# Was Classical Music your First Musical Love?



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I studied classical piano starting at age 3, but Dave Matthews Band was my first musical love around sixth grade. I didn't really fall in love with classical until college when I became obsessed with the band Phish (and really exposed myself to a LOT of different music including classical).

I still have love for my first loves, but how I look at them has changed, which I feel is for the better!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

No, I was almost 30 when I first started exploring classical (over 30 years ago). My first love was pop/rock, my first album bought was Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge over troubled water. I still love many types of music, not just classical.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Yes! Mozart is my first love in music. Listened to my fathers Bohm recording of symphonies no. 40 & 41 a lot when I was 6  40 years ago. Mozart is still my favorite!


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

No. I didn't start listening to classical seriously until college. My dad loved what is now known as the American songbook. I saw my first Broadway show when I was 5 - "My Fair Lady" with Julie Andrews, and listened to Sinatra and Ella at home. Still love them both.

Got into rock/pop later.


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## lluissineu (Dec 27, 2016)

Art Rock said:


> No, I was almost 30 when I first started exploring classical (over 30 years ago). My first love was pop/rock, my first album bought was Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge over troubled water. I still love many types of music, not just classical.


Same as me. I loved Pop and Rock (I still do, but my first choice Is classical).

My introduction to classical was Scheherezade by Rimsky Korsakov. There was a collection released by The Spanish Radio Tv, with very bad sound and I'd add they were bad players and conductors, but, Thanks to these recordings, I was hooked on classics.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Yes. Classical music was my first musical love.

I began listening at 5. Haven't stopped. That makes __ years of continuous listening.


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## Armanvd (Jan 17, 2017)

No . The First Time I Was Amazed And Fell In Love With Classical Music Was Less Than A Year Ago . I Used To Listen To Progressive Rock And Jazz Mostly Before Falling In Love With Classical Music.I Still Listen To Other Genres But I Listen To Classical Music Most times.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Hard to tell. My early musical memories are of both classical (Verdi, Borodin, Grieg...), and big-band music (Jimmy Dorsey, etc.)


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Yes, my parents always played classical music and took me to concerts from about 8. In 1995 ( I was 10 ) we visited the Metropolitan Opera to see Aida / Tosca and......Otello with Renée Flemining.
The love for classical music never stopped.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Yes. The first one and the only  since I don't remember how early and among classical later on opera was my first love, singing arias


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Yes it was. When I was a child I listened to the classical music we had at home over and over again and I listened to classical music on radio. Then I stoped listening to classical music for several years until I started listening again a few years ago.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

As far as "love," mine was initially big band music, because my dad had played saxophone in one, and he let me fool with the horn, and I got to hear his old 78s. I was thrilled to get into a paying big band in high school full of kids my age playing at dances for the Greatest Generation. I loved making them happy. 

Like many have said so far, I got into classical in college.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Wrong question. My parents believed in having all sorts of music (and other expeeriences) available around the house as we were growing up, and letting each of us follow his own drummer. Classical spoke to me, but I also liked Braodway and some kinds of popular music -- but on a case by case basis. It still holds true that I don't like anything unlesss it's musically interesting.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

No. I started studying classical piano when I was about 8 years old. I always had an appreciation and "liked" classical but didn't fall in love with it until I was in High School. That's when I first bought Glenn Gould's WTC. My first album I ever bought was The Who's "Who's Next." (I submit it is one of the top 10 (maybe 5) greatest rock albums of all time. Not a bad song on the entire album). The second was "KISS Alive II." So, it was The Who and KISS who were my first "loves" of music. 

V


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## extremedalek (Feb 25, 2017)

Sadly not. I started off, as most kids do, listening to the pop music of the day, then gradually moved over to soft rock, my tastes growing heavier until I eventually found heavy metal (I adore Iron Maiden). I started listening to classical music around a year ago, and Beethoven's 5th Symphony was the first piece I really fell in love with. I've since had the chance to listen to many different composers (Mozart, Dovorak, Brahms, Berlioz, Haydn) and found lots of pieces I've loved. And I've still much, much more to explore.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

No.

My first love was rock ot the 70's (Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Who, and some lesser known bands). I never really had a "pop" phase. 

But that soon faded as soon as I soon as I discovered prog rock, and all its various subgenres. 

One particular subgenre of prog, avant-prog, is what lead me to classical. Bands of this subgenre are particularly influenced by mid to late 20th century classical, so the transition to classical was pretty easy. 

My love for classical, various subgenres of prog, and jazz, are almost equal, depending on mood.


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

Yes, Handel and Haydn right away.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

^



Tchaikovsky first. 1yr old? - 6

Nothing musically happened in between.

At 12 got obssession with Doors song 'riders on the storm' and at 13 British 60's bands, with the Beatles at the top. Then at around 15 was bowled over by Mozart's piano concerto 23 2nd movement, I thought I'd never heard anything more profound. Had to buy his music pronto. Everything else snowballed from there with a few hiccups.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Yes. I don't remember a day when I wasn't listening to it. When my mother was pregnant with me she did the headphones-on-the-stomach thing, which was a fad at the time. I'll be danged if I know whether that works, but I've been hooked on classical since. I also grew up listening to my older sister play the violin, which she started when she was 3 and I was 1. What's interesting is that my parents are not musical at all. They started me and my sibilings on music lessons early simply because they wanted us to have something we could enjoy for the rest of our lives (it was either music or sports, but you can't play football forever). They didn't ever suspect that we'd all end up pursuing careers in it.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

In my case it wasn't _*the *_ first love, but it was one of the first. As a kid I listened to all sorts of pop, rock, and folk music, but as soon as I listened to some classical on my music lessons in primary school, I felt that I like it. Unfortunately, it was unavailable to me until I was around 20 and the Internet became a good tool for finding music. After that time, I explored a lot of classical music genres, but I still feel as a beginner, and I'm 29 now.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

^
Great post, welcome to the forum!

Geez, that did sound so ancient Rome.. TC then


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Yes, classical music was my first love. It was actually the first type of music that I heard. My parents were (and still are) huge classical music fans, so I grew up hearing a great deal of it. 

In my teenage years, I spent some time exploring other musical genres, including rock, heavy metal, and pop. But classical music has always been (and probably always will be) my favorite genre.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

Thanks Marinera, sorry for a late reply.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

No. My first musical love was rock. But my dad encouraged me to listen to some classical, and I got to listening to Carl Hass' Adventures in Great Music during the afternoon, but I never built much of a collection. 

Ultimately, classical bored me, so I tried opera as a means to make it more interesting with the combination of music, singing, acting and a story. Opera was also a great way to get dates, but it never stuck with me otherwise. But then I didn't listen to music much at all for a number of years. 

In 2009 I discovered MP3 players and went headlong into my favorite artist, Johnny Winter, building a collection of over 100 albums on CD and listing to nothing but for several years. Then I had binges on Dylan, Neil Young, and Johnny Cash. 

About August 2011 something triggered me to go back into classical and I have not gone back into pop music much at all since. A few years ago I got back into opera and that has been my favorite music ever since.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

No, I came to love classical music at the relatively old age of 23. My first love was rock and metal, including those pseudo-operatic female vocals.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Yes. Apparently one day when I was a toddler my mother, who was always listening to classical music on the radio, turned the radio on and after a few seconds I began to cry, so she turned it off again, at which point I cried even louder (I have a vague memory of her saying that the music may have been by Mendelssohn, either" Fingal's Cave" or possibly the "Italian" Symphony). My parents then got me started on the piano when I was 5 and I'm still playing well over half a century later.


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## Rys (Nov 26, 2016)

Nope. I listened mainly to rock/pop, or any music that was popular at the time. In my freshman or sophomore year in High School, I heard Sibelius' 1st symphony, and fell in love with classical music.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Rys said:


> Nope. I listened mainly to rock/pop, or any music that was popular at the time. In my freshman or sophomore year in High School, I heard Sibelius' 1st symphony, and fell in love with classical music.


And stayed that ever since????


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## Rys (Nov 26, 2016)

Pugg said:


> And stayed that ever since????


Yes! 
That year I experimented with different music, but I owe my exploration of classical music to my piano teacher at the time. She introduced me to much of music I listen to today and taught me to respect and enjoy it. To this day I have some of the recordings she gave to me. To clarify Sibelius' 1st symphony was the first time I heard a symphonic work beginning to end in one sitting.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Rys said:


> Yes!
> That year I experimented with different music, but I owe my exploration of classical music to my piano teacher at the time. She introduced me to much of music I listen to today and taught me to respect and enjoy it. To this day I have some of the recordings she gave to me. To clarify Sibelius' 1st symphony was the first time I heard a symphonic work beginning to end in one sitting.


All people need a little push from time to time, it never hurts.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Yes, classical was my first musical love and still my only true love. My bro introduced me to Mozart and Beethoven, and to the movie Amadeus, which helps beginners appreciate the music, especially when the Salieri character analyses the Gran Partita. I've explored lots of other types of music, including Jazz, Blues, all kinds of Rock, especially avant garde. I like Folk and Psychedelic Rock probably second to Classical. But in my view, I only like the other types of music, while Classical runs deeper to me emotionally, mentally, and I would say spiritually. Formerly a hard-core Christian, I had to struggle with my idolizing of Mozart (and Beethoven to a lesser extent). As Tchaikovsky also said, Mozart was my Christ, he read my mind and emotions. 

Now, 20 years later, I'm a hard-core Atheist (I argue points in the Bible with every devoted Christian I come across) and love the modern and more avant garde composers like Stravinsky and Varese. Their music is primal, and speaks to me more directly than the constructed music of say Schumann, Mendelssohn, and others. Ravel's music also speaks directly and indirectly to me in a different way, and in many ways I love his music the most in the world. :angel:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Was classical music my first love?

No. That would be Muriel Lieberfarb.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Yes, I fell in love with absolute music when I was 5 years old and only when I went into college did I get into contemporary music. Now I explore all kinds of music but absolute music will always be my go to and probably accounts for 50% of all the music I put in my brain.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

Not the first, but I started listening to it at a young age. 
My parents, especially my mother, loved classical music. They played Mozart on an ancient Philips portable recordplayer. I was 6 or 7 at the time.
It realy kicked of at about 14, when I met this friend at school who played the violin (I dabbled with a classical guitar). We listened to lots of classical and visited lots of concerts. We are still best mates and still listen to- and talk about classical music like we did almost forty years ago.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Phil loves classical said:


> Yes, classical was my first musical love and still my only true love. My bro introduced me to Mozart and Beethoven, and to the movie Amadeus, which helps beginners appreciate the music, especially when the Salieri character analyses the Gran Partita. I've explored lots of other types of music, including Jazz, Blues, all kinds of Rock, especially avant garde. I like Folk and Psychedelic Rock probably second to Classical. But in my view, I only like the other types of music, while Classical runs deeper to me emotionally, mentally, and I would say spiritually. Formerly a hard-core Christian, I had to struggle with my idolizing of Mozart (and Beethoven to a lesser extent). As Tchaikovsky also said, Mozart was my Christ, he read my mind and emotions.
> 
> Now, 20 years later, I'm a hard-core Atheist (I argue points in the Bible with every devoted Christian I come across) and love the modern and more avant garde composers like Stravinsky and Varese. Their music is primal, and speaks to me more directly than the constructed music of say Schumann, Mendelssohn, and others. Ravel's music also speaks directly and indirectly to me in a different way, and in many ways I love his music the most in the world. :angel:


Sorry you lost your faith brother.. so now is music your only source of spiritual nurturing?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Fugue Meister said:


> Sorry you lost your faith brother.. so now is music your only source of spiritual nurturing?


I found Plato to be my spiritual teacher, who in fact influenced Christianity, to say the least. Nature and music for spiritual nourishment.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Phil loves classical said:


> I found Plato to be my spiritual teacher, who in fact influenced Christianity, to say the least. *Nature and music for spiritual nourishment*.


The two sources of most pure, no-strings-attached, innocent joy in the world.


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