# How long have you been listening to classical music?



## chrisco97 (May 22, 2013)

I started listening to classical music around the time I was eight years old, when my mom bought a Beethoven CD. It was around that time I had started taking piano and one of the first pieces I learned how to play was Ode to Joy from Beethoven's ninth symphony...I never really went into it beyond that CD though, and I did not listen to it as much as I do with my music now. I had no clue what Op numbers were, I had no idea what the difference between a symphony and a concerto was, etc...I just knew there were pieces without words and that they had names like _Fur Elise_ and _Moonlight_. To tell you the truth, I even thought Beethoven was the one playing in the recordings. :lol:

I did not seriously start listening to classical music until about a year ago. I was on Amazon and stumbled across an album for $1.99 that had 100 Beethoven tracks on it (The Rise of the Masters album). I remembered when I listened to my old Beethoven CD, and how it only had like 20 pieces on it, and remembered how I enjoyed it. So I bought this CD, and I have been hooked on classical music every since. Beethoven still remains my favourite composer, but I have learned about so many different composers and I have grown so much in classical music since then. This forum has been a great learning resource and I am thankful to everyone here who has helped me.

So, when did you start listening to classical music? I would love to know!


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2013)

1960

or, in the 15 character or more version: Nineteen sixty.


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

Serious listening/collecting - since the late 90s. I was jaded with rock after about 20-odd years and so I followed Ives Sr.'s advice and stretched my ears. Classical became a twin-pronged attack with jazz but I've slowed down on jazz purchases over the last year or so. I still like certain old school rock but classical is the priority now - and the voyage of discovery goes forever on.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Since about 1967-68. Earlier if you count my sister's piano lessons, but I'm pretty sure John W. Schaum scarred me for life.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Around age four and a half, five, I got a gift of a small 'portable' record player, and some LP's with music of Prokofiev, Janacek, Bach, etc. Age six I started piano lessons, first lesson, Bartok Microkosmos Book I, a little later, the Schirmer edition collection of 'Beginner's Bach.' Lessons just continued, music camp, arts academy and conservatory followed, then I became 'pro' teaching piano as well as being the accompanist for singers, instrumentalists, chamber choirs.. hungry for more, I went back to school at near age thirty and did, all over again, a bachelor / masters in music theory and composition. 

I pretty much bypassed, but for a little of the inevitable which was floating about me on the airwaves, schoolmates listening preferences, most music of the more popular culture genres.

That record player 'in my life' was sixty one years ago.

So... kinda a long time listening, studying, playing almost exclusively "classical music." That makes me a sort of official Classical Geek, I suppose.


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## edge (Nov 19, 2011)

36 years ago in a high school music appreciation class. It was really a blow-off class but something stuck with me. Sometimes just the exposure to things can open wonderful doors.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

chrisco97 said:


> I started listening to classical music around the time I was eight years old, when my mom bought a Beethoven CD.


I was seven, when I bought my own Beethoven CD. First CD I ever purchased.

So, 19 years ago.  Still haven't looked back!


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I pretty much discovered it on my own when I was about 13 and found out that my local library on Long Island where I used to live had an extensive collection of classical LPs of a wide variety of repertoire and got hooked for life . I had already learned to play horn in elementary school a few years before and the rest is history . Not world-famous history, but history in my mind .


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

Ones own personal history is as prone to imperfect recall as any other area of history but here goes.When I was 'little' my father was in the merchant navy, often returning home with his 78's and in my memory Sibelius Karelia Suite 'triggered' a lifelong love of not only the great mans works but music generally, in its many forms. Yes, I have had many other consuming interests-as a student I saw the Clash numerous times and the early solo albums of Van Morrison have never been far away. European jazz (Stanko,Stenson,Wasilewski etc) has been a recent revelation but after all is said and done I will always return to what is imprecisely referred to as 'classical music'. Life often appears to be about change but is it not also about continuities? I am about to take voluntary redundancy from a job I have now had for over 30 years and as I contemplate the final week ahead of me it is naturally Sibelius I turn too. Later in the day I no doubt will listen to Brahms, Dvorak perhaps or Little Feat or Steely Dan but somehow, on a very personal level Sibelius is always there!


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I grew up with classical and semi-classical stuff. It was pop music I had to acquire a taste for, and I never did for most of it. 

In my days, when teenagers rebelled against society, they would listen to heavy metal. My teenage rebellion consisted of Bartok and Shostakovich.


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2013)

brianvds said:


> My teenage rebellion consisted of Bartok and Shostakovich.


We should really be better friends than we are.

Much better....


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

1986. Late bloomer (born in 1957). I thought with the new medium on the market (that's CD's for you whippersnappers), this was the right time to try to include classical music in my auditory diet. And I was right.


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2013)

September 2009, as a form of therapy.


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2013)

1964/5-ish I should say - when listening to my parents' Holst (Mars, scary) and Dvorak (From the New World). But I didn't make an active choice to buy classical on vinyl until around 1970/1 when I won a runner-up prize ("Name these famous American landmarks") run by Tizer and was able to buy 3 LPs with my £5 prize. One album was Sargent's _The Planets Suite_; the second was Grieg's _Peer Gynt Suite_ (my teeth continue to suffer from all those sweets!)


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

I've been exposed to classical music literally since I was in the womb. My mother always liked to talk about being very pregnant with me at a performance of Delibes' Coppélia where I was kicking in time to the music. Verdi operas and Mozart symphonies were playing on the record player at home during my earliest years. 

I bought my first classical record (Beethoven's 7th Symphony) when I was about 11 in 1969. By the time I was 15 I had developed a passion for Mahler's symphonies having been exposed to the 6th and 7th at my dad's house. 

I'm now 55 with a CD collection of well over 2,000 discs and the intensity of my classical music addiction burns as fiercely as ever.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

chrisco97 said:


> I started listening to classical music around the time I was eight years old, when my mom bought a Beethoven CD. It was around that time I had started taking piano and one of the first pieces I learned how to play was Ode to Joy from Beethoven's ninth symphony...I never really went into it beyond that CD though, and I did not listen to it as much as I do with my music now. I had no clue what Op numbers were, I had no idea what the difference between a symphony and a concerto was, etc...I just knew there were pieces without words and that they had names like _Fur Elise_ and _Moonlight_. To tell you the truth, I even thought Beethoven was the one playing in the recordings. :lol:
> 
> I did not seriously start listening to classical music until about a year ago. I was on Amazon and stumbled across an album for $1.99 that had 100 Beethoven tracks on it (The Rise of the Masters album). I remembered when I listened to my old Beethoven CD, and how it only had like 20 pieces on it, and remembered how I enjoyed it. So I bought this CD, and I have been hooked on classical music every since. Beethoven still remains my favourite composer, but I have learned about so many different composers and I have grown so much in classical music since then. This forum has been a great learning resource and I am thankful to everyone here who has helped me.
> 
> So, when did you start listening to classical music? I would love to know!


Re: your first paragraph,there are many people like that and can mostly be encountered here on TC.

I started getting keen on "classical" music in 1946....67 years ago.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

1997 

.............


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Around 1985-86 I first started paying any attention to classical, when I was 15-16. Started proper exploration 1988 I think, but it was about 10 years ago that I got truly serious about listening and collecting recordings.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

brianvds said:


> I grew up with classical and semi-classical stuff. It was pop music I had to acquire a taste for, and I never did for most of it.
> 
> In my days, when teenagers rebelled against society, they would listen to heavy metal. My teenage rebellion consisted of Bartok and Shostakovich.


Prokofiev, piano concerto No 2, at full volume just below distortion  Rock 'n' Roll!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> 1997
> 
> .............


Is that the year of your birth, COAG?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Is that the year of your birth, COAG?


Lucky guess. 

......


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

As for me i first heard it in the cartoons on TV,i learned it in school about it anyway.I brought my first tape like 1992 or 1993 THE BEST OF MOZART by RCA victrola.


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## jtbell (Oct 4, 2012)

I started when I was in high school in the late 1960s. My parents were completely non-musical, and we didn't even have a functioning "record player" in the house when I was a kid. When I was in about 10th grade, they bought me one of the first cassette recorder/players, an Ampex, and I started listening to music on it. I started buying pre-recorded cassettes (not many, I didn't have much money) and borrowing LPs from the library and dubbing them at a friend's house. At first it was a bit of everything: pop and rock (Beatles), jazz (Count Basie), classical (Beethoven and Sibelius). I liked classical the best, so that's pretty much all I've listened to seriously since then.

When I was in college, the library's record collection was a major resource for me. That's where I discovered Nielsen's symphonies: Bernstein's 3rd and Martinon's 4th.

Then I went to grad school, had a little money, finally, and spent a lot of time in record stores. Ann Arbor was a good place to shop for classical recordings in the late 1970s and early 1980s!


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2013)

After seeing the movie Amadeus in the mid 80's I started listening seriously to Mozart and then later other composers.

I will take this opportunity to share one of my favorite scenes from it. Salieri describing the "Gran Partita" Serenade as The Voice of God.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Nereffid said:


> Around 1985-86 I first started paying any attention to classical, when I was 15-16. Started proper exploration 1988 I think, but it was about 10 years ago that I got truly serious about listening and collecting recordings.


The first sentence relates closely to me, however when I get into something I tend to go fully at it straight away, and that was the case back then. Also wheres some may have been given the start by a gift from others I really took the initiative myself from the start, most in my family didn't know classical music that well.


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Was given a childrens' 45 record when just prior to primary school, so 5 years old. It was the narrated story of Sleeping Beauty but not with Tchaikovsky, rather with Mendellsohn's Hebrides Overture instead. It was Fingal's Cave played as a riff/sting/hook, and it was possibly my first conscious experience of the Ineffably Beautiful. I knew it was a human signal, something that people somewhere out in the adult world did on instruments I barely understood, but i felt that they had to be plugged into a source of universal power & goodness to produce sound so moving. And the fact that it was _tones_ and nothing else, that's what boggled l'il me.

Then I listened to Devo for decades.

At some point I noted that pop music had gone into reruns for another generation with a different sensibility and I was disinvited. For a year I compared versions of 4'33" until I felt that without Fingal's Cave something crucial in life was being neglected. So in 2008 I decided to climb the mountain of one composer and take the measure of the work as I would with painters, writers & poets. Listen to everything one composed, rather than smorgasbord many. I opted for Sibelius, who's not a mountain but a forest, went in and never returned.

But like a drop of ink in a glass of water the fascination spreads uncontrollably. Until all of a sudden, it seems, Hildegarde and Xenakis are bedmates (giggity).


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Kleinzeit said:


> Was given a childrens' 45 record when just prior to primary school, so 5 years old. It was the narrated story of Sleeping Beauty but not with Tchaikovsky, rather with Mendellsohn's Hebrides Overture instead. It was Fingal's Cave played as a riff/sting/hook, and it was possibly my first conscious experience of the Ineffably Beautiful. I knew it was a human signal, something that people somewhere out in the adult world did on instruments I barely understood, but i felt that they had to be plugged into a source of universal power & goodness to produce sound so moving. And the fact that it was _tones_ and nothing else, that's what boggled l'il me.
> 
> Then I listened to Devo for decades.
> 
> ...


You should write books. Really. Okay, no "should" in anything in life. But you should... :tiphat:


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

TY Kieran! It's not the writing so much as the removing of half the words you write. "Sorry for the long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one".


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Kleinzeit said:


> TY Kieran! It's not the writing so much as the removing of half the words you write. "Sorry for the long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one".


It's called elephantiasis. But you mix _what you're saying_ with _how you say it_ and I could read it all day. So stop removing stuff! 

By the way, I start listening donks ago, gave it up, got hooked on Dylan, gave that up, thought Bruce had the answer, went to a few shows, heard K466 and nodded sagely and since then...about five years now...


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Fives years, you & me both

& that elephantiasis, uh... that's not in one's brain, exactly

/jury's out on that one though


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Kleinzeit said:


> Fives years, you & me both
> 
> & that elephantiasis, uh... that's not in one's brain, exactly
> 
> /jury's out on that one though


Elephantiasis of the written word. It's a disease in most people - we Irish call it "getting warmed up..."


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Kieran said:


> Elephantiasis of the written word. It's a disease in most people - we Irish call it "getting warmed up..."


well then






but is it Jimmy's only song? Didn't he write Strings in the Earth & Air which I discovered through Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band. And Golden Hair, courtesy of Syd Barrett


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Been exposed to music including classical since I was in the womb, piano lessons from age 6, started conscious broad spectrum discovery of classical at about 10, stopped piano lessons after a lengthy discussion with my teacher at 20 as my physiomechanical properties would never be strong enough to become really good (and I just hate to be second rate..  ), started a 25 year streak of fanaticism August 9th or 10th 1975, have since mellowed and spread wider into the musical universe!

Even if I'm still precocious in the company of Gentlemen like Mr Moody and Sir Hilltroll72 (My body is ancient, my mind is Young  ), I've clocked about 45 years of more or less serious classical enjoyment, of which, the latest 25 have been a very thorough path of discovery!

/ptr


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Kleinzeit said:


> well then
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That sounds like a lot of songs for him! But check this out. Yeats has a lot of songs, gorgeous ones too.

Cheers! :tiphat:


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Kieran said:


> That sounds like a lot of songs for him! But check this out. Yeats has a lot of songs, gorgeous ones too.
> 
> Cheers! :tiphat:


Yeats-- oh I will, right after fun at the beach. Also dig out this cd later today:









His music sounds rather merry.


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## Bix (Aug 12, 2010)

Around 6. When I used to go and visit my dad on the weekends he would always let me listen to music as he got on with some work - there was lots to choose from and from many genres but I always played the one with the funny writing on the front...

Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский

... and fell in love with track number 2, (before I came to know what a musical movement was), this lovely limping waltz from Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony 




Once dad allied that I liked classical music, he started to introduce me to more - the rest of Tchaikovsky, the Shostakovich, then Beethoven and it went on. Then I started to independently search around for other classical music.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

By fortune, I was exposed in very early years -maybe since I was born- to classical music from my Grandmother. She used to play classical music since I was in the cradle. Having a huge family I was exposed also to my -very older- cousins taste of Folk, Ethnic, Rock, Pop and Jazz and exposed to the Big Bands/Instrumental music -from Benny Goodman to Ray Coniff and beyond- of my father and mother. So I was born listening to classical music and, simultaneously, to other forms of music.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Since I was a toddler. I got my first classical CD at around age 5 or so. I went to my first live performance when I was 6. I was exposed to opera first, interestingly enough. Classical was all I listened to regularly (with a scattering of pop and showtunes) until I was around 11 or so and started putting together mix-CDs of non-classical music. From then, I got interested in new age, EDM, and indie pop/rock. But I never stopped liking any classical I used to like; my library of classical has only expanded; it's still my favorite genre of music.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

Tristan said:


> I got interested in new age, EDM, and indie pop/rock.


Yes, when I was a teenager I remember 'discovering' New Age... you know, Vangelis, Oldfield and the like and in the classical front, Beethoven


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

When I was nine, I started taking piano. Going into my early teens, I didn't really listen to any music (the only music I ever heard was pop and rap from my sister and cousins, and latin from family parties). But then my piano teacher introduced me to Chopin and my parents got me an ipod (when I was 14). Five years later, I have a huge library and a healthy addiction


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I started seriously listening to classical music and opera around 1978 or so. One of the first things I did was attend a live performance of the Ring in Seattle. I started off with a bang.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

bigshot said:


> I started seriously listening to classical music and opera around 1978 or so. One of the first things I did was attend a live performance of the Ring in Seattle. I started off with a bang.


I think you started off with a very soft, low E flat from what it seems.


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## TrevBus (Jun 6, 2013)

Since watching Fantasia. Actually, several years before that but never so enthusiastically.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Listening _and paying attention_ - 1950. I can zero in on that year because the family had just moved, and in the 'new' apartment my room was next to my brother's. He had his radio tuned to a classical station most of the time.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

TrevBus said:


> Since watching Fantasia. Actually, several years before that but never so enthusiastically.


Fantasia did it for so many people.


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

My mom always tells me that I started listening to classical music while in her womb, but later I found out that it was Richard Clayderman that she was referring to, so I don't think that counts. 

A lot of people talk about how they got into classical music through someone close to them or a gift (like a CD) from someone close to them, but none of my family or friends really listened to classical music. Somehow, I was just drawn to classical music. All my happy childhood memories of listening to music are of classical music. When I started piano lessons at 5 years old, my piano teacher would tell me anecdotes of famous composers, which helped trigger my interest. 

If I had to say a specific time at which I actually started to listen to classical music, I think it would be when I was 6 years old. That was the age when I learned to choose what I wanted to listen to for myself, clearly state this choice, and obtain it (through my parents money at the time, of course). In other words, I began to listen to classical music the moment I learned to choose my own music.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

Cosmos said:


> [...](the only music I ever heard was pop and rap from my sister and cousins, and latin from family parties).


I have two groups of teenagers and I use rap with them in order to learn history and biology.

It is outstanding the aid that 'rap' has given me to make them understand and then 'retold' the lessons in rap format. We are thinking in a sort of 'rap' contest for history 'rap-ing' the historical passages they most want to 'rap'.


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## Guest (Jul 7, 2013)

Kleinzeit said:


> Then I listened to Devo for decades.


You poor soul. I had the 'pleasure' of hearing Devo at Knebworth in 1978 (Genesis, Jefferson Starship headlining) and thought they were awful. Oddly enough, looking back, if I hadn't got cloth ears, I might have enjoyed them, but was somewhat prejudiced about Punk/New Wave - and certainly anything from the US that had no cred in my gang!

Mark Mothersbaugh went all media and wrote dozens of TV and video tunes (I liked _Rugrats_). I particularly like his scores for Wes Anderson movies!


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

3 years...............................


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

I started listening to classical when I was about 12 and bought my first classical record (Beethoven's 5th) around that time. I started listening to Shostakovich and Prokofiev when I was about 14/15 and also discovered Mahler around this time. That was over 40 years ago, and I'm still listening, still learning and still loving all this music.


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> You poor soul. I had the 'pleasure' of hearing Devo at Knebworth in 1978 (Genesis, Jefferson Starship headlining) and thought they were awful. Oddly enough, looking back, if I hadn't got cloth ears, I might have enjoyed them, but was somewhat prejudiced about Punk/New Wave - and certainly anything from the US that had no cred in my gang!
> 
> Mark Mothersbaugh went all media and wrote dozens of TV and video tunes (I liked _Rugrats_). I particularly like his scores for Wes Anderson movies!


Heh heh. That was just a metonymy. Devo were a bit of ooh-la-la, for sure, but even in 1978 I'd have balked at Genesis & Starship (though I was weaned on Airplane). I feel your pain.

As an eastern Canadian I gravitated toward UK sounds rather than American ones. Magickal T Rex & Donovan, say, over ******* hippies like the Allmans. By the late 70s I was already becoming alienated from alienation music like the Punk & New Wave. I tried with all my little might to like Prog but just couldn't, with the exception of Gentle Giant which is the only --I can't say pop-- I put on these days, that and 1950s & -60s vintage Bollywood songs.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

I owe my love for classical to my older brother. He had decided to venture into classical in the mid-90's, and had bought a collection of classical albums called "In Classical Mood" which came with a "A-Z of Music" guide ...

http://www.amazon.com/In-Classical-Mood-Vol-1-16/dp/B000RI0HXU

When I was around 7 or 8 I remember stumbling across both and becoming curious. I ended up reading about all the composers, listening to some of the pieces and just being fascinated by it all. My first experience of being truly moved by classical music was after listening to Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto when I was maybe 11 or 12. I will never forget the profound effect it had (and continues to have) on me and it was a major inspiration for me to continue to discover this amazing world of music.

I've tried to give other genres a chance too, but I know that nothing will ever come close.


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## CyrilWashbrook (Feb 6, 2013)

In the broadest sense, I've been listening to classical music for most of my life. My sisters both played the violin and piano and I would often be in the same or next room while they were practising. I started casually with the piano when I was five and started learning the cello at school when I was six. Learning/playing those instruments went hand in hand with listening to classical music.

In terms of actual "purposive" listening, that's a much more recent development, which really only started in the latter part of 2011 when I studied in Germany and started going to concerts. My interest escalated from there (my interest in playing has also been reanimated) and the vast majority of the music I listen to now is classical.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I was always a little interested in classical music - I checked out Bach recordings from a library when I was in 6th grade. But my family is a-musical, and I didn't really get into any music at all until late in high school when I had my own money. Then I began dabbling in it, and I dabbled more in college, and then sometime almost a decade ago I began to be much more serious about it. 

For about six years I explored it almost single-mindedly, but then I also turned to jazz, and since then it's been back and forth mostly between jazz and classical music. I still intend to explore other things - Indian classical music, electronic music, film music, musical theater, etc. - in the future as well. 

I've become complacent about music now, though. I feel I have learned about enough, so now I explore for fun, rather than to fill in deficiencies in my knowledge.


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## Rehydration (Jun 25, 2013)

My intro to classical music started when I wasn't even a month old. Perhaps some of you a familiar with the "Baby Einstein" VHS tape series? If not, look it up. It's a video series that introduces basic learning skills with classical music at the same time. Those were probably the best videos I watched up until I was 4 years old. 
My grandmother really influenced my classical music appreciation, too--I believe she attended the Jacobs School of Music, and was a true rarity; one of the only pianists (let alone students) to ever score a perfect 100 on the music final. She still plays today (and very beautifully at that). I grew up in my grandparents' house for a short year of my life, and I remember hearing Chopin preludes and Schumann's _Kinderszenen_ while playing with my toys. She is also a great interpreter of Debussy's most well-known works, including the Suite bergamesque (that is how you spell it, right?), Children's Corner, and Reflections in the Water.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Kleinzeit said:


> Was given a childrens' 45 record when just prior to primary school, so 5 years old. It was the narrated story of Sleeping Beauty but not with Tchaikovsky, rather with Mendellsohn's Hebrides Overture instead. It was Fingal's Cave played as a riff/sting/hook, and it was possibly my first conscious experience of the Ineffably Beautiful. I knew it was a human signal, something that people somewhere out in the adult world did on instruments I barely understood, but i felt that they had to be plugged into a source of universal power & goodness to produce sound so moving. And the fact that it was _tones_ and nothing else, that's what boggled l'il me.


^This is pretty much how I always feel when hearing Fingal's Cave.

When I was little, "music" in my house meant classical music. There were a few folk records in the house, and the musical "Annie" and maybe one or two Muppets LPs, but the vast majority of what I had access to was Beethoven and Bach and Mozart and my beloved Peter & the Wolf with Nutcracker Suite on the flip side. I also used to watch videos of ballets over and over again, imprinting the score of "Swan Lake" in particular upon my memory. So I guess I have been listening to classical music all my life. It's my native tongue. The other stuff is all acquired taste


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## Guest (Jul 8, 2013)

science said:


> I explore for fun, rather than to fill in deficiencies in my knowledge.


I explore for fun, rather than to fill in deficiencies in my knowledge...which are vast!


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

MacLeod said:


> I explore for fun, rather than to fill in deficiencies in my knowledge...which are vast!


If music isn't fun what's the point listening? Listening to impress others doesn't seem to me that beneficial. There are gaps in my knowledge but I suspect that's more than made up for by knowledge in other musical areas. And as gaining knowledge is a lifelong thing I don't feel I have to rush anything, I'll explore things according to whatever I fancy and not what someone suggests, surely I should know best what I'm ready for.


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

My obsession with Mozart began when I was 7 and watched Amadeus. Bach came about a year later when my piano teacher determined that I seemed to connect to this music more easily than that of other composers (I was a math geek) and, thus, prescribed Bach for the remainder of my childhood. I came to enjoy other composers as well, but Mozart/Bach remain my numero uno. Looking back, it was actually fun being a strange kid.


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## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

Early teens, so about 40 years.
My first LP was Mozart’s symphonies 40 & 41, I played it and played it and never got fed up with it. 
I still have the record somewhere, I just couldn't get rid of it when I went over to CD.


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

Kleinzeit said:


> TY Kieran! It's not the writing so much as the removing of half the words you write. "Sorry for the long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one".


This is brilliant and I am going to shamelessly steal this quote when I e-mail my uncle about my burgeoning taste in opera and other vocal music. I will also leave this post as a first draft in honor of this. *NOT* because I'm a lazy *******, I swear.:angel:

I started listening in my late teens, I would assume in 2004 when I was 17. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure I remember thinking that was a monumental moment and that I should pound it into my head for future reference.:lol:

You see, I got my start through heavy metal when in my early teens and quickly moved away from the pseudo-pretender stuff to underground material, the 'real thing', and as is my nature I joined some boards focused on underground metal. Unsurprisingly the people you meet at underground music forums tend to be the sort of people with diverse tastes that really hunt down knowledge on different kinds of music, so I learned a lot and explored many different genres, sometimes in a very odd order*, ranging from electronic music (which I took to quite slowly), to--no surprise--classic rock from the '70s and to a lesser extent the '60s. (They tended to be fans of Thin Lizzy, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, et. al. Hard rock.) It was really a great experience in many ways. The really complex drumming that impressed me on Mastodon's first album? "Yeah, he is definitely influenced by jazz drummers, try Billy Cobham." And so I went off into a long exploration of jazz fusion, and eventually more traditional jazz.

But classical? A metal fan also liking Led Zeppelin or Steppenwolf or Iggy and the Stooges is one thing, but classical? Ah, but there were some fans! And this was truly the last frontier. I put it off for a while but I eventually had no choice but to explore. Some of those fans (unsurprisingly) tended toward rather intense or depressive sounding 20th century music like Ligeti or Shostakovitch (let me assure you that I am NOT putting these in the same category)...Holst's Mars was quite popular, as was Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, but there was also a very distinctive joy taken in the 'heroic' tradition that started with Beethoven (at least to us) and in particular in Romantic naturalism. I learned of Beethoven and Karajan, of Mahler and Bernstein, Rachmaninoff and Ashkenazy, Sibelius and Berglund...of Brahms and whatever MP3s I could get my hands on for free in Soulseek. (Shut up, I was poor!) I learned of the downright hallucinogenic experience of listening to nothing but MP3s of Rogg's recording of Bach's solo works for three days! I learned of the joys of chamber music and how much more 'sense' it naturally made to me coming from a background of relatively small ensembles (rock, jazz, metal), when I couldn't get my head around a massive orchestral or choral work and developed an abiding love of chamber music that remains to this day. And that was just from recordings. My rare 160 mile round trips to San Antonio to concerts to keep from going insane, my lifeblood at the time, became more frequent to my parents' dismay; gas wasn't cheap, even then, and good rock and metal bands coming to town was rare, but the symphony and chamber music groups (one of which gave free admission to students!) were a regular occurrence when in season...and so my father eventually put his foot down and limited me to two trips a month. He also had some things to say about the ridiculous quantity of recordings I was buying to accompany the free music on MP3. (If you check my posts in the purchases thread you'll see that some things never change...)

My tastes in classical have changed since then, and I even quit listening to classical for a few years during a longstanding bout of off-and-on depression when I didn't feel that it had the essential humanity that I got from (early) Judas Priest; Black Sabbath; the Grateful Dead; Led Zeppelin; the Allman Brothers; The Doors; Orange Goblin; Waylon Jennings; Kris Kristofferson; Willie Nelson, and quit listening to classical almost entirely, but even during that time I always kept my (large) box of classical recordings safe. When times were hard and I was selling off my CDs (so many wonderful classic rock albums that I'll need to re-buy...) I held that box as something sacred and refused to touch it until the inevitable return of my classical listening, when I could prune it very carefully. I even went and looked at the box occasionally and wondered when that day was coming--you do weird things when you're depressed. That day eventually came and I'm happy that it did. My tastes may have changed, I may even have sold off many of the recordings I picked up 'back in the day', but I'm very happy to have the pre-existing knowledge that came with that early exploration, and most importantly to be able to remember the sense of identity I developed from my diverse tastes, my pride at being able to speak (on the phone) with my opera singing uncle and choral singing aunt about music we both loved, but most of all the memory of the thrill of exploration and sating my curiosity, and the pride I felt as I hiked straight into the midst of that unknown final frontier in spite of the misery surrounding me, at times encompassing me as a result of growing up in a rough town, and that for a short period of time, at least, I didn't feel the need to just give up.

*I think my favorite example of this is that during my exploration of classic rock I had ignored the Allman Brothers Band as being 'too mellow' until I picked up Kind of Blue and read about Duane Allman and his brilliant improvised soloing in the liner notes and decided to check out their stuff. That was a great find, they've been one of my favorite bands ever since.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

All my life. And if I'm lucky, in all my future lives, as well.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Since approximately 1974. My first classical album was Händel's Water Music, which really turned me off to pre-20th Century classical for a decade, but Stockhausen and Schönberg, which I got shortly after Händel, were my first steps on the road back through the centuries of music, even back to Händel.


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## jimsumner (Jul 7, 2013)

Seriously listening since about the middle 1970s, when I was mid-20s. Came from rock but never left rock. Still an omnivore.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Since July 2010, and during the first year it was almost exclusively Wagner. I started exploring other composers after discovering this forum some time later. As for how it started... Me watching _Amadeus_ with a friend who was into all things classical. The conversation naturally turning to music afterwards. Something along the lines of "if you love fantasy and the German language, you should try Wagner" being uttered. Me coming home, getting on YouTube and listening to Siegfried's Funeral Music, the _Tannhäuser_ prelude and the _Flying Dutchman_ prelude in the dark, eyes closed. Me being instantly hooked.


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## Conor71 (Feb 19, 2009)

I was a latecomer to Classical and have been listening seriously for about 7 years


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I have liked bits and bobs of classical all my life, but seriously, for two and a half years, since Taggart 'impulse-bought' a piano and rippling music mellowed through the house.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Conor71 said:


> I was a latecomer to Classical and have been listening seriously for about 7 years


Wow, we must've started about the same time then, and we've known each other [on-line] for most of it! (You probably don't remember me from other boards, but you use Conor71 everywhere, so it's easier for me to remember you.) We're practically twins, separated at birth.

Not sure how you might feel about that... reminds me of: http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7YCH/nfl-twins-featuring-steven-jackson


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## playpiano (Jul 13, 2013)

i only started recently, i used to think it was quite boring but now i realise that it is proper music


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Over 50 years. Wonderful!


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## Conor71 (Feb 19, 2009)

science said:


> Wow, we must've started about the same time then, and we've known each other [on-line] for most of it! (You probably don't remember me from other boards, but you use Conor71 everywhere, so it's easier for me to remember you.) We're practically twins, separated at birth.
> 
> Not sure how you might feel about that... reminds me of: http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7YCH/nfl-twins-featuring-steven-jackson


Sure I remember you mate - I follow your postings on this forum and Amazon so I know about the recordings you are buying and what music you have been listening to . I notice that we share a lot of interests in classical and non-classical music and tend to buy a lot of "classic" recordings. I like your classical project too but I regret I had to retire from participating in that one because i reached the point where i didnt know any of the works!.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I've been listening to it for about 9 years, but not all of those count. I only got really serious in the past 3-4 years or so. Before that I just listened to a couple Beethoven piano sonatas and thought that was about as far as classical music went, boy was I wrong!


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

I've been listening to classical seriously for about two years now, although I've always been interested in it. It started with hearing Haydn's Farewell symphony, as well as the Surprise symphony, the Emperor Quartet and the trumpet concerto.


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## PrimoUomo (Jul 7, 2013)

I first heard classical music when I was 3 and afterwards I decided that it was the only music I liked.
I started to buy cds in 2011 and in 2012 I was totally obsessed of baroque music. I am only 12 years now.


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## Borodin (Apr 8, 2013)

I've been listening since the 18th century.


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

Borodin said:


> I've been listening since the 18th century.


It sounds like you could clear up a lot of debates on historical performance practice and how things 'worked' back then.


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## DaveS (Apr 30, 2013)

I attended public schools back in the 60s. Beginning in 4th grade, the school's music teacher advocated teaching music memory to us. The 5th graders had to memorize familiar parts from 4 works, the 5th had 8 works, the 6th had 12 and so forth. She(the teacher) tried to use phrases so that we could remember a tune.. e.g. New World Symphony by Anton Dvorak...or something from Mozart's 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Somehow it seemed effective and it did maintain my interest. 
Then I regained interest in classical music in the late 70s after being re-introduced to it by a family friend(many years my senior)and amassed a fairly large LP collection over the years. Mostly orchestral, with a fair amount of solo piano. Enjoyed organ as well.
Sort of drifted for a while in the 90s, then regained steam in the mid 2000s, and am maintaining that steam today.


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## CDs (May 2, 2016)

I first started listening to classical music around 2000. I was working at a locally owned record store and I began asking the classical expert questions. One of the first CDs I bought was Mozart Requiem conducted by Philippe Herreweghe.
I remember the coworker I was asking questions to had like 8 or so complete Beethoven symphony cycles but he mentioned a lot that his favorite was the new complete cycle by Claudio Abbado. So every time I see that set on Amazon I think of him.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I came to classical music later than most.

Sure, I always had a few classical recordings, but it was not until my mid 30's that I really got into listening to classical.

I am a long time fan of various sub-genres of prog-rock, but mostly avant-prog, which is highly influenced by 20th century and contemporary classical.

At some point, I finally said to myself, I should give some of the music that avant-prog is influenced by alisten. As soon as I did, I was an instant fan.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Since I was five years old.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

I have been listening to classical music exclusively, obsessively and compulsively for about 30 years.


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## Conglomerate (Jan 30, 2016)

I started a few months ago.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Since around age 14. I heard a vinyl LP of Ravel's _Bolero/La Valse/Ma Mere l'Oye_ and another of Copland's Appalachian _Spring/Rodeo/Billy the Kid_. I was dazzled by the Ravel works at the time, and I still am today. (Age 58)


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Since I was 13 or 14. It started with Baroque music (Vivaldi's Four Seasons) and Recorder Music (Frans Brüggen).


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I am conscious of hearing specific classical pieces at around age 8--almost all Russian: Rimsky, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Rachmaninoff, some Ravel and Debussy. 78s and then LPs that my mother would listen to.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I was brought up with it, so nearly 31 years


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## dieter (Feb 26, 2016)

Apparently I beat time when my parents listed to classical radio concerts in the Pfalz in the mid 50's: I was three. WE came to Australia, my mother listened to the radio and called me when the Pilgtrims' Chorus from Tannhauser came on, or the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi's Nabucco.
My father bought a Pye Stereogram in December 1964. I was 14. He bought 4 records: Szell conduction Haydn's Oxford coupled with Schubert's Unfinished, Callas singing arias by Beethoven, Weber and Mozart, Weldon conducting Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, and the piece that finally permeated my thick skull, Beethoven's 9th, the Scherzo. It was the Ansermet Recording.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Around 40 years, but with intermissions


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## dieter (Feb 26, 2016)

PetrB said:


> Prokofiev, piano concerto No 2, at full volume just below distortion  Rock 'n' Roll!


It's my favourite Prokofiev Concerto - well, along with the first fiddle concerto.


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## Guest (May 20, 2016)

MacLeod said:


> 1964/5-ish I should say - when listening to my parents' Holst (Mars, scary) and Dvorak (From the New World). [etc]


Well, I've been listening almost three years longer than when I posted this answer, but I should have added that I didn't set aside pop/rock and begin to focus on classical until about 2008/9. That was when I decided to buy and listen to all of Beethoven's symphonies. Whilst I still enjoy pop/rock, I've not picked it up again with quite the same enthusiasm (only alt-J, Burial and Fleet Foxes attracting my attention among newer artists), whereas I've moved onto Debussy, Haydn, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Mahler and Sibelius...


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

For 13 years now...a little over half my life.


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## dieter (Feb 26, 2016)

violadude said:


> For 13 years now...a little over half my life.


Is WA like Western Australia?


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## CDs (May 2, 2016)

dieter said:


> Is WA like Western Australia?


No WA is short for Washington State USA


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## dieter (Feb 26, 2016)

CDs said:


> No WA is short for Washington State USA


Where's that? 
Just joking. It's warming up there now.Dark, cold winter is setting in here, though winters are not as cold as yours.


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

About 6 years. I only got serious about it in the past two years or so however.


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## CDs (May 2, 2016)

dieter said:


> Where's that?
> Just joking.


I've learned to say Washington State because if I don't most people will think I mean Washington D.C. (The capital of the USA)
And no it doesn't rain here everyday


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## majlis (Jul 24, 2005)

About 60 years.


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

Since I was 9 or 10 years old - popular excerpts from Carmen, Swan Lake etc.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I remember hearing Peter and the Wolf as a small child. After that it was in my teens and heavily into rock music that my dad influenced me to listen to Beethoven symphonies and Wagner overtures. I also got into Mussorgesky's Pictures at an Exhibition after having listened to the Emerson, Lake and Palmer electronic version. Then I assembled a collection of maybe two dozen classical records, all this in the 1970s/early 1980s. Then I pretty much quit until about 2011. Now I probably have a few hundred classical CDs.


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## Martyn Harper (Jan 27, 2016)

I have been listening to classical music on and off for 36 years now (since I left School in 1980).


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Conglomerate said:


> I started a few months ago.


Good for you!! Excellent!!! :tiphat:


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## Adam Weber (Apr 9, 2015)

About four or five years, since I was fourteen or fifteen. There's a gray area between "liking some Chopin" and full-fledged fan.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I discovered classical music around 1967 when I was 13 . I had been playing French horn for a few years earlier starting in elementary school and discovered the extensive collection of classical LPs in my local library on Long Island and became hooked on classical , as the old song used to go, and the rest is history .


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

About 3 years now.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

majlis said:


> About 60 years.


Same here, and I'm shooting for 90 years.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bulldog said:


> Same here, and I'm shooting for 90 years.


Good luck with that.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Pugg said:


> Good luck with that.


I'm already one day closer to my goal.


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## znapschatz (Feb 28, 2016)

From pre memory. My parents had a radio/record player console with toothmarks on the turntable compartment from when I was @ 3 years old, absorbed in the popular classics they liked to play (_Samson & Delilah, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Ritual Fire Dance_, etc.) while standing there and resting my teeth on the wood edge, head high for me then. 
Avidly, since age 16, but I haven't damaged furniture about it since.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

My first exposure was on a school field trip to Saratoga Performing Arts Center in the summer of 1973 or '74 to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra. But I was too young to make any sense of the music. I didn't really start listening seriously until the early 80s.


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