The Grand Listening Project
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The Grand Listening Project means listening to my ENTIRE music collection, some 3000 titles worth, now that most composer collections have been curated, and most albums whittled. I started this project in the late summer of 2024. The process is thusly:
First, I go through my iTunes collection album by album, starting with 10CC and moving on alphabetically. I skip every album I also own on CD. Once I’ve finished with the iTunes collection, I move on to the CDs.
I’m currently on “T” and “Thomas Newman”, so I don’t have THAT many left. Maybe a couple hundred. Then I FINALLY start playing my CDs, which I haven’t done in years. Some 800-1000 worth of those, I think. So the project has a long way to go still.
Obviously, I can’t do this all the time or I will go mad. In certain composer walkthroughs, like Delerue, it gets a bit samey. When that happens, I break it up by sampling new scores or maybe an LP or something. Before I move back in.
But the question to y’all is: Have you ever attempted a systematic walkthrough of all of your music collection at any point?
(this is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime thing for me).
No, way too much… I do composer walthroughs on special occasions like birthdays or sadly deaths or if I for some reason explore a composer I didn’t listen to for ages or are not that familar with.
I did listen to a great deal of Schifrins for that reason last year but didn’t even manage everything. TOo much else to listen to and even things I never listened to…
Hehe, yes, it’s a ridiculous and anorak thing to do, really. But I wanted to try it once in my life.
I’ve often thought of doing that, because I know that there are quite a few titles in my collection which I’ll probably never be in the right mood to listen to again. But I never found myself in quite the right mood to start the walk-through either.
But I’m “kind of” doing it at the moment. After reading the Tim Greiving book, I started going through my John Williams CDs alphabetically. I’ve just finished JURASSIC PARK. Now there’s an interesting example of what I touched on before. It’s a score that I hadn’t played for years, largely because I “thought I knew it” inside out. But no. There were long stretches which I wouldn’t have been able to place if someone had played them to me blind. So it’s a worthwhile exercise… while probably being no good for weaning myself off OCD behaviour.
That’s actually a great walkthrough to be in. I’ve had maybe 5-6 complete John Williams walkthroughs myself over the years. And I have another one ahead of me as I move from iTunes to CDs (the John Williams collection is obviously placed first on the shelves).
If you’re already at JURASSIC PARK, I’d say you’re a fair way in.
But the question to y’all is: Have you ever attempted a systematic walkthrough of all of your music collection at any point?
There was obviously a time, quite some time ago, when I knew every single album I had in-and-out. When I played the few albums I had all the time, and every new album was played and played again.
But nowadays, the attempt to systematically listen to all my music would take years at the ratio that I could do that (with just a few hours listening time each day, sometimes more, sometimes less).
While I have phases where I particularly concentrate on music from a composer, and epoch, or even a particular work, that’s sporadic and happens naturally. I don’t dry to do that systematically, so the answer to the question is “no”.
Following on from what Nick mentioned – and I’m sure that Thor has mentioned it too – I also used to know every one of my CDs (LPs back then) note for note. Part of the reason was that I had so few, another perhaps is that I (we?) were absorbing everything like a sponge in the old days. It may be futile to try to recapture that, but I am of a nostalgic bent, and instead of attempting to embrace everything in all its exponential wonder I find myself tending to at least want to get back to really “knowing” what I already have.
Hence my decision to start a walkthrough, albeit only of Williams at the moment.
OK, now I’ve reached a milestone moment in this silly ambitious project of mine. I’ve listened my way through my ENTIRE iTunes collection, from one end to another (well, skipping over the titles I also have on CD). Some 2000 titles, I think. I don’t have an exact start date, sadly, but it was late summer 2024. Let’s just say August 15, 2024. Today is March 19, 2026. That’s 581 days. That means approximately 3.5 albums per day on average.
But I’m far from done.
Now I’m going to delve into my CDs, which I haven’t really played in years – at least not systematically. Some 1000 worth, and if I keep my ratio of 3.5 albums a day, I should be done by Christmas this year. And since about 200-250 John Williams CDs stand first on my shelf, there will be non-stop Williams for a while now (breaking up only for sampling new scores and the like). It’s a bit more of a hassle, because there’s the physical aspect of putting them on, and the fact that I have to change source input on the amplifier. So since I’m on the laptop while I listen, and I sometimes need sound on the laptop to hear something, there could potentially be a lot of getting up and down. Let’s consider it exercise! 😀
Maybe if/when I end up in some sort of nursing home I may give then the instruction to sit me in a corner, put my headphones on me and just press play on my collection hard drive. And then see how far I get.
He, he. That would be our equivalent to an actor dying on the stage, I suppose.
By the way, I didn’t manage to go straight into the CDs, as I said above. Need some adjustment days, I think, where I can just play whatever I feel like from my digital collection. It’s been literally YEARS since I allowed myself that.
That’s some project, Thor. The nearest I got to that was about ten years ago, when I thought it would be fun to listen alphabetically to the entire contexts of my iPod in the car whilst commuting or travelling for business. After some weeks I think I got to around Af… and gave up.
Wow, even “just” since 2024 😉 I will probably never manage to do that. I try to rotate things on occasions (like composer passe but even for Schifrin I haven’t managed all…) or mood. And I always feel a little guilty that (quite) some score don’t get the atention they deserve!
That’s some project, Thor. The nearest I got to that was about ten years ago, when I thought it would be fun to listen alphabetically to the entire contexts of my iPod in the car whilst commuting or travelling for business. After some weeks I think I got to around Af… and gave up.
“Af….uck it!”
Yeah, the OCD is all in collecting, tagging, shelfing, whatever….
Listening to music? I just pick what really strikes my fancy at the moment. I’m not a professional music critic, nor am I employed by a label to listen to upcoming stuff or select something for the radio or a concert. Music for me is just… joy.
Which means I simply listen to what I feel like at any given moment in time. There is no doubt I will die before I have ever listened to every single recording in my own collection, unless I stop henceforth enlarging he same, which doesn’t seem likely to happen. So indeed, fxxx! it, I’m not even trying.Music is, for me, that garden I return to to finde respite from the rest of the world. So while all that tagging and collecting and finding and setting up stuff is “the rest of the world”, sitting down and listening to music… that’s decided on a whim, what I feel like, when I feel like… no system, nothing compulsive about it… listening to music for me is having a couple of hours of restauration, of resetting, of re-charging batteries. I have no system what and when I listen to, I just listen to whatever I want at the moment I have.
I think it’s rather healthy, actually, because the goal is of course to know your collection better. As Graham said earlier in the thread: “I’ve often thought of doing that, because I know that there are quite a few titles in my collection which I’ll probably never be in the right mood to listen to again.”
Many of these albums, I would probably not have revisited any time soon, if it hadn’t been for the fact that they were part of a systematic listening project. In the early days of one’s music collecting and listening, it’s no big deal, because the collection is relatively small, and you listen to the same stuff over and over again. But then it balloons out (especially if you’re a “cat”, like me), and there comes a point where you no longer have overview, or any ability to revisit albums in a way that makes you familiar with them. That’s when projects like these may come in handy. With 3000 titles, it’s doable. It probably wouldn’t be if I had 5000 or more.
But yeah, once in my lifetime is enough, given the amount of time it takes.
I have a project like this too… since 2005. Basically everything needs to listened once before being added to my collection, but I have been behind since 2005. Forces me to get new music for a purpose.
Whoa, 21 years! That outdoes mine by quite a bit, but then I guess your collection is much larger too. I admire your stamina, slint.
I think it’s rather healthy, actually, because the goal is of course to know your collection better.
That’s not my personal goal when listening to music though. 🙂
My goal is respite, my goal whem I press play is to reset, readjust, to let the noise of the day step aside.
Then, for an hour or two, it’s just you and the world as it should be, dancing, dramatic, wondrous relaxing, soothing, adventurous, scary, sad, perfectly in or out of tune.
Tonight I listen to, for the first time, to BABY – SECRTET OF A LOST LEGEND. Which I have since 2018, but tonight is the first time I play it.
So I get to know my own personal collection one album better nevertheless.
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