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What happened to "other genres" when you started listening to the classical?

24K views 156 replies 106 participants last post by  Subutai 
#1 ·
What happened to "other genres" when you started listening to the classical?

Although there are many people who have been listening to the classical right from the beginning, either through musical parents or other circumstances, I suppose the majority of us have taken it up at some point after a few moments of passing interest. So, before we started listening to classical, our first encounter with music might have been pop, rock etc. So, I'd like to know:

1. what other genres did you listen to before you started listening to the classical?
2. what happened to those genres after you developed your deeper appreciation?
3. did you take up any new genres after taking up the classical?

In my case:

1. pop, rock, metal, techno
2. they just sound funny now although I still find some pieces to be surprisingly musical
3. yes - ethnic and jazz

So, I am very curious about your answers. This thread might also be a good repository for our thoughts on how taste evolves over time.
 
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#3 ·
I started listening to pop, rock (and 1930/40 popular music thanks to my parents). I got into classical and punk at the same time in the 70s. I went off pop in the 90s because of all of those prefabricated boy/girl bands.
I still like those genres though and the still sound the just as good or bad as they did.
I have listened to all sorts of music since starting to listen to classical music but that is because I have had more opportunity to do so rather than because classical music opened my eyes.
 
#4 ·
1. what other genres did you listen to before you started listening to the classical?
2. what happened to those genres after you developed your deeper appreciation?
3. did you take up any new genres after taking up the classical?

So, I am very curious about your answers. This thread might also be a good repository for our thoughts on how taste evolves over time.
Put me in the same category as Lang and jhar26 on the original thread. I still love what I loved as a kid, it's just back then pop / rock was all I listened to and now it's just one of genres I listen to.

After I started listening to classical I took up Celtic music but that was an outgrowth of listening to Enya. I recently started listening to country, but that was a product of the fact that the radio stations I get on my portable radio (Yes, I said portable radio, not IPod.) when I do daily walks started playing Christmas music right after Halloween last year which drove me nuts. Just about the only other stations the radio got were country, so I started listening and found I liked it.

Don't know if the sub-text of your question 3 was if classical had led to any other genres. With me it hasn't. The only thing classical has led me to is other areas of classical.

But my tastes have definitely broadened over time.
 
#5 ·
Just before getting into classical I was a bit confused. Some bands that I adored in the past, didn't satisfy me no more and I was searching for something new. Those bands were olsdchool 60's-70's rock such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Cream, The Beatles, etc. I was totally obsessed with this music and style. Together with classical I started to explore jazz. At this time I was also a fan of progressive rock. But then I though: why should I listen to rock influenced with classical music, while I can listen to classical itself? And so I did. Nowdays? Sometimes I listen to few band that I loved the most. But it's just some kind of sentiment. As for the progressive and psychedelic stuff: I still listen, explore and enjoy bands which had something original and interesting to show. I mean King Crimson, Captain Beefheart, Focus, Van Der Graaf Generator, The Monks, Gong and many others. Those are the artist that I adore as much as classical music and jazz.
 
#7 ·
I was about 11 when the movie 2001: a space odyssey came out, so I pretty much started out with classical. I actually hated rock for a long time because all that I knew about it was from the radio. Radio rock and pop is in general pretty wretched with a very few exceptions. Always was, probably always will be.

But one magic day a friend of mine introduced me to progressive rock. I had no idea such music existed - like classical but much edgier and using the latest (at the time) technologies, sometimes sounding like music you would expect alien beings to make. It is now enjoying a kind of resurgence thanks to the web.

Since then I have always oscillated between the two, with ocassional side jaunts into jazz, hard rock, a little metal, and celtic folk, and some electronica.

If I had nothing to do but listen to music all day, I would still never be bored with it.
 
#8 ·
In my case, I came to jazz before I fully appreciated classical music. I spent at least 9 or 10 years seriously indulged in jazz. It was not only until January that I fully dedicated myself to classical. Classical has a long history in my family and while I'm a musician, I have had an ear for this music for years, but as with anything, we become obsessed with something, but then we discover something else. It really was only a matter of time before I got into classical.

I still listen to jazz and I'm a devoted "jazzhead," but my new love for classical music is starting to equal that passion I have for it.
 
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#9 ·
I like music. All kinds of music.

Last year was in some ways (such as losing my job) terrible for me, but it was outstanding in terms of musical discoveries: Lizz Wright, Antony and the Johnsons, and Olivier Messien. It was my almost teeny-bopperish enthusiasm for the third that brought me to TalkClassical: I wanted someone to share my new discovery with. (And I know the preceding poster does not share my opinion there.)

All three of them, and mainstays such as Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, Béla Bartók, and Thelonious Monk, help grow me as a lover of music and each enriches the pleasure that I gain from the other.

I never could enjoy Karl Haas's NPR programs because his title Adventures in Good Music suggested that anything outside the classical European canon (which he covered so enthusiastically, so delightfully) was somehow not good music.

I beg to differ. Respectfully, but I beg to differ.
 
#10 ·
1. what other genres did you listen to before you started listening to the classical?
2. what happened to those genres after you developed your deeper appreciation?
3. did you take up any new genres after taking up the classical?
1. metal,rock,ethnic,new age,christian worship song
2. i still listen all kind of non-classical music simply because sometimes it is the mood that leading you.
3. yes, but with the rise of youtube and internet, i can always check sample of music before i seriously listen to it. this process made me hardly encounter new music since after listen to couple of second new music it is clear the music is not my taste.
 
#12 ·
I finally came around to classical when my ham radio teacher mentioned it when I was in class. I was 16. I was hooked for life. I had been in brass bands and played a little rock guitar but that was about all.
I rarely listen to rock,pop or the usual popular music today.
My interest DID increase substantially in jazz and world music. I especially like big band,early swing and jazz. Ellington,Miller,Fitzgerald,etc. Also love earlier Coltrane and Davis. The jazz after 1964 is not my cup of tea to use a horrid cliche.
World music is an area i enjoy with Middle eastern and Far eastern being my favourite styles.
I'm a big fan of Simon Shaheen.

Jim
 
#13 ·
1. what other genres did you listen to before you started listening to the classical?
'60s stuff mostly; Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, The Hollies, Seals & Crofts, etc.

2. what happened to those genres after you developed your deeper appreciation?
It faded somewhat, though I still enjoy it sometimes.

3. did you take up any new genres after taking up the classical?
Indian Classical, Japanese Classical... just non-European Classical, I might want to say, and I'm still exploring everything.
 
#14 ·
1. Mostly what is now usually referred to as classick rock. Also country rock, Motown, soul, etc.

2. I got into classical music in the mid-80's at a time when popular music - leaving aside the inevitable exceptions here and there - was (in my opinion) just dreadful. From 1985 to, say, 1989 I listened almost exclusively to classical music. After that I re-discovered my love for popular music and now about 40% of the time I listen to music it's non-classical stuff. So, discovering classical music hasn't killed my appreciation for the heroes of my youth, although it has put them in their proper perspective: Whereas I used to think that the best of them were the ultimate - now I still think they were/are great, but I also know about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and the rest of 'em.

3. Yes, jazz - both vocal and instrumental.
 
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#15 ·
1. Jazz, Blues, Classic Rock.
2. I stopped listening for a while, but now I'm starting to relistened, especially Jazz.
3. No, not really.
 
#16 ·
I pretty much started with classical in my early teens. Listened to some big band jazz, especially
Stan Kenton, in the 50s, and heavy metal in the 60s and 70s, but mostly because that 'sounded like' classical (in a strange sort of way). I was once called by a radio survey asking what stations I had programmed on my car radio buttons. I gave them the Miami, FL classical station call letters. they asked "What others?" I said "That's all I need."
 
#18 ·
In my case, there had been nothing before, in fact. I've liked classical since childhood. But not actively. Only some three years ago did I actually start exploring.

When not listening to classical music, which is about 5% of the time at most, I put on some Enya, U2, soundtrack to the LotR or, more often, some trance or dance.
 
#19 ·
1. what other genres did you listen to before you started listening to the classical?
2. what happened to those genres after you developed your deeper appreciation?
3. did you take up any new genres after taking up the classical?

1. Black Metal, Death Metal, Electronic Music, King Crimson
2. Nothing(applies only for the best of the above-mentioned genres). As I listen to the good music more I slowly ****-off(although not in an instant ****-off way which is reserved for commercial/mainstream/failures/pop/rock/melodic metal/jazz/Emperor/Suffocation) inferior music(even applies to the classical, for example, Mozart's Violin Concerto 5.). Just because I ****-off something in that way it doesn't mean that it doesn't have enough quality, it just means that it is not good enough
3. No.
 
#20 ·
I listened to many things, including psychedelia, but since re-discovering the joys of Baroque chamber music and the Classical guitar, my main other genre is 1920s jazz. Along with the great revivalists such as Ken Colyer, I feel that early jazz is a surprisingly close cousin of Baroque, with its counterpoint and variations. It's not that I have an academic viewpoint, it's just that both musical forms satisfy me in related ways.
 
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#21 ·
Hmm... I've always listened to classical music, by my own choice. When I was 6 I heard the aria from Goldberg variations and was hooked. I just knew that classical was my style of music. I've since developed a someone decent appreciation for jazz and DO like some classic rock, but nothing even comes close to my passion for classical music.
 
#22 ·
I can't answer your questions,

but maybe I can from the opposite way. I was listening to Strauss Tod und Verklarung at age 4. I have played violin and viola in orchestras since I was a kid and was a piano major for a bit.

About 10 years ago I fell in love with the Gypsy Kings because I was learning Spanish and that led me to flamenco guitar where I dropped most things classical while I practiced guitar. I still play in orchestra but found classical again and it was sweeter and deeper than I had remembered it. I find Bach most rewarding for the perfection and Beethoven for the passion and cleverness and spirituality. Then there is Mahler, Shostakovitch and late Scriabin.

Since flamenco is a mixture of Arabic and Jewish music, I have discovered South Indian music, Arabic music and some rap music which can be very intricate if you know how to listen. I like a lot of jazz and symphonic rock. I even got to play with YES in their Symphonic Tour a few years ago. I think that growing up in classical and breaking out with flamenco has expanded my horizons to all types of music. I even like country and bluegrass if it has passion. Now, I am much more attracted to passionate and musical performances much more than note perfection. I think Glenn Gould got it right saying that the stage was like a circus act where the audience waited for a mistake rather than the act of making music.

By the way, your questions are very good because I have never lived with out classical and find it hard to image that some have not heard the music I have.
 
#23 ·
1. Rock, metal, pop

2. I have just converted to classical withing the last year. Now I have a very low tolerance for minimal skill. That is to say, I appreciate fine music, no matter what the genre.

3. More World type music. Currently sitar (India).
After wasting too many years listening to pop, I now actively listen to all types of music.
 
#24 · (Edited)
talk about a change of genre ! .I became obsessed with country music .I went 4 nights a week singing, and practised each day at home I even made a recording which got played on the radio .But it burnt itself out about 3 years ago , and now its classical , sacred and early music .Im hoping that will stay with me til my final breath :)
 
#25 ·
1. Rock (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Zappa, Deep Purple, Bl Sabbath, Uria Heep, ),
'melodious rock' (ELO, Barclay James Harvest, Badger, Wishbone Ash, Yes, Henry Cow),
'melodious pop' (Beatles, ABBA, 10cc, Chicago, Wings)
I considered Hendrix the greatest of them all...

2. I stopped not after but beforeI 'discovered' classical music, I never listen to it anymore, my acceptance level lies at Yvonne Printemps/Zarah Leander/Lilian Harvey.

3. No. Not outside classical.
 
#26 ·
When I first got classcial music,I though those music I used to listen are too simple.Simple meaning,simple expression,simple beat.At that time,I thought classical is holy and only.But when time went by,I have broaden my horizon.And I found Rock music.First The Doors,then British Rock.I noticed every music genre has its own beauty.Now I appreciate all music I encounter.

I'm not native speaker.So forgive my poor english.:)
 
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