stop and look and count, having lost their place, but they quickly resumed with no apparent conscious thought of what their hands were doing.

I lack the patience necessary to achieve that level of skill.

V/R
Shapley

[bignaf]

I think you both need to learn how to LISTEN TO MUSIC. It's a fantastic experience.

My little hole in the ground has a reasonable audio/video system, and when I put on a record, tape, CD, or even the radio, I'm listening to the music. Paying attention to it, letting it enter my soul and take me wherever it wills, catching the subtleties, the nuances, the details. Immersion in the music, surrounded by the sounds, a total experience. If you're not living it, you're missing most of it.

yeah

[Shapley]

Hello, Bignaf! Welcome back.

[bignaf]

I don't know if I'm back, maybe I'm just visiting... we'll see...

[Shapley]

Barnes & Noble has just shipped this set to add to my collection:



Beethoven's Nine Symphonies, Transcribed for Piano by Franz Liszt. Performed by Gyula Kiss, Csaba Király and Gábor Csalog.

A birthday present for myself!

V/R
Shapley

[Trumpetmaster]

Barnes & Noble has just shipped this set to add to my collection:



Beethoven's Nine Symphonies, Transcribed for Piano by Franz Liszt. Performed by Gyula Kiss, Csaba Király and Gábor Csalog.

A birthday present for myself!

V/R
Shapley

Happy Birthday Shapley!!!

[Catmando]

Happy 39th Shap!

[Shapley]

Thanks. This is my 12th 39th birthday, so I'm getting pretty good at being 39!

[barfle]

Thanks. This is my 12th 39th birthday, so I'm getting pretty good at being 39!

I still have three weeks left in my 50s.

Sixty is the new twenty nine.

[Shapley]

I was browsing Hastings the other, since I had some time on my hands. I don't go there often, as their classical selection is poor and the staff is not particularly friendly. It is really more of a video rental store that happens to sell books and music than it is book or music store. However, I found this:


It's in a nice metal storage box, and only cost $10.

When I first became interested in classical music, one of my early purchases was a Murray Hill box collection of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies conducted by Sir Josef Krips leading the London Symphony Orchestra. I believe they were recorded in the early '60s. I don't think he made any susequent recordings of the full cycle, but re-recordings of this set have floated around for years under various labels. I have no idea what the quality of this set will be until I listen to it, but I believe you can never have too many copies of Beethoven's symphonies.

V/R
Shapley

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Right now, I'm playing CDs because I got a little box from Amazon last night. There's an Israel Kamakawiwo'ole CD remixed with an actual orchestra and so far I'm pleased with it. The vocals sound better with a fuller foundation.

I also have the Rodrigo y Gabriela CD that Nicole Marie's been playing tracks from. Looking forward to it next. Two kids from Mexico City gigging in Ireland and Denmark. Whodathunkit?

[navneeth]

Hi. My name's Navneeth, and I'm a ceedeeoholic. I've never been such a spendthrift in my life, and I blame it on those composers who produced wonderful music.

I tried to give it a break, but nice offers came in the way.

Bach - Cello suites - Fournier (DG)
Bach - English suites 2,4 and 6 - Gustav Leonhardt on the clavecin (is that a clavichord?) [I was looking for Gould or Perahia, but lucky me, the CDs were all HIP. ]
Mendelssohn - Piano Concertos - Perahia, ASMF, Marriner
Scuhbert - Fantasy in C 'Wanderer', Piano sonata No.21, D.959 - Perahia
Scuhbert - Symphonies 8 and 9 - NYPO, Bernstein [This has been a 'to-buy or not-to-buy' CD for a long time]

[Catmando]

Hi. My name's Navneeth, and I'm a ceedeeoholic. I've never been such a spendthrift in my life, and I blame it on those composers who produced wonderful music.

I tried to give it a break, but nice offers came in the way.

Bach - Cello suites - Fournier (DG)
Bach - English suites 2,4 and 6 - Gustav Leonhardt on the clavecin (is that a clavichord?) [I was looking for Gould or Perahia, but lucky me, the CDs were all HIP. ]
Mendelssohn - Piano Concertos - Perahia, ASMF, Marriner
Scuhbert - Fantasy in C 'Wanderer', Piano sonata No.21, D.959 - Perahia
Scuhbert - Symphonies 8 and 9 - NYPO, Bernstein [This has been a 'to-buy or not-to-buy' CD for a long time]

Hi group, my name is Ray (aka "le chat" Catmando) and also a ceedeeoholic.

I have many CD's saved in the Amazon "Wish List", but I have my right hand handcuffed to my chair so I cannot click on the "Checkout" button Must.............resist......temptation.......

Some great purchases Nav! That Bernsteain Schubert Symphony. No. 8 and 9 may also make its way in my collection someday soon.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Hi. My name's Navneeth, and I'm a ceedeeoholic.

All we need is our twelve steps, and maybe meetings.

Hi. My name's Selma, and I'm a ceedeeoholic.
Sadly, I'm also a fabriholic, and a yarnaholic. Not to mention the books, which outweigh the other addictions combined.