Music Fan or Collector?

[AfricaBrass]

I've been wanting to have a thread on this subject and finally decided to because of something that Parkertown said in the emusic thread:

Man, sometimes I wonder if I'm a music fan, or a just a music collector? And if so, how and when did that happen? Hopefully, it's just a phase. 

I came to this conclusion about myself a few years ago. I had gotten to the place where I was buying at least one cd a day (usually jazz and usually more than one a day). I had amassed around 3000 jazz cds and about 1500 jazz lps by this time. This was all in a period of a little over 10 years. I also had a lot of music from different genres, but jazz was my obsession. My life consisted of listening to and reading books about jazz. I used to read every thread on the BNBB and be sent off to buying sprees. Mosaic and True Blue catalogs were my constant companions.

Then one day I realized it just wasn't fun anymore. I was so obsessed with getting things before they went out of print, etc... that listening to jazz wasn't fun anymore. If I went somewhere and they were playing Kenny G, I would get all uppity. I realized I didn't like what I had become.

Even now, I hate to admit that I don't enjoy jazz like I once did. It seems like it became an obligation at some point, instead of a joyful thing. The joy is coming back since I've cut WAY back on buying stuff. I'm just trying to enjoy what I already have and I'm seriously considering getting rid of a lot of my jazz cds and records. I just want to get back to knowing and loving the music instead of having it all.

I'm just curious if any of you have had similar experiences.

[connoisseur series500]

It's a good question, A-Brass; and I must thank you for drawing me away from that "what do you read in the can" thread. We all know to blame jacknife for all his copious contributions on that learned subject. Free For All displayed remarkable scatalogical scholarship as well. Impressive!

I'm a jazz fan.

Yet I get into buying phases that are unstoppable. In fact, I don't think I've slowed down that much at all though I keep trying to.

I feel that I love the music but at the same time there are many cds which I have heard only once as I don't have the time to get to them right away.

One indication that I am not a pure collector is the fact that I turn over stuff if it doesn't hit me after a few listens. I do try to cull my collection from time to time. In fact, I do this too often as evinced from my thread about regretting getting rid of certain titles.

I really feel that I am close to the end of my collecting. Just a few more things to get. And actually, I have slowed down quite a bit (except I ordered all six new conns.)

[WD45]

As one who whittled a collection down, I would just urge you to proceed with caution. There are a number of titles I had listened to not all that much and traded or sold, to my later regret. That regret is even larger as I am on a buying hiatus until I make a downpayment on a home in Dec., because I think of all of the things I could be listening to right now.

Whenever I get the urge to purge the collection, I now walk away. Granted, I can do it more easily as I have gotten rid of many things that did not blow me away.

I would say that my interest sometimes wanes, but more often than not the waning interest is in a particular kind of music rather than music altogether. At one time I got rid of almost all of my classical CDs. I regret that now. I have learned that my interests vary by mood, and often by season. [Ex: most ECM titles work best for me in fall and winter.]

Steadfastly I will say that I am a fan, not a collector. Unlike several of my music-lovin' friends, I no longer have the completist urge. This was a dangerous thing for me, as the conquest proved to be all-consuming.

[AfricaBrass]

Thanks for the advice, Clinton!

I'll whittle my collection with caution.

[Noj]

I'll keep a cd if I like just one song on it. I love coming across a disc I haven't played in a long time, popping it in and experiencing it again.

I used to have a completist urge, but when my eyes were opened to the sheer numbers of recordings of jazz artists I set my sights on getting only the best output from any given artist. Cross-referencing AMG to posts on these jazz forums works wonders. My collection has been hugely enhanced since I first showed up on BNBB asking, "Jazz Experts, Lend Me Your Brains." B)

Fan, not a collector.

[Joe G]

I don't think I could ever be a collector -- I just don't have the mentality, agonizing as I do over all cd purchases: Do I really need this...should I be spending this money...

Pretty much all of my conflicts about how I feel about music center around the fact that I call myself a musician. Seems like once you do that all these expectations arise. I have to keep in touch with the fan in me or else the joy can go out of listening to (and playing) music.

BTW, 3000 cds X $13=$39,000!!!!

[AfricaBrass]

BTW, 3000 cds X $13=$39,000!!!!

OUCH! That hurt.

Now that I don't have money, that stings.

I'm happy to be a fan.

:rsmile:

[GA Russell]

Great post, ABrass!

May I recommend the following?

1) Don't give anything away! Instead, stop buying anything for a specific period, say six months.

2) Devote yourself to listening to albums you haven't played in a while.

2a) Noj had it right when he said: I love coming across a disc I haven't played in a long time, popping it in and experiencing it again.

2b) Start storing your CDs and LPs by the LIFO method. With all your albums, you will have trouble finding a particular album. But you will be able to easily reach for an album you haven't heard in a while. That will enable you to hear things you haven't noticed before!

3) Ask yourself: Are my desert island disks the usual suspects? If so, try to appreciate your collection in a new light. Everybody is different, and with genuine appreciation your favorites will be your own, not the experts'!

4) Spend some time on albums whose songs have obvious melodies.

5) Start a computer spreadsheet of your collection, noting by year when you listen to an album. Only enter an album as you listen to it. I have found that the exercise has helped me appreciate the various styles of music in my collection, as well as albums I enjoy like an old shoe.

Peace and good luck!

[Jim Alfredson]

I think my buying spree began when I started learning the Hammond. I bought every example I could of someone using it so I could hear and absorb all the styles. Now that I've gotten to a place where I feel comfortable with my technique and my own voice, I've let the buying dwindle. I'd rather save the money and buy a new Leslie for my Hammond (like I just did!) or some other piece of gear to actually make music with.

In fact, as of last Monday I am on a 2-week music listening hiatus. I am not listening to any music as long as I have control over it (can't help it in grocery stores, the doctor's office, etc). No music in the car, while doing dishes, folding laundry, working in the garage, reading, anything. I just need a break... I'm finding that my original voiced is being masked by too many influences. I can't start writing a tune without thinking of other tunes I've heard that day or week or month or whatever. I need to purge those old things from my head.

Of course, no sooner than I started this hiatus, the second Blindfold Test arrived at my door! But I've resisted all temptations to listen to it.

So... I would say at one point I was a SUPER FAN of anything Hammond organ related. Now that I've heard 99.9% of it, I don't need to listen to it anymore. That's not to say I don't enjoy the hell out of Jimmy Smith!!!

[Jim Alfredson]

The good thing is that this hiatus corresponds with that new Leslie purchase I mentioned above. That speaker is inspring to say the least. It makes my Hammond C2 sound so beautiful!!!!!!

Anyway....

[AfricaBrass]

GA Russell,

Thanks for the great tips!

I've basically quit buying new recordings already, so I'll continue to do so.

What is the LIFO method? I'd like to try it. One thing I was thinking about doing was putting cds that I haven't really gotten into yet into boxes and pretending I don't have them. I figure I could pretend I have a smaller collection and focus more on certain albums.

Thanks to everyone for their input!

:rsmile:

[catesta]

I've been by far more of a fan than a collector.

If I buy too much I one time I have trouble giving a good listen, and having music on my shelves I have not heard drives me crazy. Every once in awhile I may pick up more than I can handle, but I will back off purchases for a period of time when that happens.

[Brad]

I've only been listening to jazz for 4 years so I don't know how I feel when I get 10 years under my belt. However, I'm enjoying it as much as I ever did. My wife thinks I'll get jaded after awhile but it hasn't happened. I've amassed about 1,000 cds, not counting about 35 or so Mosaics. I wonder if I should get rid of some of my cds but unless I absoulutely hate I keep it. I do have some things I haven't listened but maybe twice and I don't know if I'll listen to them again but I'm going to keep them. I've always sort of viewed my collection as a library that I'll dip into to hear.

I used to be fanatic about looking at ebay all the time and I have to say I built up a good part of my collection that way. I don't have the time now and I used to get all worried that I missed something but my feeling is enjoy what you already have because there's lots that I have that I haven't listened to. I just listened to some Maggie the other day that I've never listened to like Dusty Blue. It was a real pleasure, let me tell you.

I find this Board is invaluable and the tips about this or that recording likewise. I'll try to get it and somethings I like and some I don't. But I like listening to them.

I'm not listening to jazz as much as I like when I'm home or reading about it all the time but maybe that's good in the end. Keeps it fresh.

I also catalogue every cd I buy so I know what I have and use it to pick out things to hear. I like doing that.

I'm probably meandering but don't let it go. And the advice by G A Russell is very good. We could be a dying minority and we shouldn't let that happen. Keep the flame going.

[RDK]

It's been my impression that most music fans/fanatics - i.e., those who care enough to particapte in an on-line music forum - are also collectors at heart. Whether it's jazz fans and their Mosaic sets or JRVG collections, or Beatles fans and their 50 different copies of Sgt. Pepper, if you care enough about the music you're not gonna stop with just a handful of discs.

It's a different story if one is just accumulating LPs or CDs just to have them, but everything I own (or at least 99% of it) is stuff that I intend to listen to.

The other problem, especially with jazz reissues on smaller labels, is that one never knows how long something will remain in-print or otherwise be available. There have been plenty of things that I've bought simply because I'd never seen them before and might never see again. Other things i've bought simply to expand my musical horizons even if they aren't albums that I particularly like (a lot of avant-garde stuff for example).

[A Lark Ascending]

I totted up my collection the other day and realised I'd spent more on it than the original cost of my house (throw in mortgage repayments and its a different story)!

I've been a musical obsessive (as a listener) since about 1970. I don't feel the fun has gone at all. I still get a great thrill hearing new recordings - either newly recorded or just new to my ears. The way I've avoided the 'too much of a good thing' trap is to explore several genres. A summer spent listening to a great deal of folk music cleansed the palette nicely for an Autumn of jazz.

Collector? Well, there's an element of that in most of us I suspect, but I rarely feel compelled to buy absolutely everything by a musician. I've certainly never been drawn down the Japanese pressings or rebuy for better packaging routes. What I will often do, however, is buy recordings that I know might not get played much but just out of curiosity as to what they sound like. Maybe that's tipping towards 'collector'.

The spending doesn't worry me as long as it doesn't put me into debt. I watch others pay out on wallpaper, loft conversions, conservatories, expensive football season tickets and the like. I'm more than happy to use the money I might spend there on new discs.

Yours, guilt free!

[pryan]

The past year or so my purchases have increased substantially. That said, I still don't consider myself a collecter. "Collecting", I think refers to people who are into sports cards (which I once was), in that the product itself doesn't really get much "use"; I mean, how often/long can look at a baseball card?

I buy the music (cds, lps, etc) for the music, foremost, and also to learn (through reading the liners) about the music and the musicians.

[Simon Weil]

I don't think there's anything wrong with being a collector - if that's what you are and enjoy it, why not? The trouble is I'm not really a collector or a music fan either. I just find that the music has to speak to me in some new way for me if I want to buy it. And I've had periods in which that just stopped happening. It's happened with Jazz a couple of times - at the end of the 70s up to the mid 80s, and then for about 5 years around the beginning of the 90s. Now I'm finding that while I'm still listening, the spark has gone as far as the new stuff is concerned. And, in fact, I started with rock in the late 60s - and more or less gave up on it with the advent of punk (Weil's credibility evaporates here).

Lile I say, I don't really see myself either as a collector or as a fan. I do want quite a deep engagement with the music, if I can get it. I mean, I like the whole "as serious as your life" vibe. I mean, fan doesn't seem to cover it...

Mr Deadly Serious,

Simon Weil

Edited September 25, 2003 by Simon Weil

[AfricaBrass]

I really have enjoyed all your posts. I really want to have a healthier attitude towards music and collecting. I guess I thought more people were as rabid as I used to be. I've known quite a few people who even put me to shame.

Clinton, I forgot that you were the one who had done the challenge. I really enjoyed following it on the ol' BNBB. I have to give you credit, you were a big influence on me to take a step back and look at myself and my music habit. I have tried to follow your challenge with my own variation. I've taken to listening only to the same five cds through the course of a week. It's been a great way to get to know and love stuff that I hadn't really explored deeply before.

I agree with Simon that there isn't anything wrong with being a collector, but I know for myself that there is a danger that I lose sight of why I began collecting in the first place.

:rsmile:

[GA Russell]

ABrass, I think your idea of putting those CDs you haven't heard much away in a box is an excellent one.

It occurs to me that the goal (I don't mean to tell others how to live their lives. Go ahead an be a collector if that's what you want!) is to ensure that you are a consumer rather than a collector.

The LIFO Method is a method of accounting - "Last In, First Out". In regard to your albums, this means that you don't keep them in any order. You merely put what you have just played on the top shelf (or in front, as it were). So when the mood strikes you to listen to something you haven't heard in a while, you go straight to the back (bottom shelf), where all of your forgotten treasure are located!

I like your idea of putting away the little-heard ones, because this will enable you to go many months without spending another nickel. As you say, pretend that you don't own them. Then once a week, pull one out. It's the same as if you had just bought yourself a new CD!

You can then play the heck out of that one CD for the next week, and you will assuredly get your money's worth. After a year you will have 52 new CDs which you are very familiar with. And you won't have spent a dime!

By the way, those CDs I have opened within the past twelve months, I don't keep them with the other CDs. They have their own shelf. That ensures that I get plenty of play out of my new albums.

I think I forgot to mention that one benefit of the computer spreadsheet program is that it encourages me to listen to every album at least once during the calendar year. By this time of year, I have already listened to almost all the CDs I want to (except the Christmas CDs, of course). And of course on January 1 I start over! And I know just where to look for those CDs I haven't heard since last January!

There is another thread here about favorite unknown albums. After just a few months of my system, you'll have your own to contribute, for sure!

[jmjk]

One tactic that's helped me has been to take 15 or 20 cds I haven't played for a while, or ones I haven't really explored in depth, and burn a compilation or two of tunes from those albums. This way, I can put it on in the background or in the car, and kind of listen to songs instead of albums. Then after a week or so, I'll burn another comp or two. What ends up happening is that I become familiar with, like, half of an album because I've been listening to selected songs from it on the comps, and that will eventually earn the entire album more play as a whole. Sounds silly, but it works for me. I guess this works because of my relatively short attention span. I am able to absorb information best in small chunks, and usually only as a whole if I add the components together. Most often an entire new album contains too much information for me to absorb in one or two listenings, and I'm always eager to move on to something else quickly.

My profession has also helped me! I am a corporate trainer, and I always have some jazz cassettes or cds in my classrooms to play during breaks or exercises. If I want to rediscover a few titles from my collection, or try out titles that I've NEVER really paid much attention to, I bring them to work to use in class. Most often, the class participants like the music, and often request it!

[AfricaBrass]

Thanks for the great tips! I'm going to try both methods. I really can see the point of Last In First Out. I find when everything is alphabetized and categorized that I just lose track of things. I mean, I know where the cds are, but when you have fifteen Lee Morgan cds grouped together, the individual albums don't stand out as much.

jmjk, I'm going to try your compilation idea. It seems like a cool way to keep the music fresh, while I get to know the different albums.

Thanks!

:rsmile:

[Jim Dye]

AB, I wrestled with this for YEARS. Here's the short version:

I definitely started out as a jazz fan. I've played the tenor saxophone since age 13. I really developed a love and understanding of the music in High School. After a few years, I landed a gig at a local music store. This was about 1987-1988, the start of the CD boom and fortunately for me and many others, the start of a flood of jazz reissues. I began to pick up every Blue Note, OJC and most other major label reissues that hit the shelves. It was really a golden age. Every session was like a new recording to me. The years passed and I became the manager of that record store. Over a period of about 8 years, I had amassed a collection of nearly 3000 CD's.

Somewhere along the way, something changed. I was picking everything up out of convenience, not out of desire. I had become a collector. I really wasn't enjoying music like I used to.

Well, in 1995, I left my record store to go get my bachelors degree. Over the next few years, I ended up selling almost every single CD that I had. It would make some of you sick. I had all the Mosaics from 101-150. Box Sets. OOp sides. Everything. I did it to pay my way through school. Had Ebay been in full swing then, I probably could have gotten 3 times what I sold things for.

Regret? Nope, on the contrary. I learned a few things. There is more music out there than I could ever hope to hear in 10 lifetimes. I don't need to own everything. The records exist. It's not up to me to be the library of congress. and lastly, there are many other things in life as great as music. I am now married. Have a son. Another on the way. I am happier now than I have ever been. And I am a Jazz fan again.

[John Tapscott]

I agree with those who advise not getting rid of stuff too quickly. I can't tell you how many times I've given something a listen or two and thought, "Well, that's OK, but not great," and filed it away. But then I came back to it years later, listened to it anew, and raised my opinion of it. Sometimes it works the other way, of course, but usually the movement is upward.

I have 4,000 + jazz CD's, Lp's and cassettes amassed over the past 30 years. Not excessive, perhaps, and I'm not a big seller, though I did sell 500 or so LP's about 20 years ago, when I returned to school for three years. But I'm glad I have all of them, and going back to listen to something I haven't heard for a long while (especially my LP's) is almost like listening to it for the first time. it's a very enjoyable experience. And I'm glad I have many of the AOTW's.

I have a job where I work alone some of the time and so can listen to a lot of music on the job. And to be honest, I find jazz just as enjoyable and exciting as ever. I don't consider myself a collector but a big fan. I rarely if ever, buy anything just for the sake of buying it. I buy to listen. And I especially enjoy discovering new artists. I'm with Bev on this. So many times I've bought a recording just out of curiosity and probably 95 times out of a 100 I've been more than pleasantly surprised.

[Alexander]

I just want to recommend to everyone on this board the great Harvey Pekar story titled "How I Quit Collecting Jazz Records And Put Out A Comic Book With The Money I Saved." Everyone here will recognize him or herself in Harvey's story. A true classic.

I consider myself a fan with collector tendencies. When I like something, I REALLY like it. I've got close to 100 Miles Davis discs alone. Something like 60 or 70 Stan Getz discs...Way more than I can reasonably listen to. Still, I love having them around. It is such a pleasure to pull something out and hear it with new ears.

[Jazzdog]

I just want to recommend to everyone on this board the great Harvey Pekar story titled "How I Quit Collecting Jazz Records And Put Out A Comic Book With The Money I Saved." Everyone here will recognize him or herself in Harvey's story. A true classic.

I consider myself a fan with collector tendencies. When I like something, I REALLY like it. I've got close to 100 Miles Davis discs alone. Something like 60 or 70 Stan Getz discs...Way more than I can reasonably listen to. Still, I love having them around. It is such a pleasure to pull something out and hear it with new ears.

Yeah, I have bordered ont he obsessive at points, but I will stand pat with my 60+ Zappa collection and my growing jazz shelf. I am picking up reissues as much as I can, and still getting rid of stuff slowly. Currently I have upwards around 700 cd's, a stack of vinyls and a huge (tape/cd) bootleg collection, which thankfully I basically stopped about a year ago. I can barely afford this obsession, but there it is. At least I am not a smoker. Packs of cigarettes cost almost FIVE bucks...Each!