Do you shuffle your prog playlist?

No.

^Sometimes it's a different flight of stairs.

No. Always listen to songs in the order the artist intended. Always listen to complete albums, no skipping tracks.

Sometimes it's a vibraphone.

I love to shuffle sometimes. The first time it happened on my iPod Touch it was unintentional, but I really enjoyed the experience. It got me listening to music from albums that I hadn't listened to in a long time or hadn't paid much attention to/ really noticed before. I like sometimes having to recall what album or even artist a piece of music is from. I don't use Prog playlists, so, so I get a wide variety of music. Sometimes it seems to work much better than others. I like contrast in music. Shuffle can be a magical experience to me -- it's kind of nice to listen to music without knowing what comes next when one doesn't have new albums to listen to. Most of the time I'm in the mood for a specific album or into a particular style, but I like to shuffle when I don't know what I want to hear especially. I've often been one to repeat tracks, and sometimes will listen to a track ten times in a row, so shuffling does not feel wrong either to me.. When I was a kid I loved to make compilation albums, so I've never been tied to the idea of listening to whole albums, and I used to enjoy listening to the radio. I do like how shuffle exposes me to a wide variety of music, all or most of which fits my tastes.

As for listening in a way unintended by the artist being a bad thing for the listener, I don't see it that way. When I get a new album I sometimes scrub through the first time to find the music that hooks me, and only after that will I listen to the whole album attentively. By the time I've shuffled music I usually have listened to the album as it was intended to be played many times anyway. Shuffling can make music sound fresh again to me, and I do often find that disparate music can sound really good as a whole when shuffled and be a very enjoyable experience. The other day I shuffles and it sounded cool to me to hear Delibes' "Flower Duet" followed by Cardiacs, followed by Vashti, followed by Morricone.

As for Beethoven, since Moshkito mentioned his 9th, I only have that on vinyls and CDs and I generally do prefer to listen to that in its entirety. But there are certain moments, especially when listening to the von Karajan conducted version I have (part of a Beethoven box set) that I do love to repeat. I'm quite OCD. As for Beethoven's Seventh, I have often just played the second movement without playing the whole symphony since, well that might just be my favourite piece of music of all, and I don't like the whole symphony as much as I like listening to all of Ludwig van's glorious 9th. Oddly, I think it was watching Zardoz that caused my obsession with the second movement of the 7th, and Clockwork Orange certainly played a part in my obsessing over the 9th.

I never shuffle anything, but I do quite often listen to individual tracks.

On a portable device I exclusively listen to full albums to minimize the frequency of having to take the thing out of my pocket.

I like to shuffle MEI from Echolyn

exactly how I feel about it. even if it is a band like led zeppelin, that their albums can perfectly be listened on shuffle mode I personally can't do it. I allways listen every album from start to finish in that order. 

rarely shuffle----but I do edit albums and ditch songs-- it's the only way a Yes fan can maintain his sanity since 1979 

moshkito wrote: Hi, I, somehow, do not see me listening to 3.4 minutes of Beethoven's 9th ... and then hear progressivos say how much in there is "filler"!