Life's Conundrum. As we get older we can afford more, but appreciate less.

Is this true for you with CM ?

And where and when was the HAPPY medium?

Interesting question but I'm pleased to say I appreciate new purchases as much now as I ever did, perhaps because I make fewer of them now than I did some years ago, when there were still a lot more gaps in my collection waiting to be filled.

I've gone over the hill in this one: I am getting older and can now afford less. Fotunately CDs are getting cheaper. I still appreciate what I buy and I am still finding new things.

I agree absolutely, JJD. I enjoyed music most when I had a lot of spare time and very little money. I would buy maybe one second-hand album a week and then listen to it several times before buying the next one. When I had more money (i.e. when I'd been working for a few years but wasn't married yet), I'd buy CDs faster than I could listen to them, which led to many being under-appreciated because they hadn't been heard enough. Thus, Mahler: Symphony No.5, which was listened to dozens of times in the first few months after buying it, will always be a favourite while Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde, which I've listened to maybe six times in more than 15 years, never will.

Have to agree with GC on the sterling endeavour to keep the chin up!

But, Gordon, that last comment of yours is taxing me more than somewhat!
Having heard Das Lied on a Bruno Walter CBS blue label LP a month or three before I ever heard Mahler's 5th (over 40 years ago) I must have listened to it six times in my first three days. And so many times again since then that it is a part of my being, a part of my soul and a part of my very existence.
It sounds ridiculous - or even patronisong, but I can only have sympathy (of a heartfelt nature) with anyone who doesn't, or never did, respond to DLvdE. For whatever reason!

When I was a student, unlike today's spoilt brat teenagers ('sorry bluds'), I had almost no money, walked miles and miles to save bus fares and still found time to indulge the pursuit of CM through rare purchases, record libraries, parents' and friends' collections and so on.....
Now, in very early retirement, like many other contributors here, I have more time and I seem to have very few other chosen or appropriate pleasures; but I challenge anyone to say that in older age we respond to music (or anything for that matter) with such extravagant enthusiasm as we did when younger.

It's the twin curse of prosperity and old age.
As Oscar Wilde said:
Youth is wasted on the Young!

The thing that is perplexing me right now, is WHEN did the changeover take place? and what (else) was I doing at the time?

When I first read this thread I thought no that's not me, but when I really thought about it and in line with Gordon Dents post, I look at the shelves sitting with yet unplayed cds and beside them the bookcase bulging with unread books and wonder.
Years ago I remember rushing home with my one or maybe two LPs and being desperate to play them immediately then maybe play them again. That's gone now, so maybe JJDs point is well made.

I look back on my young days and listening again and again to a piece of music before moving on to a new one. Some pieces are irrevocably connected in my mind with the book I was reading at the time I "learned" the piece. But a lack of money never stood between me and hearing records. My parents had a great collection and once I had digested what I wanted from that there was the local library.

Now my appetite for music is bigger and I can swallow more. It usually "talks to me" from the outset. But, no matter how much I search out the new, I don't get that sense of discovery and falling in love with a new piece to anything like the same extent that I used to get.

I feel that I appreciate music much more now, than when I was young - having studied music for so many years, I feel I understand far more and when I was young it was all a mystery.

But Bruce!! ... the wide-eyed wonder of it all....the absolute burning obsession to play that piece of music all over again - even at 2 am with the sound box by your ears?
Do you still have that?
If so, I envy you. I really do.
In frank comparison (thanks to Kenpat and enthu. for support in this admission) it's all a little bit cerebral now. JF-style rather than JR-style - if you get my drift.

"My goodness this will be good for me"
- as distinct from -
"OMG I love this to bits".

Is this an indicator of the Wordsworth effect, as described by PBS?

And I think I possibly made a silent and totally unknowing transition sometime around the age of Mozart's death.

I must admit, though I hate to, that in the first blush of youth all this music was fresher and more exciting than it is now.
At my age, I suppose that is not surprising.

I am still capable of a thrill now and then however. Electric shock helps.