Digital music: What's your first instinct: search or browse?

[jeffme]

Understood that you often browse after your search, but I'm curious of the first instincts among the ASR crowd.

I'm a searcher, but this poll was prompted after discussions on another forum where it appeared their users had little interest in search. Browsing was just fine. My mind was blown.

 

[Wicky]

The benefit of streaming music is to enable you to find new music so it's 'browse', even when listening to the back-catalog I'll browse for inspiration more often than I'll have a pre-conception of what I want to listen to.

 

[jeffme]

The benefit of streaming music is to enable you to find new music so it's 'browse', even when listening to the back-catalog I'll browse for inspiration more often than I'll have a pre-conception of what I want to listen to.

What's your top-level browsing category and how do you drill down? e.g., Country -> Nashville Country? or Jazz -> Hard Bop? Musicals -> 60s?

 

[Wicky]

What's your top-level browsing category and how do you drill down? e.g., Country -> Nashville Country? or Jazz -> Hard Bop? Musicals -> 60s?

I'm a user of Roon so I browse around e.g. artists other works, similar artists, the producer, record label, composor, colaborators etc. associated to what I've been listening to... also Roon's magazine style articles with recommendations, playlists etc... I think they do a pretty good job of helping the discovery (or sometimes re-discovery) of good music but I guess all the streaming platforms have this capability to a greater or lesser extent.
But yes, at times I'll do a browse by specific genre / sub-genre but typically with a filter added for "new releases"

 

[jeffme]

I'm a user of Roon so I browse around e.g. artists other works, similar artists, the producer, record label, composor, colaborators etc. associated to what I've been listening to... also Roon's magazine style articles with recommendations, playlists etc... I think they do a pretty good job of helping the discovery (or sometimes re-discovery) of good music but I guess all the streaming platforms have this capability to a greater or lesser extent.
But yes, at times I'll do a browse by specific genre / sub-genre but typically with a filter added for "new releases"

Yes... Roon is pretty awesome in the area of guided exploration through suggestions, which is sort of different than browsing or searching. Looks like I can add another entry, which I will.

 

[Snarfie]

Listening to radio like KCSM just be surprised. https://www.kcsm.org/playlist

 

[Timcognito]

Listening to radio like KCSM just be surprised. https://www.kcsm.org/playlist

Also a big KCSM fan
And reading reviews here https://kfjc.org/music/ off the beaten path and very short reads with most on Qobuz. A mile wide and deep.

 

[Mikig]

I search for what I know and browse through what I don't know.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Listening to radio like KCSM just be surprised. https://www.kcsm.org/playlist

Bay Area jazz station. I listen to it in the car on the, gasp, radio. It's good.

 

[kemmler3D]

If I know what I want to hear, specifically, I search, but often I will browse when I'm looking for a vibe / genre with no specific artist or song in mind.

 

[Hear Here]

Understood that you often browse after your search, but I'm curious of the first instincts among the ASR crowd.

I'm a searcher, but this poll was prompted after discussions on another forum where it appeared their users had little interest in search. Browsing was just fine. My mind was blown.

With an infinite supply of music from Qobuz or Tidal. how can one Browse? I can browse my Library as there are 1500 or so albums in a number of main Folders (Classical, etc) that are of a manageable size to browse. I open a folder and scan down the list of Composers or Artists to spot something I hadn't initially planned to listen to. You can't do that with Qobuz. The nearest is to follow up the "Similar Artists" associated with someone you like. These are offered by Roon and (to an extent) BluOS and maybe other control apps.

So, I can't contribute towards the poll and frankly I don't think anyone can browse Qobuz. My answer is Search on Qobuz and Browse (or Search) in Library.

 

[Chrispy]

For me it's all three features I use streaming services for. I don't use one as a permanent library in any case.

 

[jeffme]

With an infinite supply of music from Qobuz or Tidal. how can one Browse?

And yet... a number of people I talked with used their own libraries, some of them quite large, but still, they didn't search. I can't see how you browse in an era of streaming, either, but, then again.... I'm not really searching in my 6 different Tidal personal playlists, either.

 

[Petrushka]

I search for genres or periods,then browse.

 

[Hear Here]

I search for genres or periods,then browse.

That had crossed my mind, but I've never considered it before.

I use Qobuz with BluOS and, if I choose say Soundtracks as a genre, I'm offered 3 displays of Albums - New, Popular and Recommended, each with about 70-80 albums illustrated. These could be browsed I suppose.

 

[_timo_redux_]

It’s like the radio was for me as a kid: I let the algorithm serve up a mix of more familiar and unknown-to-me music; only now I can skip unpromising offerings