# Do you listen to classical music in company of other people?



## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

I usually don't because I don't have a suitable partner.

But I guess it would be a great pleasure to listen to a piece you both love with your significant other, in such a way that both of you become completely engrossed in the piece, like some sort of mutual trance... So total focus on music, not just listening to it in background.

Possible activities would also include commenting on music, gesticulating (as if immitating conductors), closing eyes... but not in such a way to distract from music itself, or to outplace its sound with your talking... so comments would be pretty silent, and respectful of piece being played...


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## level82rat (Jun 20, 2019)

When people ask me for a ride in my car I sometimes use that as an opportunity to try to make them fall in love with classical. I will play them anything from the introduction to St Matthew's Passion (the piece that made me love CM) to Beethoven's Great Fugue. 

So far they are either indifferent to the music or find it unpleasant.

I think that even if you found someone who enjoys the music as much as you do it would not contribute much to your enjoyment of the music or even your relationship with the other person. How many times can you say "wow this part is really good" before the conversation becomes tedious?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I always listen alone. My wife and I have different musical preferences; same goes for all my other relatives except my brother who lives 2,000 miles away. It's all good.


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## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

Only with my dog and cat, but I consider them to be “people” in every respect. My dog always leaves the room for Shostakovich and Stravinsky. Go figure. Cat sleeps through everything.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

ZJovicic said:


> But I guess it would be a great pleasure to listen to a piece you both love with your significant other, in such a way that both of you become completely engrossed in the piece, like some sort of mutual trance... So total focus on music, not just listening to it in background.


I'm fortunate that my spouse and I have that experience in church. But I've noticed with classical music, like that old Bob Seger song, I prefer to sit and listen to it by myself. When I'm with other people, I get distracted, like worrying about if they're bored.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

One of my dogs, Tango, loves when we take a drive. For fast music, he stands up and looks around with an alert look on his face. When the music is slow and soft, he lies down and takes a rest.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Gray Bean said:


> Cat sleeps through everything.


I noticed that when sleeping, my cat's ears would twitch when I was playing something dissonant. So awake or asleep, he was listening, just not always approving.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

My wife. Nobody else in the family has any interest. But that's fine with me. I stay home most of the time. I have one good friend who likes all kinds of music but we rarely get together anymore. But he turned me onto Schoenberg, and Eric Dolphy so that's pretty cool.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

starthrower said:


> But he turned me onto Schoenberg, and Eric Dolphy so that's pretty cool.


He sounds like quite a guy. Eric Dolphy seems to be one artist you need to be introduced to, but he's worth it.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> He sounds like quite a guy. Eric Dolphy seems to be one artist you need to be introduced to, but he's worth it.


Yeah, a very smart, open minded guy who looks like a janitor. He's a big Oliver Nelson fan so that's how I heard Dolphy. And the Dorati Vienna album.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

My wife may listen to something when we are eating but not the rest of the time. She tolerates my music more than likes it.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Outside of concerts, listening is pretty much a solo experience. I don't want to talk to anyone or be interrupted. Dim the room lights, have a bottle of scotch at hand, put on the headphones and be in my own world. Hard to explain to non-classical fans.


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

If my wife catches me listening to Bach, she'll call me "Hannibal Lecter".

I use headphones most of the time.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

When I listen to classical music my mother says "why are you listening to that cemetery music?"


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

ribonucleic said:


> If my wife catches me listening to Bach, she'll call me "Hannibal Lecter".
> 
> I use headphones most of the time.


Back in the day, for my birthday, my bought me a CD player. For Christmas, she bought me headphones. I got the hint.


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## HolstThePhone (Oct 11, 2015)

My girlfriend is open minded to classical and if it's my turn to choose the music while we cook I'll sometimes put on some classical - last time it was Handel's Messiah. 

I also alternate between Classic FM and BBC Radio 3 when I'm working in the lab, depending on whether I want to focus more on the music or my work :lol: One other person listens to classical, but the others don't. There's a bit of an ongoing radio station war.


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

CM for me has been a largely solitary pursuit but I say that without regret - throughout my life I have known hardly anyone who has appreciated it as much as I do, and that has led me to create my own private world. I suspect I am not the only one here who reckons that TC provides all the interaction that is required.


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## Acadarchist (May 22, 2020)

My wife, myself and my son drive to places in the countryside, to walk 5/6 miles , and I put classical cds on in the car during the drive there and back. It`s rather fitting music driving through the countryside. Not sure if my wife likes it though. Son listens to his own stuff, death metal.


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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

I don't even have speakers. So alone, into headphones, preferably with a score in my hands...


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> I suspect I am not the only one here who reckons that TC provides all the interaction that is required.


I tried having an hours-long argument about Furtwängler with the bartender at Ruby Tuesday but I wasn't able to draw him into it.


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

^
^

If I mentioned the name Furtwängler to the bartender at my local watering hole the response is likely to be 'Who does he play for?'


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> If I mentioned the name Furtwängler to the bartender at my local watering hole the response is likely to be 'Who does he play for?'


I would answer "The Third Reich", but then I'm a troublemaker.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I have a friend who's a big fan of classical music. He's more conservative than me (meaning that I have a preference for the music of the 20th century, and him for the music before the 20th century), but he knows a lot about classical music and introduced me to a lot of amazing things. So it happens often that we listen music together, altough it's more about exchanging opinions on new discoveries after listening parts of music or brief pieces than listening whole symphonies or operas.


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

Sigh. Thinking about this brings on many feelings. My CM life started as early as I can remember, with parents and siblings sitting together in the living room listening to LPs and commenting, as I played with toy soldiers and trucks on the carpet. Then listening to classical music with my friends and girls I had crushes on in high school, discussing the relative merits of Chopin and Liszt. Then in college going to concerts and recitals with the other music students and going out after to stay up all night talking. Then grad school, finding just a couple of other CM enthusiasts with whom to attend every Philadelphia Orchestra concert. It got sparse as I got older and had my career overseas. My dear wife loves to spend evenings together listening to Tchaikovsky ballet music, Mozart SQs, and most of all Morton Gould and his orchestra, perfect music for domestic intimacy between people of a certain age. The son, a good violinist, has a short attention span but a good ear and usually asks what I’m listening to. The daughter likes solo piano music and will sit and listen for a good long time. The dog and one of the cats are oblivious, but the cat adopted in Ghana blisses out whenever I spin Schumann. All in all, my convivial CM life is good.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

When I'm chilling with one of my siblings or friends, sometimes an occasion calls for a piece or two.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I’d love to, but I don’t have anyone else in my life remotely interested in classical music Usually when I offer to play classical their reactions are positive but they always view as “relaxing background songs.” That’s exactly why I come here!


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

I listen alone, because no one in my family (my girlfriend or my children) have interest on the CM... My second wife had interest on CM, but we were so FFFFFed up, that the music was the last thing we needed. :lol: Sometimes, when she is in the mood, my girlfriend listens with me some Chopin (the only composer she knows...) and still tries to find the difference between the Sonatas and the Ballades. (they sound the same, she says...) After 5 years, she learned also Mahler's 5th, because of her mistake to buy the same symphony 3 times and now she accuses the composer for the lost of her money. Under these circumastances to listen music with another person isn't a good idea and I remain solo listener... :lol:


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Generally alone, although I'll put it on as background music when we have company. I've had CM friends, with whom we can share and compare our responses to pieces and performances -- but they're mostly far away now, and our tastes differ, but make for interesting discussions. (In the way I once shared an office with a Yankees fan (I'm a lifelong New Englander) and rather than spending all day calling each other a--holes, we had wonderful discussions about baseball.)

No two CM people have identical tastes, and I once formulated that that was a major difference between attending a CM performance and a pop concert. In the latter you knew that 99% of the attendees were grooving to the music enthusiastically. In the former, you never really knew what even the person sitting next to you was thinking about either the performance or the piece.. A pop concert is much more a social bonding experience.


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## UniversalTuringMachine (Jul 4, 2020)

One of the greatest joy in life is to have friends who shares with you the same enthusiasm and interest join and listen with you, and have a big discussion after listening. I felt blessed to have several such friends and family members throughout my life. I had a roommate who played violin for the Scottish youth orchestra during my high school years, we used to listen to Wagner and stay up late till midnight. Later in life, I have an Eastern philosophy scholar friend who composes as a hobby. He used to come to my house to listen and play Mozart and Chopin together. The discussion of music almost always digressed to philosophy and linguistics, which elevates the experience and enhances the sense of occasion. One of my mentor, a mathematician, is also an old-fashioned CM lover and we used to listen to Knappertsbusch and Hans hotter (his favorites) a lot.

My mother has been an amateur bel canto singer for a long time (although she no longer has the physicality), we often go see opera and recital together and discuss the techniques of singing. My father knows a lot about the history of CM but could never quite get into the hardcore CM (his taste is desperately late romantic). All my past girlfriends have never took interest in CM though, I guess you can't have everything in life.


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

My Grandma and I have been going to many classical concerts together over the past 8½ years. We've also seen several ballets and one opera - _Tosca_. Sometimes my cousin joins in for the ballets. Classical music is probably the main interest my grandma and I share, and I have many great memories of the concerts we've gone to.

Not many people I know like classical music much though. Sometimes I listen with my dad, but I'm not always sure that he likes it much. He seems to mostly listen to rock when I'm not listening to something with him. I think I've gotten him at least slightly interested in Wagner though, so that's good.

My mom seems to get impatient with classical music after a few minutes. She likes Barber's _Adagio for Strings_, but I can't see her listening to classical music regularly. My brothers either don't have a lot of interest in music now or think classical music is boring. Of my friends, two seem to have a slight interest, but the rest I doubt would like it.

So I mostly listen alone, but that's OK. Some pieces make me emotional and some I get crazy listening to. :lol:


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

No-one around me likes CM. It's very much a solitary experience and Mrs Merl isn't a fan although tbf she says "I don't mind it" (which means "I'm not keen") . I have a few genres of music on the car USB so if I'm driving with company I'll just choose some standard rock music to play as nobody wants to listen to my CM and I feel uncomfortable playing it, knowing they aren't really enjoying it. I know people who say they like CM but really don't or can only take the odd 5 minute piece. "Have you heard Pachelbel's Canon?"  maybe I'm just a natural cynic.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

When I was at school, I had a couple of friends who were into CM, one very much so. At university, my circle (none of them music students) included about half a dozen people interested to varying degrees. So I grew up with a lot of sharing musical discoveries, arguing about recordings and composers, going to concerts and record shops in company, &c &c. All the things you do.

I was lucky, but didn't realise it. I thought this was perfectly normal, and that if you mixed for the most part with reasonably well-educated, reasonably cultured people, things would always be like that. Sadly, I haven't found it so. After I gradually lost touch with youthful friends, episodes when I've been able to share CM with other people in my life have been few and far between. I'm inured to it now, but it's something I miss.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I do enjoy going to concerts with my wife or friends. I think it is that they have to keep quiet and let the music speak. Basically, listening to music is a solitary experience for me but talking about it after is enjoyable.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

caracalla said:


> I thought this was perfectly normal, and that if you mixed for the most part with reasonably well-educated, reasonably cultured people, things would always be like that.


Back in the '70s and '80s, I worked at the local courthouse as a court stenograper. One of my colleagues took one of Schoenberg's classes at UCLA and was a huge opera fan. I would often hear arias playing from the stereo of our court administrator. The judge I worked for was also a fan, one time walking around his chambers singing the Credo from the Missa Solemnis. The law clerk was so into classical that when I told him that Duke Ellington wrote better jazz suites than George Gershwin's classical efforts, he wouldn't talk to me for a week. And it was nothing to see a judge in the audience at our local opera productions. And that's just music. They were always talking about the latest works of literature. My judge had original contemporary art hanging in his chambers he had acquired directly from the artist.

Today, I still work with judges, lawyers, and doctors, but for the most part, all they do is talk about sports. It's really disappointing.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I remember a guy I met at a local record store here in Albuquerque about 20 years ago. We agreed to drive together to a better store in Santa Fe once a month. We did that for a few months - drive the 50 miles, talk a lot while we bought, and have a little food after. Then it stopped, and I can't recall why. Anyways, that was enjoyable.


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## mark6144 (Apr 6, 2019)

Solitary. I used to try to get my partner interested in CM, but her reaction was usually disdainful. I would remember that on future listens and that would spoil the music for me. So now I keep it to myself.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Aside from the years when I was in a small Louisiana college and had several close friends also at the music school, my listening is solitary. Back then, though, we would listen to classical music and have lively conversations about it, usually at the local hang out place, over pitchers of beer and pizza. There was also a community of older guys, some who played in the symphony, or were church organists, who would have regular gatherings at one or the other's house/apartment. 

But that was a product of being college age, 18-22, when every discovery is revelatory.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Merl said:


> No-one around me likes CM. It's very much a solitary experience and Mrs Merl isn't a fan although tbf she says "I don't mind it" (which means "I'm not keen") . I have a few genres of music on the car USB so if I'm driving with company I'll just choose some standard rock music to play as nobody wants to listen to my CM and I feel uncomfortable playing it, knowing they aren't really enjoying it. I know people who say they like CM but really don't or can only take the odd 5 minute piece. "Have you heard Pachelbel's Canon?"  maybe I'm just a natural cynic.


Thanks Merl you have just saved me from posting pretty much an identical scenario.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

ZJovicic said:


> I usually don't because I don't have a suitable partner.
> 
> But I guess it would be a great pleasure to listen to a piece you both love with your significant other, in such a way that both of you become completely engrossed in the piece, like some sort of mutual trance... So total focus on music, not just listening to it in background.
> 
> Possible activities would also include commenting on music, *gesticulating (as if immitating conductors)*, closing eyes... but not in such a way to distract from music itself, or to outplace its sound with your talking... so comments would be pretty silent, and respectful of piece being played...


I'm certainly guilty of "air conducting" myself, but only when I'm absolutely sure I'm alone. :lol:

I'll occasionally listen to classical music with my girlfriend, a pianist and fellow lover of classical music (I have her to thank for sparking my interest originally), but it's usually a solo activity for me. I prefer to wear headphones.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

I listen almost always by myself, but my dad loves classical music (he’s a huge Mahler fan), but, honestly, listening for me is a solitary experience and I’m fine with that. I’ve never expected anyone to like the same things I do. I’ve tried to get my mom to listen some classical and I have managed to pique her interest in some composers, but it never goes any further than that. She’s more into rock music. My dad and I don’t really have the opportunity to play either of our stereos loud because my mom is trying to watch TV or a movie, so I listen through headphones. As for the outside world, I did meet one guy who knew a lot of about classical music and I met him in a used CD store (remember those?). Anyway, I overheard him talking about Shostakovich to a guy who worked behind the counter and I could tell the guy had no clue as to who Shostakovich was and then he started to talk to him about opera and that guy’s face became even more confused. Thankfully, I chimed in and I wound up talking to this guy for at least an hour. He was a retired physics professor and he was originally from Korea. When I mentioned that I liked some of Isang Yun’s music, his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. He said he’s been in the US for 40 years and I’m the second person who actually knew who this composer was. I could tell he was rather impressed that I knew this composer’s music. This is one of the things I miss about going into music stores --- that kind of connection you make with a complete stranger over something you’re both equally passionate about. I still remember this experience because it taught me that there are people out there who are just as crazy for this music as I am.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Neo Romanza said:


> As for the outside world, I did meet one guy who knew a lot of about classical music and I met him in a used CD store (remember those?). Anyway, I overheard him talking about Shostakovich to a guy who worked behind the counter and I could tell the guy had no clue as to who Shostakovich was and then he started to talk to him about opera and that guy's face became even more confused. Thankfully, I chimed in and I wound up talking to this guy for at least an hour. He was a retired physics professor and he was originally from Korea. When I mentioned that I liked some of Isang Yun's music, his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. He said he's been in the US for 40 years and I'm the second person who actually knew who this composer was. I could tell he was rather impressed that I knew this composer's music. This is one of the things I miss about going into music stores --- that kind of connection you make with a complete stranger over something you're both equally passionate about. I still remember this experience because it taught me that there are people out there who are just as crazy for this music as I am.


You never reconnected with the physics professor, did you?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Manxfeeder said:


> Today, I still work with judges, lawyers, and doctors, but for the most part, all they do is talk about sports. It's really disappointing.


Sports is a great conversational subject. Everywhere I go, folks want to talk sports. When I go to parties, sports talk lights up the room; classical music talk kills the party.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Bulldog said:


> Sports is a great conversational subject. Everywhere I go, folks want to talk sports. When I go to parties, sports talk lights up the room; classical music talk kills the party.


Do NM folk root for the Texas teams or Arizona or Colorado? Or are college sports more popular than pro? Here in TN, SE Conference teams probably are more popular (except Nashville where the Titans are the hometown team) - even high school teams in the rural areas.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Listen with my wife sometimes when she is in the mood but she generally enjoys making music herself rater than listening to it. So I'm usually on my own and always on my own when it's opera!


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Manxfeeder said:


> Back in the '70s and '80s, I worked at the local courthouse as a court stenograper. One of my colleagues took one of Schoenberg's classes at UCLA and was a huge opera fan. I would often hear arias playing from the stereo of our court administrator. The judge I worked for was also a fan, one time walking around his chambers singing the Credo from the Missa Solemnis. The law clerk was so into classical that when I told him that Duke Ellington wrote better jazz suites than George Gershwin's classical efforts, he wouldn't talk to me for a week. And it was nothing to see a judge in the audience at our local opera productions. And that's just music. They were always talking about the latest works of literature. My judge had original contemporary art hanging in his chambers he had acquired directly from the artist.
> 
> Today, I still work with judges, lawyers, and doctors, but for the most part, all they do is talk about sports. It's really disappointing.


When people are smart and educated there is a greater chance they will be classical music fans, because classical music fans are smarter than average. I don't care if that sounds elitist, that has been my observation. So I was always disappointed that of the engineers I worked with, none of them (that I knew of) were classical music fans.

You had an artistic goldmine there in that courthouse. It doesn't happen very often there is such a confluence of people with an interest in the arts. It must have been fun to work there.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

When I was a kid, if I enjoyed some music, I'd share it with other people in the expectation that they would enjoy it too. But it rarely went well. More often than not they didn't like it and would - accidentally or deliberately - say something negative that hurt my feelings. As time went on I had to accept that everyone experiences music in an inescapably individual way. This applies more broadly than to music alone. My experience with the arts generally has been that you rarely find someone who likes the same artists as you, and if you find that person, they see something different in the art any way and enjoy it for a different reason. 

Still, every now and then someone I know expresses incredulity than I like a particular piece of music, and I wonder what I am hearing that they cannot hear. It would be nice just for once to be able to share the subjective experience.


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## Caesura (Apr 5, 2020)

I am glad I can listen to classical music with everyone in my immediate family (mom, dad, and sister), but I tend to listen to it by myself more often than with other people. 

I usually listen to it the most with my dad (he likes lots of classical and also got me into it when I was younger), then second most with my sister because we (mostly) like similar music and both enjoy it (but she doesn't enjoy it to the level of my dad). I can put it on in front of my mom and she is fine with it, but she doesn't listen to it all the time (like me and my dad).


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I play CM at dinner some nights and while doing work in the kitchen. So my wife and kids frequently hear it. I do tend to play more "accessible" fare on these occasions (e.g. Rossini, Beethoven, Schubert, J. Strauss, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak) as opposed to "less accessible" fare (like Sibelius, Shostakovich, Mahler, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok). In part this is driven by what I think they'd enjoy, but in part it is also dependent on what music would stand up to more kitchen noise.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Open Book said:


> You had an artistic goldmine there in that courthouse. It doesn't happen very often there is such a confluence of people with an interest in the arts. It must have been fun to work there.


I learned so much as a young man there just being a fly on the wall. I used to drive my judge to remote courthouses, and in the days before Books on Tape and Audible, he would read classic books out loud to pass the time, like Atlas Shrugged (yeah, that's a lot of reading). He was an actor in his spare time, so he always put in the voice inflections in the quotes. The judge next to him was a neighbor of Will and Ariel Durant, and he was a student of theology, and he loved to talk about what he knew. It really was a stimulating environment.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I listen alone with my imaginary friends who all love the same music as me, apart from one that is, and as we say in Scotland, her coat is on a shoogly peg!!:lol:


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## En Passant (Aug 1, 2020)

Yeah I do I listen with my partner and kids all the time. In fact it’s her turn to choose tonight so we’re relaxing to a requiem before bed.

We also sing in a choir and we will often listen to a recording (new or old) as a group over drinks or chess or other board games. We try to socialise as much as possible as a choir group as it’s been successful in brining in younger members.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Most of the time I listen alone, but sometimes, usually at lunch, my mother accepts to listen with me, with the condition that I put to play something that is light, pleasant and not too long (not longer than, say, 30 minutes). She says she likes the music but I think she's far from being a hardcore CM enthusiast as I am. I've never personally met anyone that loves classical music as I do, nor anyone besides my mother that listens with me.


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## Ich muss Caligari werden (Jul 15, 2020)

Like most of us, my listening is preponderantly alone, more or less. My wife does love Schubert, his songs, quartets and symphonies, esp, so those get a lotta play here; despises VW ("too syrupy"), but mostly she'd prefer the sound of silence. Still, she's remarkably tolerant (I cannot abide headphones), but mostly it's background for her. When I'm listening, I don't feel alone; I feel much in the presence of composers and musicians I admire and who, gratefully, have much to say.


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## Bohemond (Aug 25, 2020)

With normies? Hell no. If it doesn't feature a mouth-breathing rapper dropping rhymes over a thumping synthetic beat, they just won't listen to it. I've been listening to classical music since I was a child and I learnt that lesson a long time ago. Most people in the contemporary west have been programmed to despise high culture ("elitism", they call it) and to feel ashamed of their own European/western heritage. Classical music simply speaks a language that they don't understand. They always say the same things - "too long", "too boring", "too white", "too old fashioned". What they really mean is that it's too noble, too sublime, too spiritual, too authentic. And it makes them feel small.

But from time to time you still encounter one of those noble souls, uncorrupted by modern political and social ideology and unburdened by conditioned feelings of historical guilt. These people still yearn for the sublime. They still see our artistic accomplishments as the source of pride that they should be, rather than a cause for guilt and shame that we are _told_ they should be. People like that still hunger for beauty and transcendence. I've met a handful over the years. Basically, you have to find individuals who are alienated from the modern politically correct society. They are the only ones who still sometimes preserve that sense of wonder which is a pre-requisite for truly engaging with the classical music tradition. You're simply never going to get a good response from the kind of people who think Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar are great artists. They have a completely different (and lower) conception of what art is and what it exists to accomplish.


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## Caroline (Oct 27, 2018)

Very, very rarely with others. The exception is if I am driving. Family and friends don't appreciate CM so I listen with headphones. It appears others on the thread have similar experiences. There have been two exceptions for concerts but not much over the course of many years....so I have good headphones. As I have said to people, it's 'me and the music.'

On an aside - for concerts - has anyone tried meetup?


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Last weekend I made a bike trip with a friend, playing our favourite Khachaturian album from the phone along the way. Then we made a picnic in the city park, and continued having the concert in the background.

I had noticed that "nobody cares" when I recently listened to Stokowski's blasting Tchaik 5th in the park and no passer by moved even a muscle out of their trajectory.

My plan in case anyone complained about our manners, was to play Haydn instead.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Caroline said:


> On an aside - for concerts - has anyone tried meetup?


Yes, there was an opera meetup group local to me. I held back and waited a long time to try it. I went to one meeting and enjoyed it. It was a potluck dinner in the home of a member followed by watching an opera DVD together. Circumstances prevented me from going to the next few events. Then COVID-19 struck and the group disbanded.

The virus was probably the nail in the coffin but I think the group had run its course anyway. There seemed to be a small core of people who went to most of the events and 90% were sporadic attendees or inactive members.

My loss for not joining sooner. If you're thinking about it, you should try it.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

Bohemond said:


> With normies? Hell no. If it doesn't feature a mouth-breathing rapper dropping rhymes over a thumping synthetic beat, they just won't listen to it. I've been listening to classical music since I was a child and I learnt that lesson a long time ago. Most people in the contemporary west have been programmed to despise high culture ("elitism", they call it) and to feel ashamed of their own European/western heritage. Classical music simply speaks a language that they don't understand. They always say the same things - "too long", "too boring", "too white", "too old fashioned". What they really mean is that it's too noble, too sublime, too spiritual, too authentic. And it makes them feel small.
> 
> But from time to time you still encounter one of those noble souls, uncorrupted by modern political and social ideology and unburdened by conditioned feelings of historical guilt. These people still yearn for the sublime. They still see our artistic accomplishments as the source of pride that they should be, rather than a cause for guilt and shame that we are _told_ they should be. People like that still hunger for beauty and transcendence. I've met a handful over the years. Basically, you have to find individuals who are alienated from the modern politically correct society. They are the only ones who still sometimes preserve that sense of wonder which is a pre-requisite for truly engaging with the classical music tradition. You're simply never going to get a good response from the kind of people who think Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar are great artists. They have a completely different (and lower) conception of what art is and what it exists to accomplish.


Even though I agree with some of these sentiments, this post is reeking in elitism and arrogance ("normies") and even some unsettling undertones ("being ashamed of our European/western heritage"). Especially that you specifically chose to juxtapose Western art music with popular African-American artists. Why specifically black artists and not white artists who are also popular and widespread and arguably make drivel? I'm not 'woke' or an 'social justice warrior' as they call it, but I can't help but be rubbed the wrong way by the tone, which I could be misinterpreting.

Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar are great artists. I don't particularly care to listen to them and sure, they're not nearly on the same artistic unvierse as Mahler or Beethoven, but only a select few are and those are the people (Bach, Sibelius, Mozart, Bruckner, Dvorak, Brahms) whose music thousands of people (of all races) around the globe having dedicated their careers and lives to because they have an incandescent passion for it. According to the skewed viewpoint of the general public you espoused, apparently one needs to be rejecting of political correctness and be a "Steppenwolf" on the fringes of society to like classical music. That's blatantly false.

The composers I mentioned above are all white, and of course it's not a coincidence because first of all, it's _Western_ art music and that's the region the tradition emerged from and secondly the ways society has been for eons, people who weren't white or male were hardly able to get the education to compose on that level, and if they did they weren't taken seriously (I mean who are the exceptions? Scott Joplin and Fanny Mendelssohn? So few). That very same transcendence and sublimity you speak of can also be found in the works of Charles Mingus, John and Alice Coltrane, Eric Dolphy....etc. Attaching any racial undertones to something as pure, sublime, and absolute as music is utter horsecrap. Western art music has nothing to do with race or political correctness.

The sentiment I do agree with is how Western art music gets attacked for being "white" and I think that's stupid. I think my argument goes both ways in this regard. I think those people are ignorant and some journalists view it as an easy "white establishment" target to attack when they're writing Buzzfeed articles. Literally people of all races and walks of life have devoted their lives and careers to the performance of this music.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Do you listen to classical music in company of other people?

It's not very often that I've listened to classical music in the company of others. I didn't grow up in a musical family, and my wife and kids aren't huge fans of it, so it's always been a rather solitary journey. There was about six year period, though, where I shared an office with a guy who was, politically, the exact opposite of me. He was a conservative and I was a liberal. He was a gun and hunting enthusiast and a supporter of the NRA. I was for gun control and opposed to the NRA. 

We found common ground with classical music, though, and we'd share hours getting our paper work done listening to classical music; everything from Beethoven to Rimsky-Korsakov, to Copland (his favorite was Mozart). Sadly, my friend died a few years ago, but it goes to show how music can bring people together.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Bohemond said:


> With normies? Hell no. If it doesn't feature a mouth-breathing rapper dropping rhymes over a thumping synthetic beat, they just won't listen to it. I've been listening to classical music since I was a child and I learnt that lesson a long time ago. Most people in the contemporary west have been programmed to despise high culture ("elitism", they call it) and to feel ashamed of their own European/western heritage. Classical music simply speaks a language that they don't understand. They always say the same things - "too long", "too boring", "too white", "too old fashioned". What they really mean is that it's too noble, too sublime, too spiritual, too authentic. And it makes them feel small.
> 
> But from time to time you still encounter one of those noble souls, uncorrupted by modern political and social ideology and unburdened by conditioned feelings of historical guilt. These people still yearn for the sublime. They still see our artistic accomplishments as the source of pride that they should be, rather than a cause for guilt and shame that we are _told_ they should be. People like that still hunger for beauty and transcendence. I've met a handful over the years. Basically, you have to find individuals who are alienated from the modern politically correct society. They are the only ones who still sometimes preserve that sense of wonder which is a pre-requisite for truly engaging with the classical music tradition. You're simply never going to get a good response from the kind of people who think Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar are great artists. They have a completely different (and lower) conception of what art is and what it exists to accomplish.


What a snob! You're just as bad as the people you disparage. I'm ashamed to call you part of my generation 

Attitudes like this are the reason that so many young people think classical music is elitist!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ If only a taste for classical music was all you need to be a "noble soul"! But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that classical audiences are particularly ignoble sections of humanity.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ If only a taste for classical music was all you need to be a "noble soul"! But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that classical audiences are particularly ignoble sections of humanity.


My cello teacher in high school passed on these very endearing and colorful words about Daniel Barenboim:

"Yeah, I've met Barenboim before. He's a total d*ck".


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

I do it at every given opportunity. It’s all the same to me if they don’t like it. The way I see it is that if the great classical masterpieces of music displease you in general then you deserve that suffering. If they insult it then they are inadvertently just insulting themselves indirectly by exposing their lack of taste and manners.


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