# [Opinion]When do you start listening to classical music?



## pianoccrtovivace (Sep 23, 2012)

I always wondered , among classical music listeners , on when they start to listen to classical music,
eg as a kid / teens / adult.
And what kind / period of music do you listen?



Just share your experience here 

For myself , since I learn piano at an early age, I do have some exposure in classical music,but it wasnt until College I start expanding my interest in classical music.


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## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

I was familiar with some classical pieces as a child from various TV shows, especially cartoons. But it wasn't until I was 14 or 15 that I really started to listen to classical music "professionally". It started with Johann Strauss II, who for a time was my favorite composer. But my true classical music journey began with Bach and Beethoven. Now I can say that I have quite a large baggage of classical music knowledge.

As for kind, I usually listen to symphonies, but I also like to listen to concertos (especially violin concertos) and some chamber music (again, violin ); never been a real, true opera fan. When it comes to period I prefer especially Baroque and Romantic music (mainly late Romantic) and also the classical music that came in the first half of the 20th century.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Started when I was 20.. My musical tastes has always been changing and developing. I like every classical genre.


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Fifteen to early sixteen - don't quite remember which anymore.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Since 1997 but only payed more attention to it around 2007 and 2008.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

As a baby, in the cradle. My grandmother used to play Mozart's & Vivaldi's trying to keep me at ease and smiling. In accordance to her, sometimes it didn't work but she told me it was a good method


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## Forte (Jul 26, 2013)

Since I was born I've been listening to pretty much everything. So I'm familiar with stuff from the Medieval period to the classics to jazz to hip hop to avant-garde. I prefer classical (in terms of Baroque through Romantic periods) and maybe jazz to just about everything else, but that could be because they dominate such a large period of time in music history. I have no idea when I started listening to classical music because it feels like it's kind of been there the whole time for me.


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## annie (Jul 31, 2011)

Where and when you live should be very effective on this matter. I was in love with piano when I was a kid but I began listening to and collecting on purpose when I was 18. It was almost non-existent where I grew up when I grew up but if I was born 5 years ago and grew up where I live now my answer would be most probably 5 :tiphat:

The actual time and place to start should be the womb.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Basically, I listened to a lot in my early years simply because UK radio in the 50's and 60s was saturated with light classical music - not just the third but all the light and the home as well. I then moved away from classical and into pop and folk. In the 70's, as well as listening to a lot of folk, we also listened to a lot of David Munrow and early music groups (pre 1600). I was playing piano in the 80's and even bought a complete Dowland. My tastes were always for Baroque and earlier. Through the 90s and 00's I listened to mainly folk although with the odd classical piece. Since I've retired and taken up piano, we've been on a Baroque kick.  Not altogether helped by the fact that Ingenue takes fiddle lessons from the director of our local Baroque (very HIP) group which gets us into all sorts of British Baroque as well as main stream repertoire.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I was 29 (1986), having been a pop/rock listener since the age of 16 (still love those as well). My first ventures into classical music were mainly classical and romantic composers, 20th century came later; these are still the core of what I listen to. Aside from a select few (JS Bach, Vivaldi, Victoria), baroque and earlier never resonated with me.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I've always liked a good tune, in whatever genre it may lurk, and as a child of the 1950s, a lot of light classical tunes were flung at me from the radio; the other influence was Scottish folk music, from my Scots father, who played the melodeon*. In school violin lessons we used Eta Cohen's Violin Method, which concentrates on baroque, and so I 'got into' this type of sprigged, rhythmic, lively music, which, if you think about it, is much like folk dance tunes. But as my spouse Taggart says above, our latest barking-mad craze on classical music comes from him impulse-buying a piano in the first week of his retirement.

*melodeon - I think this is correct, but my computer spell-check suggested 'melon'. Now I ask you - who in their right minds would play a *melon*? :lol:


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Ingenue said:


> *melodeon - I think this is correct, but my computer spell-check suggested 'melon'. Now I ask you - who in their right minds would play a *melon*? :lol:


Yup. Sounds like one of those delightful skiffle instruments like the tea-chest bass or washboard.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

When I was 12 my parents bought me a stereo and let me join the Columbia Record Club (Buy One Get Five Free!!!) - and I chose classical as my music type since I was already familiar with the 'Moonlight Sonata' and _Fur Elise_. The first record I chose for my free offer of 5 LPs was Van Cliburn's recording of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto in Bb minor - I still have it and most of the early collection, which also includes, Mozart, Chopin, Ravel, Rimsky-Korsakov and the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra ('brilliant showcase for orchestra' or something like that was the way it was described in the catalog, and that murky opening of the first movement put me off until the Trombone section fanfare that ends the movement blew my ears out - I became an early Bartok convert). By the time I graduated HS I had a collection of maybe 125 or so LPs (numerous of which were movie soundtracks like Ben Hur, Cleopatra, El Cid, - anything grand.)


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I got seriously into classical music after I took a music appreciation class in college, so I guess I was 19. 

As far as genres, I tend to listen to everything. I'm just as excited about Dufay and Ockeghem as I am about Ligeti.


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## Guest (Aug 8, 2013)

I usually start around 9h and stop around 22 or 23h.

Depending on whether the neighbors are home or not.


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## TitanisWalleri (Dec 30, 2012)

I started liking it earlier in high school. My first work was The Planets by Hlst, and to this day he is one of, if not my, favorite composers. I really only listen to late Romantic and early modern music, but I am starting to get more widespread in my tastes. I have recently been listening to Mussorgsky and Dvorak, so I am getting more interested in the Romantic period in general.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I had minimal exposure before late 20s. I married a violinist and soon found that classical was much more enjoyable than the pop I had previously listened to. But it really wasn't until late 40s that my listening exploded. I love most music from the Renaissance through early 20th century. I am learning to like more modern and contemporary music and actually listen to those eras as much as earlier music.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Since I was a toddler; I was raised with it. It was the only music I listened to regularly until middle school, essentially. 

I listen to anything from Lully to Orff. My speciality is the romantic period (along with pre-1920 modern), particularly ballet music and symphonies. I'm not big on post-1960 classical, however.


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

I have my first contact to classical when I was a kid, when I went to my grandpa's house. He was a big music lover, there always was music playing in his house, but I'm started listening to classical seriously until I had 15.


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## jennie (Aug 9, 2013)

I started listening to classical music a while after I stopped taking piano lessons. I had no motivation to play the piano but my parents forced me to play it which basically gave me a knee jerk reaction against classical music that lasted about a year. I probably wouldn't be familiar with classical music if I hadn't listened to all the music pieces I was supposed to learn


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## PrimoUomo (Jul 7, 2013)

When i was 3 (2003) i first heard Handel's Water music, and decided later that classical music was the only music i liked, but it was first in 2012 i started to buy cd's, practicing singing and read about classical music. My favorite era ended up being baroque and later i'd also find the classical period interesting.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

*@MANXFEEDER* I think you had a great teacher if you were inspired by a music appreciation class!!! You should write the teacher a letter! 



Manxfeeder said:


> I got seriously into classical music after I took a music appreciation class in college, so I guess I was 19.
> 
> As far as genres, I tend to listen to everything. I'm just as excited about Dufay and Ockeghem as I am about Ligeti.


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## Joris (Jan 13, 2013)

I started listening extensively at age 18. My parents never listened to classical I think, so I also ventured to it when I learned more about cm in college. 

I'm interested in all style periods, except serialist music perhaps.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

NightHawk said:


> *@MANXFEEDER* I think you had a great teacher if you were inspired by a music appreciation class!!! You should write the teacher a letter!


I wish I could, because what he gave me has lasted all this time. But I think he's passed on . But he was also my band and jazz ensemble director back then, so he knew what he did for me even back then.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Disney's Fantasia, Tom and Jerry, and Looney Tunes showed me some popular tunes. Then I started taking piano when I was 9 and my teacher showed me Chopin and Rachmaninov. Those two were my only favorites for a long time...then Liszt and Bach joined the party...soon after Beethoven hopped aboard. Then I just picked up random CDs from the library of various works by the above composers or by people I vaguely knew about. And now 10 years later I have an obsession none of my friends ever want to talk about plus an iPod that I would nominate to have preserved in case of the apocalypse on account of all the music it holds

Also, I like some Baroque and Classical, but my favorite music come from 1800-1950.


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## Perotin (May 29, 2012)

I started to listen to classical music in my late teens. It was Rachmaninov who introduced me to classical music, then I switched to Bach and from there I proceeded to Prokofiev and Shostakovich. But interestingly, it took me about 10 years to aquire taste for classical period, it wasn't until recently, that I begun to explore Mozart and Beethoven.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

12. Whenever my Little League Team lost a BB game I'd console myself with a Bach BB concerto (or two) - 3 & 5. There has been the occasional break since then, but I'm back on a roller now.


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## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

Didn't really start listening seriously until a couple of years ago when I joined my first youth orchestra and decided I wanted to play professionally. So I guess playing the music is really what got me interested in it.


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## BlackDahlia (Aug 12, 2013)

I started listening to classical in the mid 1980's as a sophmore in high school. I was in the concert / marching band playing March Slav, 1812 Overture, Pictures At An Exhibition, and also expanding my musical horizons into the 70's prog movement with Yes, ELP, Renaissance... At a point, I wanted to find a direct connection (progression, evolution) between prog rock and classical. My experiences playing classical music in the marching band field show competitions, coupled with my listening tendancies at that age gave me a subtle insight into good music.


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## Fermat (Jul 26, 2013)

At birth, basically. I grew up in a broken home and lived with different members from both sides over the years, so I was exposed to pretty much every genre. One of my earliest memories is sitting in front of the record player listening to the same recordings over and over until someone would decide that the house had heard enough for the day. 

As for what I enjoy today, I like every genre except rap and metal. Faves are jazz and, of course, classical. Period? Probably romantic, but I listen to everything.


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## HeartofGold (Aug 23, 2013)

I listen to lots of different genres of music, but I started listening to classical music, and appreciating it not long after I started playing cello. I hadn't had much exposure to it before then. 
I've only been playing cello for 3.5 years, and I haven't experienced as much classical music as I would like to within that time but once I started listening to classical music I realised that I quite liked it.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

BlackDahlia said:


> I started listening to classical in the mid 1980's as a sophmore in high school. I was in the concert / marching band playing March Slav, 1812 Overture, Pictures At An Exhibition, and also expanding my musical horizons into the 70's prog movement with Yes, ELP, Renaissance... At a point, I wanted to find a direct connection (progression, evolution) between prog rock and classical. My experiences playing classical music in the marching band field show competitions, coupled with my listening tendancies at that age gave me a subtle insight into good music.


I went the opposite way - first classical, then prog rock


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

I was 14-15. My father got the "Switched-On Bach" LPs and I loved them. Then I listened to more of Walter Carlos's albums plus Isao Tomita's "Snowflakes Are Dancing" (Debussy on synthesizer), and some more of Tomita's albums.


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