Anyone who’s read anything on this site has seen that I have been involved with a massive listening project, which has entered its fifth year this January.  In the course of the past four years, I have given myself the assignment of getting to know new music, in an effort to explore, find new loves, and avoid complacency in my playlists. It began in 2012 with a symphony a week, followed by a year of concerti, followed by a year of suites, program music, overtures, etc. In 2015, I got rather ambitious, taking on a string of operas, choral works, and unspecified works of my own choosing. Readers of my posts this past fall  have seen how difficult it became to catch up with all that music, but in the end I determined that it didn’t really matter whether I became completely immersed in the music, since the original goal was to develop familiarity, and I was doing just that.

So, it’s become a project every Advent to start anticipating my next year-long move. That decision was fairly organic the first three years. The project was called “Snooch’s Silly Symphonies” after all, so I had little choice but to start with symphonies. And following that, concerti, and all the rest of the orchestral repertoire fell into place rather logically. Toward the end of 2014 I had a hard time figuring my next step, which explains the mountain of music I worked with last year.

But, this December my thoughts moved toward quality for 2016, not quantity. I’ve taken on a great love of exploring the music more deeply, its backgrounds and composers’ biographies, and that became less enjoyable when I happened to choose a piece I didn’t really like too much. Up until now, my first listening has followed the selection of the title. That usually works just fine, but there are certain pieces which beg me to skip them when they come up in my comprehensive SSS playlists.

Likewise, one thing I’ve missed is the enjoyment that comes from true exploration, active listening with a radio station during work, exploring an online symphonic concert, and the joy that comes of listening to a melange of familiar and unfamiliar pieces.

So, this year, 2016, I have made it more of a concerted effort to explore a large amount of music, and place only those that have become earworms onto the final playlist as members of the elite club, misnomered (since 2013, at least) as “Snooch’s Silly Symphonies”.

For 2016, there is no requirement, that I must add a single piece simply because the calendar tells me to do so. Here we are on February 1, and my playlist has already given me seven pieces, and I really like all of them! I think it’s a nice approach. Play on!