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It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

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Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#151

Post by reg_dunlop »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #121
xg15 wrote: post #109

Everyone should be able to enjoy art in the way they like - but be considerate of the people around you. The article starts with the anecdote that his son was seriously annoyed by the song - and then goes on to counter him with basically "but it's such a great song, it would be a shame if I could only listen to it for 3 minutes!" That's the musical equivalent of getting out your Triple Onionator with extra garlic for…

There are some songs that I think I enjoy because of their brevity. I sort of look forward to the encounter, pine for the song again when it's over. Rather than put it on repeat though I always shuffle, preferring to (impatiently) await our next visit. (My music library is such now that it can be a while before it comes along again.)

wow. what a great comment

There must be a certain amount of discernment and refinement that comes with savoring songs in such a way... though having built said music library must have been fun.

Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#152

Post by FumblingBear »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #123
snarfy wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had a song stuck in my head every day for over two years! It got to the point I would hear a note from the melody with every step. Walking up stairs was horrible. The worst part was I didn't know what the song was. I figured out the melody on the piano, and once I finally figured out the song, it eventually stopped. The song? A stupid commercial jingle. "Meow meow meow meow..."

There was a period in my life when a mantra(?) of sorts was stuck in my head. Just a short phrase or word (I think actually for a long stretch the number "256" was stuck in my head). For reasons unknown to me I would repeat the phrase in my mind or under my breath — seemingly as a way to either keep focus on some current thought or to derail the current thought. I don't remember which. I think I was under a lot of st…

I never really made a connection with music getting stuck in my head, but I often get short phrases or words stuck in my head on constant repeat for days at a time too.

The stress relationship may have something to do with it though. The times where it happened the most are pretty strongly correlated with high periods of stress in my life as well.

It often happens for words that I realized I was pronouncing wrong from only having read them and never having heard them. For example, sepulcher and dais come to mind as words that I repeated internally with no control for days on end and they're both words that I was mispronouncing until I heard them while reading and listening to an audiobook at the same time.

Interesting little quirk of the mind I suppose.

Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#153

Post by dhosek »

Transfinity wrote: post #17

Semi professional musician here. Repetition goes way beyond what the author mentions: - Most music is highly repetitive, often recycling 2 or 3 short segments (chorus, verse) with minor variations to fill out a whole song. Coltrane is known for his avant-garde composition, and even he repeats (often on a much smaller scale than a pop tune). - The work of being a musician is repetitive. Learning (memorizing) songs tak…

I once had a gig playing piano at a restaurant. It was a weekday mid-day stretch and I was scheduled for about 3 or 4 hours, as I recall. I put together about a 90 minute set of stuff out of my fake books that I figured I could do without embarrassing myself and surely no one would stay at the restaurant longer than 90 minutes.

Well, being weekday mid-day, the restaurant was nearly empty and there was some guy who sat there by himself for over two hours. I ended up taking some of my standards and doing what I could to stretch them out, playing lots of repeats, doing extended improvs over the changes. I turned Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” which I normally did as about a 4–5 minute piece following the structure of the Maynard Ferguson version which was the basis for the charts that I originally learned the song from into a 10 minute piece with extended improvs and some bonus repeats. “Night Train” turned into another 10-minute number. And this guy just did not leave. Finally, when I was almost out of material, he got up, dropped a twenty¹ in my tip jar and headed out.

⸻

1. I also got paid by the restaurant, but as I recall, he was the only customer out of the single-digit number of diners in the restaurant who left a tip.

Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#154

Post by dhosek »

rvbissell wrote: post #145
technothrasher wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marillion My entire late 80's high school days were pretty much just listening to Marillion over and over again until my Walkman would wear out the cassette and I'd have to get another copy. Just something about Fish's brooding bitter anger appealed to my angsty teenage mind. Once Fish left though, they quickly moved away from what I was interest in listening to. These days the one prog album I seem to keep going b…

I am in the beginning of a personal re-awakening with Marillion. I largely stopped following the band after _Seasons_End_ (despite liking that album). Much like Pink Floyd, I felt that the Whole was greater than the Sum of the parts: without his band to keep him grounded, Fish went into the weeds. Without their jester, the band seemed lessened lyrically. But: I recently started exploring what they've done in the deca…

I’ve found that Fish solo is much more satisfying than Fishless Marillion. Steve Hogarth’s vocals seem completely without character to me, especially compared to Fish.

Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#155

Post by dhosek »

tsimionescu wrote: post #96
thorin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prog is still alive and well. I love King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard. My fav lesser known prog is Caravan.

I'll give them a listen. I've tried to listen to a few things like Marillion and Dream Theater before, but it didn't seem to me that they get anywhere close to something like Yes' Close to the Edge. I'd be happy to find some other band that maybe does, especially if they are even newer.

You might like Spock’s Beard. The first 6 albums with Neal Morse have kind of a Yes meets Gentle Giant vibe to them. I like the later stuff as well, but I remember introducing a prog-loving friend to them with a post-Neal show and it was interesting how he managed to pick out the Neal Morse–era songs (and only those) they did as his favorites.

Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#156

Post by ssully »

ehnto wrote: post #75
joebob42 wrote: post #48

I'm terrified of this. I've no idea why, but if I hear a song too many times in a couple day period I have a night of fever dreaming where I wake up over and over again to the song in my head. It's like my brain has over conditioned the pathway for that song and as soon as it starts trying to dream it falls into it and the dream breaks and I wake up. It happens to me a couple times a year and when I hear any of the s…

I hope you never have to work retail, they often have the same approved songs on repeat all day. I worked at a gym, and to this day, there are songs I don't even like that pop up in my head. 3 years of hearing them every day just about drove me spare.

Yup, it sucks. For me it isn't even so much the song as it is how it transports me back to that job. Like, I hear the song and can picture myself doing certain tasks in the retail store I worked at while listening to it.

Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#157

Post by joveian »

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #133
klodolph wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll add to this—when writing music, a lot of people (myself included) make the mistake of not using enough repetition!

I think this is right. A lot of my favorite music finds ways to rotate what's repeating. It finds a balance of keeping the groove while still playing with the listener's expectations. But, to your point, if there isn't enough repetition, there's not enough to grab hold of. Obviously, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, but for most applications, you want to give the listener engaged with your music. Beyon…

mpv skips forward a minute with the up key (sometimes to keyframes by default, but not with flac it seems) and it surprises me a bit how often you can do that and the music doesn't change at all, or only changes slightly :/.

Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#158

Post by FumblingBear »

I'm curious about other people's experiences with how they choose what music to listen to.

Many of my friends carefully curate playlists on Spotify, or listen to the playlists they make for you. Others listen to the radio and just enjoy whatever comes on.

On the other hand, I have a large library of music (~13k songs) and just kind of decide what I'm in the mood for on a whim. No playlists, just a large collection of albums that I manually select or tell Siri to play for me. This method doesn't even work with Spotify for me due to their 9,999 song limit for libraries so I had to change to Apple Music when it surpassed that amount.

I don't think I've ever met another person who manages their music collection the same way so I'm curious about how rare it is. Shockingly, I manage to not fall into habits of listening to the same thing over and over, but actually enjoy the majority of the music somewhat regularly.

If my entire library were put on shuffle, I could likely name the artist with around 80% accuracy and the song / album with maybe 50% accuracy. There are definitely ones that I get wrong, but with a library of that size, I don't think it's particularly realistic to memorize everything.

Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#159

Post by sbf501 »

FumblingBear wrote: post #158

I'm curious about other people's experiences with how they choose what music to listen to. Many of my friends carefully curate playlists on Spotify, or listen to the playlists they make for you. Others listen to the radio and just enjoy whatever comes on. On the other hand, I have a large library of music (~13k songs) and just kind of decide what I'm in the mood for on a whim. No playlists, just a large collection of…

I'm the rare gen-xer who owns zero music (even after going to college during the "10 CDs for a penny" deals). It is all rented from spotify. I could create a playlist like yours with over 100k songs, but I often feel a specific mood and need to narrow down to a composer or work.

For me, a free-for-all would involve a lot of skipping. Hope this helps you deduce rarity!

Re: It's normal to play the same song over and over again (2016)

#160

Post by nvllsvm »

FumblingBear wrote: post #158

I'm curious about other people's experiences with how they choose what music to listen to. Many of my friends carefully curate playlists on Spotify, or listen to the playlists they make for you. Others listen to the radio and just enjoy whatever comes on. On the other hand, I have a large library of music (~13k songs) and just kind of decide what I'm in the mood for on a whim. No playlists, just a large collection of…

Similar situation here: ~23k songs, meticulously tagged, no playlists.

However, I'm a little different in that I end up listening to the same handful of artist/albums/songs for a period days or weeks, then move on to something else.

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