If you buy a new book, you will read it once and put it on the shelf. You might not get it down again for years, if at all.

If a new play opens, you will go to one performance.

If there's a new exhibition at the art gallery, you will go once.

(There will be rare "favourite" exceptions to the above, of course.)

But if you buy a new CD, you will play it... and play it... and play it... maybe have a short break from it... and play it...

Why can we listen to one piece of music over and over without any lessening of the experience?


Just something that popped into my head 

A few throwaway observations; not meant as direct replies to your points, IRF, but as extra food for thought.

A disc, unlike most books, is easily covered in one sitting.  Once it's on the deck you might as well listen through to the end.  Remember double-sided LPs?  I don't know about you but I often played one side far more often than the other.  Likewise, would you be as likely to play a multi-disc set - an opera or ballet, say, or a long symphony - repeatedly as you would a single-disc set?  Perhaps you even (horror of horrors) choose which disc you prefer from, for example, Coppelia and just play that one?

A disc is yours once you've paid for it (or for as long as you're renting it); and you can enjoy it as often as you wish in a location of your choice unlike a play or an exhibition. 

Those are just a couple of reasons why we might listen to our favourite music, or to music that appeals to us on first hearing, more often than with other art forms.  But I think its also to do with music having a far more direct appeal than most other media.  It can engender instant and predictable gratification in a way that's similar to that created by a favourite taste.  Reading and visual arts seldom do this; though pornography might have an analogous effect on some people and poetry often tempts people to read the same piece over and over.

Regarding some pieces of music heard for the first time i find that i miss a lot and need to hear it again to appreciate and get good idea of whether i like it or not. One example was Messiaen Turangalia Symphony in which first time hearing i hated with a vengance and two or three times after but i was once on a long car journey and for some reason was the only cd i brought along so i played it again and again and it really is one of my favourite pieces !! Why ? who knows but maybe replaying it does this ? Not sure if all pieces of music has this effect though!

Hi Martle- racing fine tks - everyday different

I suppose you are right listening constantly to certain pieces of music can cause it to pail somewhat -of course in my view appreciation of music is surely subjective and what some music lover loves others cant stand -have to admit have many prejudices myself - you only have to see some threads in TOP where certain composers are compared to others as if it was a celebrity contest - so what really constitutes a fine composition is in the ear of the listener - in my view anyway!

I think a lot of how you listen is altered by how you are feeling.  Sometimes, a piece can make you feel happy and yet on other hearings, it has no effect.  I have on two occasions listened to pieces I know very well (I've played them) and it has been as if time stood still (one of the pieces was Liszt's Hymne de la Matin from the early version of Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses, can't remember the other) and yet I have never had the same effect again since.  Given that we all are subject to changing moods all the time, this seems a good reasoning (as far as I can tell) for this phenomenon.

I can only get a poem on a repeated reading, and I know it is really good if I know it by heart.

I am not interested in hearing others read poetry.  If I am reciting, then it is with me.  Jonathan, do you get more out of playing Liszt or listening to others play?

Hi Don,
It depends, I've just played Rossini / Liszt La Danza and thoroughly enjoyed it (ok, it was sight reading) but it helps to gain an appreciation of what is involved when someone else is playing it.  I suppose it's better for me to play than listen but sometimes listening is good especially when it's things like Alkan's Concerto for solo piano which I will never in a million years be able to play at anything like the proper tempo!  Back to more of the Soirees Musicales transcriptions methinks...

When I listen to music I like, I get shivers down my spine - so much so that at time I am unconscious of it. This doesn't happen in the theatre or the cinema (except maybe on account of the music) or when I'm reading. This phenomenon is, I am told, due to endorphin secretion. Naturally, I seek as much of that as possible!