So I Set A Goal For Myself This Year. I Need Some Tips. - Music

RockyRaccoon

Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

Gender: Male

Age: 34

Location: Maryland

Moderator

AAL2014 wrote:

1.) How many albums (new or old to you) do you normally listen to in a week? A month? And have you ever set a goal similar to this one before?

2.) How do you schedule, so to speak, your listening habits. We all have busy lives to varying degrees, so when do you find yourself listening to music the most and do you sometimes make time to listen to albums new or old to you?

3.) In your weekly-monthly listening habits, do you go through genre/artist/era/decade whatever kicks or do you find yourself going more all over the place? Recently I've been discovering more classic metal and its sub-genres than ever before and it's fucking sick to be honest.

1. It fluctuates, but generally speaking I listen to probably 4 to 5 albums a day, so maybe 20 albums a week?

2. I basically fill every gap I have with some form of art consumption. If I have a time where I'm doing nothing and don't have an obligation of some sort, I listen to an album, watch a movie, watch an episode of a tv show, read some of a book, etc. Fortunately, I can listen to music while I work, so I consume a lot of albums that way.

3. Generally I listen to new releases, I like to try and keep up on my albums from the year. My day job is as a writer, so I can't really listen to lyrical music while writing, so I typically listen to black metal (the lyrics aren't distracting), post-metal, post-rock, jazz, electronic music, and classical while I write. I have lists and thins bookmarked as sources of recommendations for those genres, I pick an album from them and go for it. And when I'm at home and I have music on with the kids around and/or my wife around, I typically will either pop on a playlist to just play as background music, or I'll put on one of my records from my vinyl collection.
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Space-Dementia

I don't really set goals for myself, besides just general ones like "listen to more 80s albums" or something. For the past four years or so I've been pretty good about listening to more or less an album a day or so, but as I've grown I've learned from my mistakes. I used to try and get through as many albums as I could, so I'd just listen once, decide whether I liked it or not, and move on to the next one. But about a year ago I realized that I really need to slow down and appreciate each album, or at least give it a good three listens or so before moving on. I also started keeping a music diary on this website, which helped a lot in organizing myself and actually remembering the music I was listening to.
However, because of my weird start in listening to music, there's a lot of albums that I've "listened to" and didn't like that I don't even remember, so I've spent 2018 so far pretty much only returning to albums that I haven't heard in years. And for the most part I like them better than I used to. But this new approach has given me a lot less time to listen to albums that I haven't heard yet, so for that reason I've only heard two new albums from this year, and I've barely heard anything new to me besides that since January. I have spring break coming up, though, so I think I'm gonna spend that time finishing up with the old albums and getting back into the rhythm that I'm usually in at this point in the year.
I am really happy that I've returned to so many albums this year, though because there were so many albums that I either forgot about or just didn't appreciate the first time around that I really like now:
Low, Station to Station, Songs of Leonard Cohen, Blue, Psychocandy, Rain Dogs, Gish, You're Living All Over Me, Black on Both Sides, Parallel Lines, This Year's Model, Operation: Doomsday, Trans-Europe Express, All Things Must Pass, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Blood on the Tracks, More Songs about Buildings and Food, On the Beach, The Band, Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, My Favorite Things, Sung Tongs, Person Pitch, Repeater...

AAL2014

Thanks to everyone who has commented with their thoughts, often times in depth. It made for good reads and gave me a lot to think about.

Sometimes just because I want to reach the goal I've set for myself I try and think too hard about it and you guys are very right that I should take it easy and discover what I discover and go with the flow of the discovery so to speak.

Thanks again!
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Johnnyo

Gender: Male

Age: 66

Location: London Town

1.) How many albums (new or old to you) do you normally listen to in a week? A month? And have you ever set a goal similar to this one before?

2.) How do you schedule, so to speak, your listening habits. We all have busy lives to varying degrees, so when do you find yourself listening to music the most and do you sometimes make time to listen to albums new or old to you?

3.) In your weekly-monthly listening habits, do you go through genre/artist/era/decade whatever kicks or do you find yourself going more all over the place? Recently I've been discovering more classic metal and its sub-genres than ever before and it's fucking sick to be honest.[/quote]

How many albums? I'd have to say at least 5 - 10 a day. A lot in the car but I got into the habit of putting music on as soon as I get home and we listen to music far more than say, watch TV. My God, that easily 1500 - 3000 a year. No goal set but I am seeking out more jazz than ever before. I also think that I tend to (not intentionally though) connect albums together during a session.

glynspsa

Gender: Male

Age: 53

1. I listen to like 2-8 or more albums in a day. some dys when traveling it may be less or if i have a convention but otherwise it is 2-10 a day. It is most often Vinyl but cn be Cdor digital. I have some cassette tapes still but my player is not hooked up. i do still have one though.

2. I do it while i work its a perk of being your own boss.

3. I am all over the place but i do go through ruts of listening to different genres or eras more often then switch to another but it is always a little all over the place.

paladisiac

= music

Gender: Male

Location: Denver

AAL2014 wrote:

1.) How many albums (new or old to you) do you normally listen to in a week? A month? And have you ever set a goal similar to this one before?

In a typical work week, i probably listen to about 30 albums, about half new to my ears. Most of my weekends i'm too busy engaging in some activity or don't want to subject others to my weird music or just listening to random playlists.

My usual goal that i've had since college days is to simply listen to as much music new-to-my-ears as possible. I like trying music i haven't heard before.

AAL2014 wrote:

2.) How do you schedule, so to speak, your listening habits. We all have busy lives to varying degrees, so when do you find yourself listening to music the most and do you sometimes make time to listen to albums new or old to you?

i just listen at work when i'm at my desk. i'm a software engineer so i spend a lot of time in front of the computer with minimal need for interaction. Thankfully, this career lends itself well to listening to tons of music.

AAL2014 wrote:

3.) In your weekly-monthly listening habits, do you go through genre/artist/era/decade whatever kicks or do you find yourself going more all over the place? Recently I've been discovering more classic metal and its sub-genres than ever before and it's fucking sick to be honest.

For the last many years, say since around 2009, i've come up with "projects", big or small, and weave those projects into my normal listening habits which usually includes trying new (current-year) music and older stuff i haven't heard before. This year, my main project is to listen to all of the "1001 albums you must hear before you die". (I already heard about 664 before i began.) Then I have mini projects like trying to listen to all of the main albums of a given artist or listen to a lot of albums from a certain sub/genre or whatever. Right now I have a mini project of going through a bunch of punk, siding a bit to poppy punk, that i haven't heard before. (Descendents, husker du and dickies are coming up!) These projects make listening to "new" music interesting to me. Probably next year, the 35th year of my personal music countdown, i'll probably listen to all of my favorite 1200-ish albums ...

I probably listen to at least 675 albums new-to-my-ears a year, but i've never kept track. It's been this way since after college, and in college, i would always listen to music when studying, try new albums at friend's places, etc... My mom says i've been obsessed with music since i was 2 with lyrics memorized back then. (Being kind of young, i don't remember this so i can't validate her claim.)

So i guess you just fit the music in when you can where you can as much as you want as it interests you. Some (like me) put some structure around it and some don't. Dealer's choice.
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