Music Banter - View Single Post

Key · 08-18-2012, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

The point in limiting yourself to the minutes or even hours of a song is to limit the time you spend listening to music while maximizing your pleasure.

I'll try to explain my viewpoint in other terms so that you might understand it better:

I view songs as being like assorted chocolates in a box. I remember that when I was a child, I used trial and error to learn which chocolates I liked. This led to a lot of discarded, half-eaten chocolates. Later, I made my selection after reading about the characteristics of the chocolates. I found I tended not to like cherry liquor fillings. (Similarly, when I read that a song is 15 minutes long, I tend not to want to listen to it.)

I don't feel I have to eat the whole box of chocolates or even a whole chocolate candy out of some sense of obligation to the chocolate-maker. If I do try a piece of chocolate that has cherry liquor (a long song), and I find that I don't like the first taste (the first 5 minutes), then I don't force myself to eat the whole thing. And even if I like the chocolate at first, I usually find that I start to get sick of it if the chocolate bar is too big (just like I can start to get tired of a long song).

My point, contrary to yours, is that we can respect a band's choice to make a song short or long, but that doesn't mean we have to listen to the whole song or even listen to the song at all.

My tendency to avoid or dislike longs songs has nothing to do with respect or lack thereof for the musicians. A song isn't the ruler of a single-party dictatorship where we are forced to give only adoration. Music is a democracy where we can express appreciation and criticism, and elect a different song when we want.

In fact, the musicians I know like constructive criticism (when solicited). Giving them my honest opinion, such as by telling them if I feel a song is too long, actually shows my respect for them.

More about this issue of respect: do you feel you have to listen to all of Robert Rich's two-and-a-half-hour song "Somnium" to show your respect for him? And, if so, given that he intended the song for people to listen to while dreaming/sleeping or while awake, do you feel have to listen to it with your full attention to show respect?

If you choose not to listen to this song in its entirety, I won't feel your choice means you lack disrespect for Robert Rich's creative process. Perhaps your choice simply means that you have other ways you want to spend your time:

Robert Rich -- Somnium (Part 1 of 4)
This song lasts over two hours. Are you going to listen to it all?

Robert Rich - Somnium Part I - 1 Of 4 (Somnium) - YouTube

To respond to the first bolded part in your response, I find pleasure in any sort of music whether it be short or long. In my experience, i've seen that if a song reaches to 10 to 12 minutes, it starts off a bit slow, but gradually gets better reaching an incredible climax. Again, just in my experience. So I disagree with you on finding pleasure in music by limiting my listening time.

Onto the second bolded point, we do agree partly on something. I get that you don't have to listen to the entire song to make a good opinion on it, but I find it beneficial to give the whole song at least a trial run just to see how it sounds the first time, regardless of the length. I don't know if you mentioned in your post but I feel like you did, do you limit yourself before listening to a song? Or do you look at the time of the song after giving the music a trial listen? I'm hoping you lean more towards the second question because any song by any artists at least (and i'm sure you can agree) deserves a fair listen. Even if you don't want to listen to the whole album, that's fine. However, not listening to a whole song strictly based on the time without even knowing what the rest of the song sounds like is a case of bad listening in my honest opinion.

If I may add, I don't find your listening style or your style of discarding music any worse than I would find my own. I don't want you to think i'm attacking your points either, it's a bit of debate if anything regardless of how it comes by. Even with your post though, I still don't get why one must limit themselves with music. As you say, it is strictly democratic and you have the free will to listen to whatever you like. However, there has to be a trial session somewhere, though I feel like you probably already know that just by the looks on how you listen to music today.