# How do you discover new music?



## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I think I actually posted about this before, but I'm curious how most people here discover new classical music. I know that a good deal of the posters here are involved, either academically or professionally, in music so for them it's kind of a given. But for everyone else? 

Do you discover new things by attending live performances of works you aren't familiar with? Hear them on the radio? Google searches?


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Live performances of well-known works that include other works I've never heard of (but end up liking, like Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphoses), Pandora and other radio stations, browsing classical music on iTunes or reading about classical pieces on Wikipedia, and of course, this site


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

Sometimes, when I need an specific album I attend Amazon but mostly visiting a CD shop and looking around. No big deal.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

The most important thing, in my experience, in discovering new music you simply have to have an exploratory attitude about music to begin with. These lesser-known composers aren't going to come to you. I mean you can only listen to internet radio so much before all of these stations start repeating the same thing they played last week over again. An easy way to discover new composers is to simply go to Google and type in, for example, "Russian classical composers." You will be amazed at all the information that appears right before your eyes. Do this with every country in Europe, North America, and South America. Have fun! A vast musical world awaits your discovery.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Read articles on Wikipedia about composers or musical movements, and you discover names you have not seen before. Go look them up on YouTube. Look at the further YouTube links to related videos on the right, and you see plenty more. 

You end up discovering a universe so vast you'll never explore all of it. You are in perpetual danger of being so busy discovering that you never get around to doing anything by yourself.


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

The "Related Videos" links on Youtube are really helpful in discovering new music. Actually, I don't really have a fixed way of discovering new music. TC is a great source, and besides this, I usually just give whatever I bump into a listen and try to keep an open mind. Also, when reading biographies of familiar composers, I often come across some names of their important contemporary composers that are worth exploring. 

Nowadays, information is so readily accessible that as long as you're curious about something, you can find it quite easily, and as long as you have an open mind towards discovering new things, there's a whole world of information out there waiting for you. Like Neo Romanza said, a simple Google search can lead to tons of discoveries.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

I read these forums.


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## maestro57 (Mar 26, 2013)

YouTube is great.


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## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

TalkClassical does it for me. :tiphat:


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## CyrilWashbrook (Feb 6, 2013)

As others have said, YouTube is a great place to discover classical music. I personally enjoy the channels of GoldieG89 and GoldieG91, which are dedicated to hundreds of different "unsung masterworks".

I also listen to classical music on radio and note down the pieces that sound interesting. (There are a couple of classical music stations here in Australia and I listen online to the Berlin station kulturradio.)


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I keep track of new CD releases. Most of what I buy is music I haven't heard before.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

Most Recently

Here

http://www.talkclassical.com/1005-current-listening.html

Here

http://www.talkclassical.com/25848-talk-classical-project-1101-a.html

and Here!!

http://www.talkclassical.com/1006-latest-purchases.html

Then I use Spotify.
Also watch any music scheduling on TV - of which there is far too little.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I just browse this List of composers by name and other web sites such as ArkivMusic, and look for composers I'm not familiar with. I then look for them on a streaming service I use (not Spotify, which is evil). YouTube often doesn't have the really obscure stuff.

The trick is not to forget to look for unfamiliar music from composers I think I know well. I only just recently discovered that Holst wrote a symphony, for example, though I still haven't heard it.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

^ I'm not sure how Spotify is "evil" but whatever! 

I use Spotify to explore composers and works I am unfamiliar with. The What are you listening to threads here at TC have suggested many composers and artists to give me things to search for on Spotify and I have had great success. I also subscribe to and read BBC Music Magazine and occasionally I will pick up Gramophone from the newsstand. The review section has supplied me with many CDs to investigate on Spotify. I rarely use YouTube because of the poor sound quality. I have also done what Neo suggests in using Google to search for composers by country. Since I am very fond of Scandinavian music this was very helpful in discovering little known or unknown composers. I also am a member of another forum that is devoted to "unsung" composers and have found it extremely useful but they limit it to Classical and Romantic period discussions.

There are several users here at TC that I read almost every post they write because we have similar tastes and that often leads to discovering music I will most likely enjoy.

Kevin


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## chrisco97 (May 22, 2013)

Pandora (you can create stations for composers...how cool is that?), Spotify, Amazon suggestions, posts on this forum, etc...

One of my more frequent ways of doing it is searching on Google things like "What are some composers similar to Beethoven?" or "Best composers of the Romantic era".


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## hello (Apr 5, 2013)

The site RateYourMusic can be pretty helpful. I can go down an hours-long wormhole of composers and related composers.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Some of my friends and I are internet and shop trawlers, we go looking all over the place for whatever we can find and we often find good things none of us knew about before. Of course, this covers a much wider range than just European classical music.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Lately for me it's Youtube (I probably don't have the breadth of knowledge that some people here have, so there are still lots of recordings on Youtube that are new to me).

I know literally no one that shares my tastes in music (even in part), so that makes things difficult. And that's part of the reason why I sought this forum out.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Lately, the new music I've discovered has come from what I've read here. What's good about that is, when someone introduces something new, others whose opinions I trust can provide feedback. I don't have time to do much exploring, so it helps when someone else is able to do the groundwork for me.

[Update: This just happened today; MagneticGhost introduced me to Edmund Rubbra.]


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Like so many above, it's Wikipedia, YouTube and this site. That's the chronological order; invert it to get the order of importance to me as now is. 
I found Lully, my favourite composer, because I was playing a 'Lully Gavotte' in Suzuki Book 2, liked it and wondered what else there was. I found an hour's worth of music on YouTube by 'L'orchestre du Roi Soleil', transferred it to my FB page, and was instantly hooked. Ironically, it turns out that Lully didn't actually write the piece in Suzuki; he just claimed the credit!

That's called 'the snooker ball way of finding new classical music'.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I read all of the highly technical/intellectual posts by millionrainbows and others, as well as the latest cognitive neuroscience papers to determine whether a piece of music is suitable to my auditory cortex.

If I'm still not sure, I'll wait for some guy to debunk the non-truths. If still uncertain, I'll wait for a mildly sarcastic tongue in cheek remark from violadude.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Through a constant loop between these forums, youtube, wikipedia, and internet in general.


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## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

I basically use the great thread Compilation of the TC Top Recommended Lists. I spend a big part on my days there, and I am eternally grateful for everyone here for this work. I use it daily since I was _completely_ ignorant on music.

I check the thread for a work that I am not familiar. From there, I check Amazon for well-rated performances and search for the album on Google Play Music. If it is not there (what is very unusual now, their new All Access service have probably more than 90% of the albums that I want inclunding DG ones) I buy the mp3. Then if I open the Wikipedia article of the composition to have some basic guidance and sometimes the composer's article when I am not familiar with him. And then finally I listen the music


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## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

I look around on YouTube for new things, and I also take the excellent suggestions of you people. I attend concerts of things that I am familiar with and enjoy, and then hear works that are new to me. I've been introduced to a lot of amazing classical music simply by playing it in ensembles. Most of the solo oboe music I've come in contact with is (not surprisingly) because I've played it. So, I have different ways of finding new music.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

tv and youtube. tothebestof.com.


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## cjvinthechair (Aug 6, 2012)

Can I recommend the 'Art-Music Forum' & the archive on 'Unsung Composers' - learnt, and downloaded, so much from both !


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2013)

At first, it was a friend of mine who got me into classical music, and would recommend things to me, and based on my reactions to those recommendations, would give me further recommendations. Then I found sites like classicalcdguide.com, classical.net, and classicstoday.com. They highlighted the major works, and also pointed me to similar works, as well as provided reviews. Then I found TalkClassical, and just started reading. 

In addition to that, I would also visit my local library. I have been fortunate to be in relatively large cities, with good library systems, and there is generally one good library in the system that has a larger classical music selection. I would browse, and just pick up things that caught my eye. Sometimes it was a recording by an ensemble that I knew I liked, sometimes it was something as whimsical as enjoying the label (e.g. Harmonia Mundi, BIS, Hyperion), or even I just liked the album artwork. Since it was free to experiment, I was less discriminating than if I would have to pay. This, for example, turned me onto medieval and renaissance music - I randomly picked up a recording of music from Hildegard von Bingen because I liked the cover, and I think it was on Harmonia Mundi. It is also how I discovered Messiaen - I saw a recording of his Vingt Regards Sur L'enfant Jesus by Steven Osborne (I liked some other recordings of his) on the Hyperion label, so I checked it out. Had I not picked up that album, I don't think I would have come to enjoy Messiaen any other way - and he is very atypical for the type of music I typically like.

That is how I discover new music.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

It used to be magazines like Musikrevy (Swedish), Gramophone, Fanfare and later IRR, used to sit at the library with yearly volumes of back issues, pen and paper, this was a good way to learn which reviewers You could depend on having the same taste as Yourself. 
I've always read tonnes of biographies and textbooks on music, no one never died from reading, falling bookshelves is a different case! I say, You can never to to much about anything, especially subjects You really care for!
At university I read Musicology, music theory, composition and what not to lighten up the more boring subjects I had on the menu. The good thing with that was that the musicology department had a handful (free)seats at about every concert venue in town to give out to the student, so I attended concerts every second day for about 5 years, that was very educational!
I've always checked new releases list from the music vendors I have settled on, I try to by as much unknown music/composers as I can afford, thinking that recordings by the big warhorses, whether composers or artists will always be available in one form or another, whilst productions smelling of obscurity will pass as one time must be picked up surprises!

Internet is a giant force, when you start understanding what music You dig it becomes so much easier to unravel the web! Asking Questions on TC fx. opens a giant encyclopaedia of knowledge, myself, I find something new everyday that I need to unravel, TC is like a box of Chocolates, You never know what the nest praline will be filled with! 

The basic thing is not to be afraid of falling free, everyone's bound to make mistakes now an then, mistakes is what we learn from! 

/ptr


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Well, Talkclassical is clearly the best source for discovering new classical music. I also like arkivmusic.com, a great site and a great interface. To actually hear the music, I use Spotify before purchasing a CD. I also read music books, but they don't always touch the more esoteric pieces... those you must find with Talkclassical!


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

This site. Amazon reviews. This site. YouTube clips. This site. A few friends with classical backgrounds in education and performance. This site. General internet browsing. This site. Oh yeah, and I have access to two university libraries and 3 county libraries, with extensive classical selections. Oh, and this site, which points me to treasures like this recent buy:


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## davinci (Oct 11, 2012)

Ondine said:


> Sometimes, when I need an specific album I attend Amazon but mostly visiting a CD shop and looking around. No big deal.


It is a big deal....what's a CD shop? LOL, I use Amazon as well and get links to lots of new music. ArkivMusic is a great research tool and has some samples.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

I learned to love Lully just last fall when I ordered the Les Arts Florissants DVD performance of his opera _Armide_. Totally won me over - a fantastic production, and the music is just brilliant. If you love Lully you should try Rameau and I suggest starting with his opera 'Castor and Pollux' also performed by Les Arts Florissants (conducted by William Christie, an American Ex-pat who does French Baroque better than anyone else I've heard).



Ingenue said:


> Like so many above, it's Wikipedia, YouTube and this site. That's the chronological order; invert it to get the order of importance to me as now is.
> I found Lully, my favourite composer, because I was playing a 'Lully Gavotte' in Suzuki Book 2, liked it and wondered what else there was. I found an hour's worth of music on YouTube by 'L'orchestre du Roi Soleil', transferred it to my FB page, and was instantly hooked. Ironically, it turns out that Lully didn't actually write the piece in Suzuki; he just claimed the credit!
> 
> That's called 'the snooker ball way of finding new classical music'.


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