# For any who came to classical music later in life...



## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

If you're among those who had little or no introduction to classical music as a child or in pre-college school years, I have a question.

How difficult was it for you to get into the idiom (for lack of a better word)? Did you have to really work at appreciation, or was it love at first hearing?


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

I'll answer this, despite technically not qualifying, since nobody else was there to introduce me and I figured everything out myself. Understanding it was really difficult, not because I did not like what I heard, but because I didn't have any preliminary knowledge at all: not how pieces could be so long, not what a symphony or a string quartet was, not how pieces were recorded over and over again, not even what movements were: nothing. It was all foreign and incomprehensible. I worked from a list I found somewhere of 'beginners pieces', most notably including Mozart's Jupiter symphony, Copland's Appalachian Spring and Händel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks. Amazon and random articles guided me for a while, until this forum came along and I finally sprouted into somewhat of a classical music maturity by reading a lot and then finally joining myself after sufficient knowledge had been accumulated.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

For me, it was disinterest at first hearing. I was about 18 and I had purchased, on the recommendation of a friend with encyclopaedic tastes, a Händel _Water Music_ album. I was heavily into the music that was popular with young people at the time: Tangerine Dream, Cabaret Voltaire, Can, Ashra Tempel, etc. I had always preferred instrumental music and had actively sought out bands that used many instruments and sounds. I naturally gravitated to Stockhausen and Xenakis, who replaced the aforementioned rock acts as my primary passions. From then on, I rapidly discovered Schönberg, Webern, Berg, Nono, Kagel, Messiaen, Ligeti, Penderecki, Malec and the other greats of the time. I was passionate about this _New Music_, as it was then called. Likely through Schönberg, I began to explore more traditional composers and worked my way back.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I came to classical music later in life, and I had to work hard for it. I'm glad I did, it's been one of the best decisions of my life thus far.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Vesteralen said:


> If you're among those who had little or no introduction to classical music as a child or in pre-college school years, I have a question.
> 
> How difficult was it for you to get into the idiom (for lack of a better word)? Did you have to really work at appreciation, or was it love at first hearing?


Seeing as I grew up with classical, I am perhaps not qualified to reply, but I grew up mostly on the well known old war horses, and thus had to acquire a taste for much of the rest.

I'm not sure there is necessarily any one single idiom for classical music, seeing as it spans everything from Hildegard von Bingen to Mozart to Schoenberg. With pieces outside the styles that I was used to, it did require some work, though probably not more than what is needed to learn to appreciate anything new.

With some things, I couldn't work up a liking for it no matter how hard I tried. Messiaen's "Quartet for the end of time" comes to mind. And opera.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Hi V. In my case it was virtually a Year Zero situation as I was only aware of a few snippets of classical before I made a genuine approach. 

I remember a couple of music lessons at Middle School where we sang along to a couple of Schubert lieder while the teacher played piano - I think they were The Trout and The Linden Tree. Apart from that I remember a couple of lessons covering Peter & The Wolf and the Hary Janos Suite but after 3rd year at High School music lessons were only usually an option if you wanted to learn an instrument. And that was basically it until I was in my mid-30s. What happened then (this was the late 90s) was that I had become jaded with rock music and, to quote Ives's father, I was looking to 'stretch my ears' while heading in different directions. I went simultaneously for jazz and classical but classical has gained ascendancy over everything else over the last, say, 10 years.

I did find certain aspects confusing and daunting at the beginning - the terminology mainly. I took to the music relatively quickly but I was discomfited by the fact that there were many words and expressions within sleevenotes which I couldn't fathom and it was at the back of my mind that this ignorance would detract from my enjoying the music properly. So I bought a reference book and looked up anything I didn't understand. There are still many things I still don't really follow but that's part of the deal - you learn all the time. Initial perseverance and gaining more background knowledge certainly paid off for me as regards my general appreciation of colour, structure, mood etc. And, of course, the journey itself never really ends so I'm glad I've got a sturdy pair of hiking boots.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

I tried out classical music in the mid-80's when I was in my mid-20's because I was disappointed by a lot of the popular music scene at the time. Up until that point I had been "afraid" of classical music in that I thought it would be too difficult for me and I wouldn't be able to enjoy it. But since I didn't enjoy most of the pop/rock stuff of that time and I already had most of the important material from the 60's, 70's and early 80's I had run out of records to buy so to speak, so I figured I might just as well take a gamble. I bought three or four cd's - Tchaikovsky 6, Viv's four seasons, the recording with classical singers (Kiri, Carreras) of West Side Story and a baroque compilation (Albinoni, Pachelbel, etc). Much to my surprise I LOVED everything I had bought. So a few days later I already went back to the record shop to buy more. A box set of Beethoven's symphonies, Carmen, Mutter playing Mozart violin concertos, Figaro, etc... Again, I LOVED all of it. I had figured it would be a struggle to learn to appreciate classical music, but it wasn't.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

I didn't start enjoying classical music till I was 21. Not condoning drug use, but I happened to have smoked some weed one night and then watched a youtube video of Chopin's Heroic Polonaise for some reason. It absolutely astonished me. It all finally clicked and I was able to comprehend that I was hearing something amazing. From that point on, whether high or not(I almost never smoke), I've been a die-hard classical fan.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Cheyenne said:


> I'll answer this, despite technically not qualifying, since nobody else was there to introduce me and I figured everything out myself. Understanding it was really difficult, not because I did not like what I heard, but because I didn't have any preliminary knowledge at all: not how pieces could be so long, not what a symphony or a string quartet was, not how pieces were recorded over and over again, not even what movements were: nothing. It was all foreign and incomprehensible. I worked from a list I found somewhere of 'beginners pieces', most notably including Mozart's Jupiter symphony, Copland's Appalachian Spring and Händel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks. Amazon and random articles guided me for a while, until this forum came along and I finally sprouted into somewhat of a classical music maturity by reading a lot and then finally joining myself after sufficient knowledge had been accumulated.


What was it initially that made you decide to get started? Did someone take you to a concert? Did you hear something on the radio?

Just curious..


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

brianvds said:


> I'm not sure there is necessarily any one single idiom for classical music, seeing as it spans everything from Hildegard von Bingen to Mozart to Schoenberg.


Granted. In my own case, Rossini Overtures and the orchestral music for Carmen were easy intros. I didn't have to overcome any real barriers with them. But, when, shortly after that, I went to the Brahms symphonies, I had to jump a bit of a hurdle. The music somehow seemed ancient and solemn to me at first and my mind had to adjust to it. It didn't take too long, but it was definitely an act of will to make the commitment to "get it" because nothing in my past experience had acclimatized me in any way to this.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

elgars ghost said:


> And, of course, the journey itself never really ends so I'm glad I've got a sturdy pair of hiking boots.


That's for sure. Twentieth century music (with a few notable exceptions) stayed pretty much outside my zone for the first fifteen years or so of my journey. And, Renaissance and early baroque music have only made inroads in the last five years or so.

Plus, even in the more familiar genres, there is no comparison between what's available now and what was available for the average listener in the 1970s.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

jhar26 said:


> I had figured it would be a struggle to learn to appreciate classical music, but it wasn't.


In spite of what I said earlier about the Brahms' symphonies, I liked most of what I heard - if not after the first hearing, then at least after two or three.

In a way, I miss the days when a new record was something special and you almost wore it out before the next one came along.


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I'm not sure how exactly I came to classical music.

I've always heard bits and pieces as a kid in movies and cartoons, etc, but I would say I was around 20 when I really started "listening" to classical. I always liked all the famous bits Mozart's 40th, Eine Kleine Nachtmusic and The Figaro Overture, Beethoven's 5th, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, etc but at some point I just decided to explore more and I guess my exploration hasn't stopped.

I went out to a local CD shop we used to have in town and browsed and found a bunch of cheap Excelsior Brand Classical Music CD's and bought a few. I got a Chopin Piano Works one (still have it somewhere) and it was just a greatest hits type thing but I used to listen to it a lot at night when I was trying to sleep as I suffered from insomnia for years. I mentioned it to a guy at work and he told me about how he loved falling asleep listening to Chant so I went out and found another cheap Excelsior Gregorian Chant CD for $5 and gave that a listen.

Eventually I started looking and recognizing names, like Leonard Bernstein and Georg Solti and buying their recordings. I had seen the movie Amadeus and so I bought Neville Marriner's Mozart Symphonies from the Complete Mozart Edition on the Philips label. I saw Glenn Gould play the Goldberg Variations on PBS or something. So I went out and got some Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Chopin (or what I thought of as the popular must gets at the time).

Then I started thinking it would be neat to see classical music played and so I found Herbert Von Karajan "His Legacy For Home Video" and ordered all the DVD's from that series.

At some point I discovered Mahler and went out and found a discount recording of Mahler's 6th with Harold Farberman and the London Symphony Orchestra. I remember I loved the album cover.
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I bought all of Bernstein's 60's Mahler recordings with NYPO after that and after listening to them over and over for months and months I just went all out and classical music became a part of my life...that was 10-15 years.

I still love all kinds of music and listen to all kinds of music daily, but Classical music has really become apart of my everyday life. And unfortunately I still don't know one other person who listens to it. No one in my family listens to it, none of my friends, none of my co-workers. I don't know one person outside of this forum who listens to it and I find that a terrible shame.


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## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

I came into CM fairly late in life (early 40s.) I made a conscious decision to start listening to it because I was sick of lisening to the same rock music I had lisened to for years and years and the sports radio afternoon hosts **** me off, so I started listening to the classical station on the drive home. I got hooked pretty quickly.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

realdealblues said:


> I went out to a local CD shop we used to have in town and browsed and found a bunch of cheap Excelsior Brand Classical Music CD's and bought a few.
> 
> I still love all kinds of music and listen to all kinds of music daily, but Classical music has really become apart of my everyday life. And unfortunately I still don't know one other person who listens to it. No one in my family listens to it, none of my friends, none of my co-workers. I don't know one person outside of this forum who listens to it and I find that a terrible shame.


Your post reminded me of how cash-strapped I was when I first started into classical music. I remember buying only bargain-label records for quite a while. Fortunately, the selection on budget labels wasn't always bad, though there certainly was the occasional clunker.

I've known a few other people who listen to classical music a little, but outside of one local friend who passed away a few years ago, all the ones who were really serious about it were people I knew forty years ago in my "dorm" days.


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## themysticcaveman (Jul 9, 2013)

i am 21 used to listen to rock/indie, had never had a classical influence growing up, and i was going to start studying music, but found i wasn't listening to much, and there was a Tchaikovsky cycle on my on demand cable provider, and i put some on, and a few themes caughtt my fancy at first, but i wasn't wowed, it takes a lot to be wowed from first listen, it was mainly thanks to Tchai's 4th, that oppening theme on the horns caught my attention from moment one, to the point that i would play the symphony daily, sometimes twice a day, at this point i still didn't realize that you need to listen to a piece a good few times before starting to like it, anyways, started loving that specific one, changed my listening habits to classical only, went to my first concert, which was a Brahms symphony 2, it was good, but i found myself bored, as i had never heard that piece before and it took more dedication getting into Brahms than it did any other composer for me, i found i had to listen to Brahms three times as much as any other composer before enjoying, i know absolutely love Brahms, i don't listen to as much Tchaikovsky anymore as he just makes me sad and depressed, not that i don't like him anymore, i know love choral music so much, and if it weren't for quickly learning that more than a few listens is always required i probably wouldn't be as in love with classical music now, i would say i have become over passionate with it, i now listen to more classical music than any other activity in my life, so yes it was hard to get into, but the most amazing thing i have ever done for myself... sorry i babbled on


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

It wasn't difficult for me to get into classical music, but it was difficult for me to find out about it. Unless you actively search for it and know what you're looking for, you aren't likely to come across much classical in your daily life. It isn't really on TV, it's seldom used in movies aside from generic film music, you never hear it on the radio....so about your only exposure is the brief sonata excerpt you may hear on a diamond commercial or something lol. So for the longest time, I really didn't know how much classical music there really was...I thought that there was Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, and that was pretty much it. And of course I had hardly scratched the surface of any of those 3 alone at the time. It took me about 2 years to break out from Beethoven's piano sonatas and actually discover that there were literally tons of other composers out there, many of whom were equally enjoyable to listen to.

Another thing that made it difficult (and still makes it difficult) to really enjoy classical music is public perception. If you say that you love classical, there's a negative stereotype that people place on you. It's often seen as elitist and feminine, and because of that I don't tell anyone that I don't fully trust about my interest in it. When I've slipped up in the past, it's frequently resulted in weird looks and snickers from the other party.


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## Guest (Aug 1, 2013)

It's certainly been work for me, but fun work. (I first really enjoyed classical music at the age of 19, and didn't really start delving into it until 21...or..a year ago...)


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I listened to a work of classical music all the way through for the first time around the age of 17. It was a Naxos cassette of some kind... in my car stereo. The first work that really grabbed me would've been a year or so later, Crumb's _Black Angels_ recorded by Kronos Quartet.

I never had trouble "liking" classical music. I've never understood anyone who feels that way. What's not to like? At worst, it's pleasant. It was, however, quite a bit later before I saw it as anything other than large-scale New Age music. I didn't listen for structure for a long time, it was sort-of just one tune after another. Works like _Black Angels_ and _From Me Flows What You Call Time_, which I enjoyed immensely more than the mostly classical and romantic era that I usually listened to, didn't seem like "real" classical music to me - they were much better!

I took an elementary music theory course in high school, at the end of which I was able to do bad transpositions and write horrible four-part harmony. But that gave me quite a few tools, so that a few years later when a young woman whose admiration I craved made an offhand comment about the structure of some classical-era symphony we'd just listened to, I realized I needed to listen for that, and I was prepared to do (to understand about modulations and so on without difficulty) which of course dramatically changed how I heard the music. It was also around that time that a close friend and fairly talented amateur jazz/blues/gospel musician had a few conversations with me that also changed the way I heard music.

I had another epiphany in college, when I got back in touch with my biological relatives. I'd been adopted by an extremely non-musical family - no one played any instruments, no one was really interested in any kind of music at all, not even cousins or aunts or uncles or grandparents, it's just a family that is more into other things. But _I_, without actually having any talent, had always been much more interested in music. When I found my biological family I experienced in many ways a kind of familiarity (pun intended), a sense of effortless mutual sympathy that I'd never felt with my adoptive family - though they saved my life probably, and they're wonderful people in most important ways, and I will feel gratitude to them for the rest of my life, I always did feel a bit like an alien among them. It turned out that music is one reason. I come from very musical people - almost all of my biological relatives play at least one instrument as well as sing, primarily folk and gospel music because that's who they are, but when they were sincerely enthusiastic when they heard my jazz/blues/gospel friend tear up a piano with a bunch of jazzy chords. I felt a validation of my musical temperament that I'd never felt in my adoptive family - music wasn't treated as just one of my bizarre interests, but as an intrinsically valuable thing that just about any normal person would enjoy immensely. I think this self-discovery encouraged my musical interests a lot.

Anyway, by the age of 23 or so I had some idea how to listen, rather than merely to emote along with the music, but I didn't have enough money to explore classical music much until I was about 31. Until then I had just a few dozen recordings that I heard over and over.

But then I really got started with both classical music and jazz. My first guides were mostly reviews on Amazon.com, the Penguin and Gramophone guides. So I wasted (from my current POV) a few years spending a lot of effort comparing recordings, as though that were the essential task of classical music.

(I am now suspicious of the entire enterprise. Who, for example, is "Santa Fe Listener" and what makes him the kind of authority who can stand in judgement of Claudio Abbado, Martha Argerich, Herbert von Karajan, Myung-whun Chung, Maurizio Pollini, Marc-André Hamelin, Mitsuko Uchida, Karl Richter, John Eliot Gardiner? For that matter, who is the Penguin Guide? Who is anybody? I no longer trust anyone to stand in judgement of a recording. And I no longer see that as a worthwhile activity in general. I do, however, value being familiar with the most famous or influential recordings, but beyond that the only thing I value is my own enjoyment and whether a particular recording reveals something about the music that is new to me.)

Finally, about five years ago I "found myself" relative to music: I realized that what I really cared about was history, that what I wanted to know about and explore was the history of composition, the history of musical instrument production, the history of patronage, the history of recording technologies, the social history of performance, and so on. Not that everyone needs to be into that - not by any means! - but that was my own thing. History in general is my thing.

So I can enjoy just about any music given that it has some kind of historical/cultural context. But the music that I love most is usually something that strikes me as really novel - rarely music before 1960 or so, in any genre, and almost nothing before 1880 or so. What I've struggled with most is not the music, but my own ignorance. I think I've found peace with that now, and just enjoy music simply, with no struggle remaining.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

science said:


> I had another epiphany in college, when I got back in touch with my biological relatives. I'd been adopted by an extremely non-musical family - no one played any instruments, no one was really interested in any kind of music at all, not even cousins or aunts or uncles or grandparents, it's just a family that is more into other things. But _I_, without actually having any talent, had always been much more interested in music. When I found my biological family I experienced in many ways a kind of familiarity (pun intended), a sense of effortless mutual sympathy that I'd never felt with my adoptive family - though they saved my life probably, and they're wonderful people in most important ways, and I will feel gratitude to them for the rest of my life, I always did feel a bit like an alien among them. It turned out that music is one reason. I come from very musical people - almost all of my biological relatives play at least one instrument as well as sing, primarily folk and gospel music because that's who they are, but when they were sincerely enthusiastic when they heard my jazz/blues/gospel friend tear up a piano with a bunch of jazzy chords. I felt a validation of my musical temperament that I'd never felt in my adoptive family - music wasn't treated as just one of my bizarre interests, but as an intrinsically valuable thing that just about any normal person would enjoy immensely. I think this self-discovery encouraged my musical interests a lot.


Science...such a great story. Thanks for sharing it.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I grew up listening to rock and popular music almost exclusively. I had no exposure to anything else (except maybe snippets of "Carmen" on television commercials, etc.) In my early 20's though I suddenly became very tired of the sameness of it all (I'm 34 now). I happened to meet someone at a party and we talked about music, including Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie (whom I knew next to nothing about). The next day I bought a Charlie Parker CD, and over the next several years I became a pretty serious jazz aficionado.

While I was mainly into jazz, I would also buy the occasional classical CD. I honestly don't even remember what I was most into at that time, but I know I didn't stray much from the most popular staples of classical music.

During my senior year of college I had a literally life changing experience with classical music (excuse me for being a bit melodramatic). I was taking an Ancient Greek language class, and one day when class started, the professor told us that instead of having class that day, he would be taking us all down to the Tsai Performance Center (at Boston University, where I went to school) where Yevgeny Yevtushenko would be speaking and reciting some of his poetry. Yevtushenko was in town for a performance of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony ("Babi Yar"), which is set to texts of his poems.

Our professor said that since it really had nothing to do with our Greek class, we were also free to not go if we didn't want to. I knew nothing about either Yevtushenko or Shostakovich, but I went, along with maybe half of the class. I was very impressed by Yevtushenko. He recited in both Russian and English, and even when he recited in Russian, which I don't understand at all, I was riveted. Toward the end of the lecture, he asked for a volunteer to come up to the stage to read with him. I was too chicken to raise my hand, and I still regret it (though I probably wouldn't have been chosen anyway).

So after that experience, I felt like I wanted to hear the performance of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony. It was at Symphony Hall in Boston, and one of my roommates was actually singing in the chorus. Again, it made a big impression on me, and I think it was that experience that turned me from an occasional dabbler into classical music into a serious listener (though I'm still maturing into that role).

I still love Shostakovich's 13th, not only because of the profound personal effect it had on me, but I also because I think it's just damn good music. Since then I've come to really love Shostakovich. Prior to that, the only other musician/composer who had the same sort of intense laser-beam effect directly into my soul was Charles Mingus. I think that for some reason my brain is sort of tuned into Shostakovich's music, like our polarities are aligned just right and the music just comes right in (again, sorry for the melodrama). That doesn't happen to me the same way with hardly anyone else's music.

It still took some time to fully "grok" classical music, so to speak. It can seem opaque when you don't know how to listen to it. I think having listened to a lot of jazz helped me in that there's plenty enough in good jazz to really engage the listener and make him want to experience it in a deeper way. Obviously most jazz and most classical music are very different, but at least I was prepared to make an effort with classical like I had with jazz, since I knew my efforts with jazz turned out to be well worth it.

I don't want to make it seem like I finally "get" classical music, since I'm really still learning. But I can at least say that it's been a very important part of my life for more than a decade now.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Vesteralen said:


> Science...such a great story. Thanks for sharing it.


Thank you. I really enjoyed apricissimus' story too.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

science said:


> Thank you. I really enjoyed apricissimus' story too.


Me too. This has been a great thread. I've learned so much about people. Their individual journeys are fascinating.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I was in college before I paid much attention to classical music. My father had several dozen LPs and I was familiar with their titles if not their contents, but IIRC it wasn't until the arrival of the EMI compilation "The Classic Experience" (on cassette!) in 1988 that I made any effort to listen to classical. I really enjoyed it but there was no "eureka moment" - it was certainly different from whatever popular music I was listening to back then, but it was just something else to listen to. Now that I was in college I had access to libraries and hence could explore further, but again despite some fantastic discoveries classical music remained for many years just one aspect of my musical tastes, neither above nor below the rest. It's only since about 2005 or so that classical has become almost the only type of music I listen to.
To go back to the OP, I'd say for me it was _neither_ hard work _nor_ love at first hearing.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

It was the harmonic minor scale I learned in guitar lessons. It had that haunting sound. So I thought this would be awesome in music. I was told it was used quite often in Classical Music. So that intrigued me. Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Bach instantly became favorites as my guitar teacher gave me some Classical Music suggestions.


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## Guest (Aug 2, 2013)

I had very little knowledge of classical music until fairly recently.

One great early experience - I was lucky enough to go on a business school sponsored trip to Budapest, Prague, and St. Petersburg in January of '92 - a fascinating trip in many ways. At that time those cities had very few tourists or tourist infrastructure. We saw operas at the Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest, the Estates Theatre and State Opera in Prague, and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Pete. Amazingly, we were able to buy awesome seats - e.g. 5th row center - for incredibly low prices - maybe $5 a ticket!

A few years later I saw Mstislav Rostropovich perform in Nizhny Novgorod. Before being told, I didn't know who he was.  At that time I might have had a dozen classical CDs but didn't listen to them much.

I've been listening seriously to classical music since Sept 09 or so -- almost 4 years now. When I first started out I didn't have a very good memory for melodies -- I remember struggling to identify the idée fixe recurrent melody representing the love interest in Berlioz' Symphony Fantastique. Now it is much easier to detect -- neural plasticity at work -- but I'm sure I still miss most melodic references and/or refrains for example in works by Mahler.

I still have a problem differentiating individual works - so much classical music still sounds the same to me -- sad but true. For example, I can't really tell most of Haydn's symphonies apart. I don't have this problem at all with alternative/pop/rock or even jazz where lots of artists have very distinct sounds and so are very easily recognizable. Most modern 20th century "classical" works are also a lot easier to recognize than the earlier 18th and 19th century music. 

Hopefully my ability to recognize and distinguish between works will get better over time. But I am truly in awe of people who can remember whole works, who can recognize references to those works in other works, etc.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

My family had a few classical pops on 78 vinyl records, & the same sort of pieces were played on the radio constantly. So I had some experience of classical music, but my point is that it was all the same tuneful or soothing sort. This has made it difficult for me to attune my ear to more modern classical composers, who sound harsh & dissonant to me; I'm also having to work on my concentration span, being used to three-minute soundbites.


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## LindnerianSea (Jun 5, 2013)

I started with classical music during my first year at university. Before this, I mainly listened to Progressive rock. I guess this to a certain degree helps explain my inclinations towards music of epic nature. However, my main 'click' happened when I picked up a Mahler 5th (Chailly) at a local CD shop. I was deeply fascinated by the 'dark' nature of the work, and how ambitiously, earnestly, and quite subtly (relative to the straight-forward heavy metal, for instance) they were projected. Even now as much as I was back then when I started listening to classical music, I am greatly engrossed towards classical music's capability of holistic and formal presentations of subtle to straight forward emotions compared to - let's say - virtuosity (although not mutually exclusive with the quality of compositions themselves), which is what mainly attracted me to symphonies from the start. I was electrified by the fact that some great music requires 4-5 listens to finally grasp it, by the time in which the piece would unfold within a certain internalized memory. I additionally started reading lots of academic journals and musicology publications (although I didn't understand half of what was being said and analysed). All this was something totally new to me. I found myself having jumped into this spiral loop of musical experience in which I would listen, read, listen again, and look for other interesting music. 

So yes, I think I babbled a bit. I hope some parts of the question were answered nonetheless. 

Best,
LindnerianSea


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## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

I am 28 years old. Until last January I gave no attention at all to classical music. The strange thing is that I always loved music, mainly Rock, Bossa Nova, Metal, Folk. But never had any interest on classical, maybe due to the lack of proper musical education in my country. Here in Brazil it is hard to have any decent education at all, on music is almost impossible unless your parents are musicians and want you to learn. My dad like pop/rock and was an electric bass player when young, and I learned to play it a little with him, but nothing related to classical.

Last January I watched Amadeus for the first time (a little late, I know) and was fascinated. Right after watching it the question popped in my mind: was I missing the best music humanity had ever written? For a week or two I searched for Mozart's music, but I was completely ignorant on the matter, I only got excerpts because I had no idea what was a symphony, a concerto, a string quartet. Even only with excerpts I was loving it. Then I crossed a video of Mahler's 2nd symphony conducted by Bernstein on YouTube and I was sold instantly. I was sure that I was missing the best music.

Then researching about classical music I found this forum and this thread  that completely changed my life. I had a place to start. As I am a computer programmer to earn my living and immersed on the internet since I was a kid, I think my beginning on classical music, even without any family or real life friends to talk about it, was easy. I spent hours and hours discovering terms and more terms about music. On February I decided to buy a violin and get some classes. I started to learn music theory with books.

Today I had learned enough to understand and talk about it decently, but I recognize that it will take years to be where I want to. And I don't mind this time at all, I am loving the journey and happy that I discovered this world early enough in my life. And I will always be grateful to you guys, since these boards are an invaluable aid in this journey.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

It was love at first hearing. I did have to slowly develop my tastes, though. There are a good handful of composers who I used to grimace at and denounce, but now put them high on the list. Now, I I accept almost everything, but I'm still developing my ear (especially for classical era music)

EDIT: I just realized this is for people who discovered classical later in life...I'll see myself out


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