# Bad advice for beginners



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Prompted by a recent thread in which a newcomer to classical music asked where would be a good place to start listening, and soon received recommendations to begin with Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th century, or 21st century music.

When _I_ started listening to classical music, I explored on my own. I began with the "popular orchestral classics" and blundered along from there, finding music I liked by trial and error or random good fortune.
Of course there was plenty of music I didn't like; some of it I still don't much care for, some of it I really enjoy now. If I'd asked the (at the time non-existent) Internet for advice, a lot of the recommendations would have been, frankly, a waste of time.
Mozart and Haydn, for instance, made little impression on me to begin with, so being told that this was "great" music that I "should" like would have been most unhelpful. Apart from a handful of "pops", Baroque music sailed over my head. Most chamber music left me cold. And so on.

So, when _you_ started listening to classical music, what sort of unhelpful advice did you get? Were you troubled because you didn't appreciate the recommended music, and did you persevere or try something new?


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

No advice.

I had an older friend who played in a Symphony Band in the late 1960's. They performed all wind instrument arrangements of light classics. That got me interested. I started with "William Tell Overture" and the music from "Carmen". Then I found my own path.

My advice to beginners would probably be, "Don't ask for advice".


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2014)

"Back in the day" (when people didn't use the saying, "Back in the day") I didn't ask for, nor did I receive any advice. I just listened to what I wanted to listen to. I did also hear what I didn't necessarily want to, because my older brother took ownership of the gramophone and played whatever - DSCH, Ives, Schoenberg, Berg - but it was an education.

I can understand asking for some specific advice such as, "Which of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas/Haydn Symphonies are supposed to be the best" since there's a lot of them, and it might help the wallet to narrow it down.

But I'm mystified by the "I've-never-listened-to-classical-where-do-I-begin?" question.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I spent too much time trying to "appreciate" music than trying to listen to it. I treated the canon as gospel, and was mostly just forcing myself to develop the sorts of tastes I felt I was supposed to have.

I read too many advice lists written by those who didn't share my taste. Typically this advice assumed that wonderful melodies were the easiest to get into. None of it applied to rock baby like me. 

My breakthrough came when I started viewing it as a huge world of music in which I could locate my own tastes. Sometimes my opinions were naive (maybe they still are), but at least they are mine.


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## Declined (Apr 8, 2014)

I'm still relatively new compared to some of you people. What I'm doing is finding what I like, and then exploring similar composers. And of course I explore composers with whom I'm unfamiliar too.

It's working thus far.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

GreenMamba said:


> I spent too much time trying to "appreciate" music than trying to listen to it. I treated the canon as gospel, and was mostly just forcing myself to develop the sorts of tastes I felt I was supposed to have.
> 
> I read too many advice lists written by those who didn't share my taste. Typically this advice assumed that wonderful melodies were the easiest to get into. None of it applied to rock baby like me.
> 
> My breakthrough came when I started viewing it as a huge world of music in which I could locate my own tastes. Sometimes my opinions were naive (maybe they still are), but at least they are mine.


Yes!! I've found this a common problem with novices. I used to play music for women I used to date and I would be asked, "how am I supposed to appreciate it?" This all comes from that stupid college or HS "Music Appreciation" nomenclature which paints classical music as something foreboding and boring, and appreciating it must require great effort since learning how to appreciate it must be taught.

What goes through the typical college student's mind when he/she finds out you have to take a course in "Art Appreciation" or "Music Appreciation"? It's nothing good, I'll tell you. Just helps re-enforce the negative stereotypes attached to great art or music, in my opinion, that it's difficult to "learn". Ridiculous!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Given that the responses so far have tended to be from people who didn't get advice, I suppose a related question would be: what would have been bad advice? What were the genres or composers that you wouldn't have appreciated then, or might even have put you off if someone had recommended them as "essential"?


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> Prompted by a recent thread in which a newcomer to classical music asked where would be a good place to start listening, and soon received recommendations to begin with Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th century, or 21st century music.
> 
> When _I_ started listening to classical music, I explored on my own.


Nereffid, That is not an accurate account of that thread. The newcomer asked something quite specific. He said that from his experience with rock / pop, he found it helpful to go chronologically, to enjoy the unfolding of a musician / group over time. And the advice he got sprang from that.

You wish to generalize from your experience. I will generalize from mine. I teach. I don't teach music -- so I don't come at this from the perspective of one who teaches "music appreciation". But as a teacher, I have students who regularly come to me to talk about music. Usually we discuss what they enjoy -- mostly rock in its contemporary varieties and sometimes jazz. And at a certain point, they express an interest in classical music, trace out what they've come across, and express some bewilderment at the vastness of it all. Classical music looks big and bewildering to outsiders. Sure, they might find their way into it. But they might never have the door opened. People opened the door for me at various points. Some of those people were teachers, some were friends. A few things about contemporary college students: They are unafraid of complex music. They are also unafraid of modernity and of the avant-garde. In fact, they are drawn to it. When I make suggestions, I do not make too many to most. I always start with where they are at, and so it is urgent to know where they are at, what they enjoy, what they know, what they don't like. Then I carefully suggest a few things given what they say they have already begun to explore. Often, seeking on their own, they get stuck in a narrow circle. They just don't know what else is out there. Without suggestions, they often get stuck. I occasionally have very ambitious students, sometimes ones already getting professional training in music. For them, I suggest more systematic approaches, whether specific works or composers that might really stretch them (either backward or forward in history and in style); or perhaps methods of doing research in music. But it is always urgent to start where they are at. Some want a lot of recommendations, a wide range of them. And there is always a healthy back-and-forth to the discussions. Unwanted advice inspires not listening. Sometimes recommendations may take some years to take hold. One example: I had a freshman who followed the cutting-edge of indie rock; I recommended at one point Miles Davis and suggested a range of Miles' work, some of it quite avant-garde. The student came up to me four years later, after he graduated, and said that he didn't get Miles' music at first, that it lacked what he thought music required (words, tuneful melodies, song-structures), but he had kept returning to Miles' music, drawn in by its depths that opened gradually as he matured in his listening. But he came back to me to tell me how much he appreciated being directed towards Miles' music, that it had opened new worlds to him, new vistas.

I've had similar experiences with recommending various classical composers. I should note that students tend, for some reason, to go backwards in time. They often need to hear contemporary musics first. A straightforwardly chronological approach might seem logical to those who have listened for a long time. But it is rarely successful pedagogically. Students are anchoring their identity, and they need to anchor it first in the present. Only then does the study of roots begin to make sense. They often look to be part of the cutting-edge -- sometimes for bad reasons, sometimes for good ones. In saying "cutting-edge", I don't simply mean newly composed music, though that often interests them intensely. It could just as well mean a new release, a new way of performing an old work (thus many students are fascinated by historically-informed performances of Bach or Mozart). Students can learn to appreciate classical music on their own, but most don't -- including those who with some well-timed, well-chosen advice would appreciate it. I should add that those with an ear for music are not a majority anywhere. I should also add that classical music looks very, very European to my very American students -- in both its instrumentation and its cultural affectations. An orchestra with its army of violinists in tuxedos looks and sounds very odd. The accoutrements of classical music may be one of the biggest off-putting features of it. Even so, some students, especially those with some musical training, are open to it and yearn to explore it. They are minority, but they are a teach-able minority who often hunger to have their horizons opened.

You may be against giving advice, but are you doing it simply out of your own experience? It sounds like it.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Hpowders how far did you get into that last post? Lol


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Bad advice? OK. Here's a couple.

1. Over-think.
2. "Try" to enjoy.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Thanks to the ever wonderful BBC Radio 3, I didnt need any advice dodgy or otherwise. I just turned on the radio and followed my ears.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Since I started listening when I was a kid, I would look up things like "epic orchestra songs", and would end up finding Two Steps from Hell or other hollywood/video game soundtrack type music. It wasn't bad, but obviously not classical, and much more generic.

My problem was that I kept searching for "the bests", and, being young, best meant really intense or difficult works (I fell in love with virtuostic piano music, a lot of pieces I now don't really care for). Now, I've broadened my horizons much more.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

And the bad advice No.

0. Haydn.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

hpowders said:


> Yes!! I've found this a common problem with novices. I used to play music for women I used to date and I would be asked, "how am I supposed to appreciate it?" This all comes from that stupid college or HS "Music Appreciation" nomenclature which paints classical music as something foreboding and boring, and appreciating it must require great effort since learning how to appreciate it must be taught.
> 
> What goes through the typical college student's mind when he/she finds out you have to take a course in "Art Appreciation" or "Music Appreciation"? It's nothing good, I'll tell you. Just helps re-enforce the negative stereotypes attached to great art or music, in my opinion, that it's difficult to "learn". Ridiculous!


When I started to listen to classical music, I understood nothing about it. It generated no feelings, no thoughts, nothing. It went in one ear and out of the other. Like random noise with no meaning! I certainly needed exercise (listen, listen, listen again) until I started to understand the musical language.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Holy ****. Where do you come from? In my country I've been fed classical music through wall outlets. I loved it, but didn't know back then.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Looking at "best" lists can be good and bad. It encourages one to rely on others in a way to qualify what is good but then again, they certainly are helpful too. For instance, Bach is without a doubt a better composer than someone like Hummel(not trying to pick on him in particular) and some newbies may not know this and it could end up stunting their initial love of classical music. 

However, I don't remember ever getting any bad advice. The only thing I would change is how young kids are introduced to classical music in school. Don't show them those ridiculous composer movies that bore them to death like I had to watch. I think picking some of the most brilliant and accessible pieces by the great composers and having them listen would work better.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Haha, people will think that I'm crazy, but what they don't know is that back in USSR we actually had radio wired to us through walls. All one needed to listen was a loudspeaker.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I didn't get bad advice, more criticism actually. When I was a teen, I bought an LP of Kempf playing 2 or 3 Beethoven Piano Sonatas, my mother criticized that purchase, as it wasn't something she would purchase. I also bought an LP of Grieg Peer Gynt complete incidental music with singing. She asked "didn't you read the liner notes, didn't you see there was singing?" 

Whatever.

Criticism can be worse than bad advice. 

I am now too old for her criticize my choice in music.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I keep reading people say they don't like certain composers. I have a huge library of music, and I can only think of one or two composers that I don't really like, even though I like other music from the same era. I can see saying, "I don't like Baroque music." But I don't understand "I like Telemann but I hate Handel."

I suspect those folks that are picky within a genre like that don't know that much about the music they're listening to and are just reacting to what they had for dinner that night or how much the CD cost them.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

As for advice... the thing I always do when I want to explore a new kind of music is to seek out someone who really knows about it. I get them to give me a list and then I dive in trying to understand, not deciding if I like it or not. Then I go back to the person and talk with them about the music I listened to and pick their brains some more. This has served me well for classical, jazz and country, as well as do-***, 50s latin and pop vocals. I think if someone is interested, they should try to learn from someone who knows more than they do.


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

A Bad Piece of Advice:

"When you listen to classical music it is of utmost importance to have a scene in your imagination, and follow it. For example: In Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, you will see pleasant meadows, a trickling brook, then a startling thunderstorm, and then the calm quiet of a country evening. You will increase your enjoyment of music if you keep in mind that the composer's intention was to produce these imaginations as a part of the composition"- Antiquarian's elderly maiden aunt (paraphrased).

My early days of listening to classical music was hampered by this, as I thought all music was supposed to draw pictures in my mind. I gave up that exercise, and decided to listen to music for the music's sake, and if it did produce impressions on me, this was a side effect.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Shove it. ... ... ...


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## Declined (Apr 8, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> Given that the responses so far have tended to be from people who didn't get advice, I suppose a related question would be: what would have been bad advice? What were the genres or composers that you wouldn't have appreciated then, or might even have put you off if someone had recommended them as "essential"?


Bad advice for me would have been "start here". Composers that wouldn't have attracted me so much to classical music would be anyone that is not Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.

If someone said "start with Mozart" I'd listen to symphony 40 and 41, and his 13th serenade, think that's all he did and would have got bored. But since I started with Beethoven and I like his piano concertos, I now want to listen to Mozart's to see how they are different than Beethoven's.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

As I recall, my dad recommeded I get Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, and 6th--all excellent choices. Then he recommended Wagner overtures (because I wanted rowdy music like the hard rock I was listening to in those days). THen I got Bach Organ works. My boss told me about Beethoven's Ninth. My mother liked Mozart, so I got some of that too. My friend told me about the 1812 Overture with real cannon blasts, so I had to get that. We would cruise the party spot on Friday night blowing the 1812 cannon blasts out very loud among the rockers drowning out their AC/DC, Van Halen, etc. I also got into Pictures at an Exhibition orchestral version thanks to the same being done by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I left classical for many years and finally came back to it a few years ago and absolutely love it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The idea that beginners should not ask for advice is motivated by a desire to keep them beginners, not to enable them to learn more, so that we can continue to celebrate our superiority to them. 

We might as well tell them not to read anything either.


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## Guest (Jul 3, 2014)

Alypius said:


> Nereffid, That is not an accurate account of that thread. The newcomer asked something quite specific. He said that from his experience with rock / pop, he found it helpful to go chronologically, to enjoy the unfolding of a musician / group over time. And the advice he got sprang from that.
> [...]
> You may be against giving advice, but are you doing it simply out of your own experience? It sounds like it.


Actually, reviewing that thread, Dedalus did indeed provide the context that he 'loved listening chronologically' and wondered whether this would be the right approach for classical. But he also said



> Does anybody have any general suggestions for getting into classical? Any tips, comments, or random brain pickings would be appreciated.


I think Nereffid's summary of the thread was fine.

I also don't see that he has yet said he is _against _the giving of advice, but he is questioning the value of advice, given the potential for negative consequences.


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## Guest (Jul 3, 2014)

science said:


> The idea that beginners should not ask for advice is motivated by a desire to keep them beginners, not to enable them to learn more, so that we can continue to celebrate our superiority to them.
> 
> We might as well tell them not to read anything either.


It _may _be motivated by a desire...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> It _may _be motivated by a desire...


No, it _is_.

I've been around this block a few times before. We have territory to defend.


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## Guest (Jul 3, 2014)

science said:


> No, it _is_.
> 
> I've been around this block a few times before. We have territory to defend.


That may be _your _experience around _your _block. I can't say that there is any evidence to support your contention about the motivations of others, but I will go as far as allowing that some might be so motivated. To insist that it is - in all and every case - seems OTT.

I think I've only read one poster in this thread who has said that beginners shouldn't ask for advice, and that was accompanied by a smiley, which suggested they were posting tongue in cheek.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> That may be _your _experience around _your _block. I can't say that there is any evidence to support your contention about the motivations of others, but I will go as far as allowing that some might be so motivated. To insist that it is - in all and every case - seems OTT.
> 
> I think I've only read one poster in this thread who has said that beginners shouldn't ask for advice, and that was accompanied by a smiley, which suggested they were posting tongue in cheek.


Well, let hope ever triumph over experience. If you are right, the world is a better place than I think it is.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Alypius said:


> You wish to generalize from your experience. ...
> 
> You may be against giving advice, but are you doing it simply out of your own experience? It sounds like it.





MacLeod said:


> I also don't see that he has yet said he is _against _the giving of advice, but he is questioning the value of advice, given the potential for negative consequences.


Sorry, Alypius, you've wholly misunderstood the point of my post. I'm not asking anyone to generalize, I'm asking for _specifics_.
*What specific advice didn't work - or wouldn't have worked - for you?*

As for being "against giving advice", yes, MacLeod interprets me correctly, though I'd say I question the _potential_ value, because the thing is that no one knows which advice will work and which won't - some of it undoubtedly will prove valuable.

Let me put it this way. Asking one person for advice is a good idea, but only if that person will tailor the advice based on feedback from the asker. Asking 10 people for advice is usually a waste of time because there'll usually not be anything approaching a consensus. Asking 100 people for advice is usually a good idea, though, because you can often trust the wisdom of crowds. But still: we're all individuals and we develop our tastes differently, and just because lots of other people think such-and-such a genre or composer is the bee's knees doesn't mean I'm going to like it now, or even ever.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Bad advice: Stay away from such and such era/composer/genre.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Any advice that indicates there is a hard and fast set of rules or "right way" about approaching music is bad advice. 

Any advice on how to find your own way into a bewilderingly big and diverse topic is good advice. Not quite sure how to do the latter, but go wide, find some things you like, go deep, and don't be afraid to take advice might look a bit like it


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Way back when, I had to follow my own ears and hope for the best. No one in my family was interested in classical music, but there were a couple of pointers that certainly helped outside of family: 1. for a while in 'music' at school, we studied Walton's 'Belshazzars Feast' and I was immediately hooked. 2. There was a record shop a bike ride away in the next town called "The Proms", the upstairs floor of which was dedicated to classical records where I would spend many a Saturday morning. The proprietor was really great and would sometimes play records for me during a quiet spell, usually records I couldn't afford, but the music stuck.
Many _many_ years later, I still search out composers / music that I don't know and that I might appreciate - it's one of the fun elements of my music enjoyment.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

When I lived in south london in the eighties, I used to go to Beano's second hand record store in Croydon. Three floors of vinyl before CD came in! They featured a classical room with a hi fi set up. You would ask for the key and if they liked the cut of your jib they would let you in alone to browse and listen.It gave me an opportunity to try Composers and works I wouldnt have had the chance to hear otherwise an buy there and then. Along with BBC Radio 3 I want to thank the good folks who worked there.


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