Introduction

This blog is the result of a few things about me coming together.

First of all, I am naturally a list-maker. When I want to get something organised in my head, making some kind of list or catalogue is one of the mechanisms I'm drawn to.

Secondly, I am something of a completist. If I have part of a set, I want the rest of the set. Or, at the very least I want to know about the rest of the set, so that I know what's missing.

And finally, I am very passionate about music. Lots of music.

So, how did that lead to a blog?

Well, it didn't directly lead here. It led to me starting to catalogue my music collection. I began cataloguing the classical part back in the middle of 2009. I started doing this out of a sense of frustration that I wasn't really listening to my collection. In the periods that I was in the mood for classical, I would struggle to remember what I'd listened to during the last classical phase, and I kept feeling as if I was listening to the same small portion of my library repeatedly without exploring the rest.

So, the purpose of beginning the catalogue was to record what I was actually listening to. That way, I could push myself to listen to different things, things that I might not have heard for a while, and things that I hadn't really got to know.

It worked a treat. For starters, it made me realise just how much I had in my personal music library. The classical catalogue currently has about 950 recordings of 'works' in it. It covers everything I own except a few sampler CDs that haven't been added yet. Those works range in length from just 41 seconds to 165 minutes. And during the last two-and-a-half years, I still haven't listened to about a third of those works.

It also led me to listen to new things, or things that seemed new, which I always find a particularly exciting musical experience. So, for example, while I knew the Sibelius symphonies, I hadn't ever paid much attention to the additional Sibelius pieces that filled the CDs, and when I listened to En Saga it was with no real knowledge of it. Turns out that I love En Saga.

In late February 2011, I decided to start taking the same approach to my popular music. I generally would say that I listen to popular more than classical (although the whole cataloguing exercise had increased the proportion of classical listening), but again I've had a sense that I'm only accessing a small part of my collection. I had no problem with the true favourites being played more often, but I really wanted to be able to identify what I hadn't listened to for a while.

And then it hit me. I was now going to be keeping track of pretty much everything I listened to. At least, everything I deliberately chose to listen to. Not the random bits of music on the radio or television, but every time I selected something out of my library.

From that notion, a blog was born. A place to share my musical journey.

Whether or not anyone actually wants to read about what I'm listening to, I've no idea. I guess I will find out.
The primary 'rule' for my catalogue (and therefore for my blog entries) is that I only record things that I listen to in their entirety. If I get interrupted partway through, it's not counted as a listen to the work. Also, for popular music, a 'work' is usually an album. I am very much an album person. I believe that the art of arranging a groups of songs into a particular order is part of the art of music, and I suspect that most of the musicians who manage to get into my library think along those lines.

My intention is to post on a monthly basis and look back at what I've been listening to. That seems often enough to keep the blog going, but without taxing myself too much. Less time than that would mean that I would sometimes be trying to post when I'd listened to very little.

The idea that I'd go an entire month without listening to something complete sends a shiver down my spine.