# How long have you been seriously into Classical Music?



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

How long have you been seriously listening to Classical Music? I mean not just turning the radio on, but really digging into a composer. I started just before University, so about 22 years ago.


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

About the same time, a bit over 20 years. My first CD was Sibelius #2. It took weeks for me to appreciate it fully, some serious learning curve there..


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

My parents took me to the opera at 10/11 years old and concertos before that time, I had a CD player when I was 10 ( now almost 32) and a turntable also, my first vinyl was Beethoven concerto 5 Kempff.
My two first CD : Mozart arias / Fleming and duets by Sutherland/ Pavarotti.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Ever since I took my very first music lessons on piano at age 5. I wanted to be a concert pianist at that time and carried that wish for several years, until I discovered the trumpet and the appeal of conducting. My piano skills never did get to be all that impressive because I liked trumpet better, and two years ago neurologists told me my trumpet career was over......so I guess that leaves conducting?


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## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

About 22 years. As a high schooler I was watching MTV after school (naturally, that's what we watched back then, especially while pretending to do homework) and there was a commercial that came on that was making fun of Bach in comparison to today's "exciting music". I think. I'm not actually sure what the commercial was all about, because in the background of it Bach's music was quietly playing.

And that was it for me. Goodbye MTV, hello Classical music. I then bought 2 (probably awful) Beethoven and Bach "best ofs" and listened to them non-stop, just snippets of various well-known pieces. Soon after, I picked up this book: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51VFAd2yTzL.jpg ... and started building from there.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Pretty much since I joined TalkClassical - that is since spring 2012.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

As a small child I heard classical music as 78 RPM disks on the old phonograph at home, but started buying my own 33 RPM vinyl disks in my early teens, as the 33 vinyl LP was just taking over music. So it's been 60-something years now, actively acquiring and hearing music. Music of many kinds has seen me through many years and both rough and smooth times.


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## Guest (May 3, 2017)

I can remember where I was when I first listened to a full Beethoven symphony that I'd selected _because _it was a Beethoven symphony (and not just some music I'd heard in a movie). Walking the dog here...

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.8715959,-2.7720468,3a,75y,166.06h,84.18t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sJlA8GOOpHtPVCqixHD1A7A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DJlA8GOOpHtPVCqixHD1A7A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D63.56581%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
Not sure when, but it was about 2006.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Around 40 years for me. It started with Mozart, who is my favorite composer forever. I love to hear new music all the time and often listen to other styles, especially metal, soul & world music. Classical music team wins by 7 to 3 over the other styles all-star-team.


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

47 years. It began with a recording of Beethoven's 7th Symphony that I purchased for my mother who said it was her favorite. When I heard it, it blew away the 12 year old me.

Hooked ever since.


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

about 16-17 years.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

30 years

since rooting out the music behind a TV advert - Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

5 years ago, when I'd turned 60.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Kidding doesn't do seriously................


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

Always loved classical music but took it up seriously three years ago when I went to a concert! Never looked back!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I was 14 which was around 55 years ago!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Since I was 9 years old.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

hpowders said:


> Since I was 9 years old.


so does that mean 999 years


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> so does that mean 999 years


Close enough, which reminds me-I'm having my house painted. I have to remove the 999 bottles of beer on the wall.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Started listening to classical music when I was 20. 49 years ago this September. It has been a fantastic journey and hopefully there are a few miles left.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I was very, very young when I started to play the piano with my grandmother, and then I went to Musical School.

But, somehow, I never took it "seriously". To me, the "serious" stuff was always the things I learned at the "other" school: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Latin, Linguistics,... Music was always for fun.


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## Miggypiggy (Jul 10, 2015)

I had started studying violin at a young age, and I used to hate it. Then, one day, out of the blue, I decided that I wanted to become a great violinist. I was a very good violinist even before I had taken this decision at the age of 11 or so, but that added determination turned me into an exciting prospect. Eventually, I lost my confidence as I approached my late teens, and my interest in voice started overriding my dream of becoming a renowned violinist. At the age of 18, I started exploring contemporary music and that sparked a new interest in music in me. Then, I found yet another renewed interest in music when I enrolled at university.

So, the main answer to OP's question is "I was around 11 or so", but it fascinates me how many times I rekindle my passion for music and learning at different intervals. I never get sick of music, but sometimes you find that there are certain moments where you feel like you're falling in love all over again with the subject.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Pugg said:


> My parents took me to the opera at 10/11 years old and concertos before that time,* I had a CD player when I was 10* ( now almost 32) and a turntable also, my first vinyl was Beethoven concerto 5 Kempff.
> My two first CD : Mozart arias / Fleming and duets by Sutherland/ Pavarotti.


You just dated yourself as very youthful. When I was 10 I had a little cheezy suitcase turntable and the Monkeys first album just came out.

I dabbled in classical for a few years around 1980 but didn't really get into it seriously until about the time I joined TC: 2011.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Started listening to classical music around first grade... but I only seriously got into it in fourth or fifth grade.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Florestan said:


> You just dated yourself as very youthful. When I was 10 I had a little cheezy suitcase turntable and the Monkeys first album just came out.
> 
> I dabbled in classical for a few years around 1980 but didn't really get into it seriously until about the time I joined TC: 2011.


And I also had piano lessons for a long time.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Andolink said:


> 47 years. It began with a recording of Beethoven's 7th Symphony that I purchased for my mother who said it was her favorite. When I heard it, it blew away the 12 year old me.
> 
> Hooked ever since.


My interest was first triggered by my dad's copy of Beethoven's 7th (the Allegretto of course, conducted by Bruno Walter). That was during high school. But my serious interest started in college in the early 70s.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

My first serious enthusiasm came in college, when I took a music appreciation class so I could talk to a lovely music major. I was hooked for three years. Then I dropped it because it was taking up too much space in my head, and I needed a clear head to concentrate on my career. I picked it up again back in 1995 when I heard Satie's Gymnopedie No. 5 on the radio, and it was so compelling that it led me to one piece, then another, and the rest is history.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

When I was a kid (around 6) I remember a bunch of 12" 78s around the house, which I took to. Michael Haydn's Toy Symphony. Danny Kaye narrating Tubby the Tuba, a few Strauss waltzes. By Fourth Grade, I staryed collecting LPs -- Swan Lake excerpts, Peer Gynt, My sister started getting me records for Christmas/birthday (Toscanini doing the Eroica, Copland's Rodeo), by 6th grade I asked for my first opera for Christmas (Milanov/Bjoering/Christoff Aida). Never looked back (I'm now 66).


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

MarkW said:


> When I was a kid (around 6) I remember a bunch of 12" 78s around the house, which I took to.


Ah, those wonderful old 78s! When I was a kid, there was a stack of them tucked away in a closet drawer from my deceased uncle, and there was something about them which fascinated me. I wish I could have known him, because he was very musically aware. Back in 1946, he had recordings of pieces like Prokofiev's Lt. Kije and Shostakovich's 5th symphony.

To this day, I think the reason I like Kondrashin's Shostakovich is because the sound reminds me of those old 78s.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I took my classical music vows at age 9....but nun of that means anything anymore.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Florestan said:


> You just dated yourself as very youthful. When I was 10 I had a little cheezy suitcase turntable and the Monkeys first album just came out.
> 
> I dabbled in classical for a few years around 1980 but didn't really get into it seriously until about the time I joined TC: 2011.


I even tried to play accordion once, my goodness what a heck of a job.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

43 years. Started with Mahler and the 2nd Symphony, and worked backward, actually, skipping most of the 19th century and getting into Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, and Bach. That took a while, then I spread out in the baroque a bit, went through a New Age period, and then came back and started over around 20 years ago.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Pugg said:


> I even tried to play accordion once, my goodness what a heck of a job.


Even my father, who was a good musical, gave up trying to play that!


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Since 2009, so that makes eight years now. I was at a phase where I needed a new musical direction in my life, and I was trying different stuff. I tried classical, and haven't looked back. I know a lot of CM listeners like to listen to a wide range of music, different genres, being open-minded, but I'm not like that. I listen to classical music only and have no desire to listen to anything else... well, except very rarely. I try not to impose limits on myself, but I have a strong feeling that I'll listen to CM and not much else until I die.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

LIKE 25 years but they were teaching classical music when i was in school though.


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## CDs (May 2, 2016)

I believe I bought my first classical CD about 17 years ago, Mozart Requiem (Herreweghe). Bought a few more over the next couple of years then I kind of shifted my focus to different genres. Over the past year and a half I have really dove back into the classical music scene.


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

Since about 1998-99, when I was in my mid-30s. Like Xaltotun, I needed to refresh my ears, partly because I couldn't really identify with prevailing trends in rock music any more - why continue to spend precious time hewing away at the same old coalface when there was a rich and unexplored mother lode already waiting there for me?


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

My father listened to a lot of classical music when I was young so I had a lot of exposure to it at a young age. I don't think my father read a lot about the personal lives of conductors or about which recordings were the best. Of course, this was pre-Internet so any reading would have been books or magazines. My father was cheap and went for ultra bargain recordings for the most part. Some of these had decent liner notes, but some didn't have any at all. Anyway, I've inherited his classical music collection and still listen to it today even though it's mostly cheapo stuff like I mentioned. Some of it is actually pretty good though. 

Anyway, I wasn't really into music much myself until high school when I started listening to pop, rock, and stuff like that. I really didn't get back into classical music until the last handful of years really so I did go many, many years without listening to much classical music at all. I'm certainly glad to have found classical music again and of course now I'm reading more about composers, conductors, and recordings. The funny thing is that I always had a feeling that I would get back into classical music one day and that's why I kept my father's music collection even though it went many years without being used.


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## Jacred (Jan 14, 2017)

Since I started piano lessons at the age of six. 

My parents bought me a few CDs then to get me interested in classical music. They weren't complete recordings or anything--actually, they were just samples of well known pieces--but I listened to them quite often and ended up liking classical music.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I think consciously listening to music started when I was nine or ten. I listened to a daily Dutch radio show called Arbeidsvitaminen (Labour vitamins), probably during holidays from school. So I heard Rita Pavone, Heintje and other popular hits of that period. When I was 11 or 12 I started to listen to less canned popular music on midwave radio like Radio Luxembourg, Radio Noordzee (Northsea) and Veronica, mostly illegal radio stations broadcasting from outside the six-mile zone off the coast. That way I became acquainted with the popular music from 1970 onwards (Hendrix, Joplin, Moody Blues, Doors, etc.). I remember listening to a Hendrix-special in 50 episodes on Radio Luxembourg and to a regular progran on Dutch public radio where they played full albums (!). 

When I was 14 I became interested in classical music. At first in baroque music (Vivaldi, Bach) and in Brahms but soon afterwards in Bartók and Coltrane both of which have probably defined my taste in music for life. There has never been a real boundary between classical, jazz and popular music for me, all of them interest me.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Even my father, who was a good musical, gave up trying to play that!


I have a nephew and he plays like he never done anything else in his life. 
Also the bandoneon, try that one.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Barbebleu said:


> Started listening to classical music when I was 20. 49 years ago this September. It has been a fantastic journey and hopefully there are a few miles left.


In my community, you would be called "junior".


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

DavidA said:


> Even my father, who was a good musical, gave up trying to play that!


I think I've posted this before. Definition of perfect pitch - the ability to throw an accordion into a dumpster from fifty feet without hitting the sides!

I also seem to recall a cartoon, I think by Gary Larsson, where it shows two panels - one has people going through the pearly gates and being handed harps. The other shows more people going through the gates to down below and the devil is handing them accordions.:devil:


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

hpowders said:


> I took my classical music vows at age 9....but nun of that means anything anymore.


That's so punny. Laugh? I nearly started!:lol:


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