Nope, mostly not. My parents preferred German Schlagers, my brother and his wife sometimes play classical music, their son likes opera (on CD), but also not too much.

I've always loved music more than anyone else in the family. From around 1970 until about 1985 that was exclusively pop/rock (which I still love), but with the coming of the CD and a downward trend of pop/rock in the mid 80s, I decided that I needed to explore classical. Glad I did.

 

None of the family or relatives are into Classical, or even classic bands/groups except ABBA. I was one of the typical Asians the parents would put into piano lessons.

 

My grandmother was a music teacher and I started listening to classical records (on my own) passed on from her to my parents, but stored in the basement and never really listened to by them. As a child, although my parents generally supported my classical music interest, I also remember my father frequently telling me to turn the stuff down. So far, I appear to be the last in the line of classical music listeners.

 

I grew up with Slade and T-Rex. Quite how I got to where I am is anybody's guess, but it had something to do with forming a band in early teens to get girls. My parents knew nothing of music, but supported me for which I will always be grateful.

 

Does classical music run in your family?

No. Rather, my family does the running -- away from classical music. Alas …!

 

Yes, it was a constant feature in my home. I tried my best to avoid it, but I could not.

 

And now you are possessed.

 

My father liked to listen to opera. Or maybe I should say he liked certain sopranos (Callas, Tebaldi) and listened to them sing 19th century Italian repertory, mostly Verdi and Puccini.

My mother complained that she found such music "depressing". My brother despised it as a teen, now plays it for me in the car when we're together. I can't help saying to him, "You don't have to".

No one in my family has much musical talent. Those of us who tried an instrument were very limited and gave it up.

I have always been attracted to classical instrumental music wherever I have heard it. It took me longer to like opera. I regret that there was no overlap between my opera listening and that of my father so that we could have bonded over it.

 

No. My father had a large record collection with three classical records, Beethoven's 5th, the famous van Cliburn recording and the Dorati 1812 overture. The other 99% were Sinatra, etc.

 

My dad had a weirdly sized LP of the 1812 overture that he got from Quaker Cereals - the cannons in the music were to remind you that Quaker Puffed Wheat was "shot from guns".

And Van Cliburn was a national treasure to have won a competition in the Soviet Union. It would be un-American not to have something of his.

 

I'm the only member of my family - and that includes parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins - to have pursued classical music in any depth. My younger sister does enjoy a good bit of it, however. No one in the family objected to my pursuit of it, although my father sometimes complained about having to hear it when he thought my choices insufficiently tuneful and happy. Evidently swooning to Isolde's "Love Death" wasn't something he could comprehend a boy of fourteen doing.

 

None of my immediate family listens to classical. But I have an uncle who passed away before I was born who had a collection of classical 78s that my dad kept, like Shostakovich's 5th, Bernstein's Fancy Free, and Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije/Scythian Suite. I think that's pretty up to date for a classical music collector in the late '40s. Apparently he was the one with the artistic temperament. I seem to take after him. And no, paternity is not in question.

 

I was brought up in a family without classical music.I remember that my mother once opened the door of my chamber and said that she could not underdstand that I liked the music.In fact we both were surprised for different reasons.I never liked the yeah yeah yeah...wich was more normal than my music from a distant world.I never had the feeling that I was a kind of elitist,I just loved the music.

 

Interesting, I expected more here to come from families of Classical music people. This begs the question, if it wasn't family who introduced you to Classical, who or what was it?

 

I've said this around here somewhere before, but what set a passing interest of Classical into a flame was a lovely young flute player who was a music major. I took a music appreciation course so I could talk to her intelligently. The young lady has long since come and gone, but that class had a lasting effect.

 

if you have children, are they fans of classical music like you are? What have you done to help instill an interest in classical music into them (maybe you just let them be...)?

I haven't done a thing concerning music. What I have done is instill a sense of pride, loyalty, ethics, and moral character in them.

 

Given that your children are not interested in classical music, do you regret not having done anything in that regard? Or are you not interested in keeping the tradition of classical music alive in the younger generations?

 

As far as family influences are concerned, classical music only runs in my jeans.

 

My cousin is a classical choir vocalist and a graduate of the Eastman school. She is now retired but was active with vocal groups in Europe and Israel where she has lived for many years. At one point in the 1970s she worked with Leonard Bernstein. I still haven't gotten the details about this, but my wife and I may visit her in Tel Aviv next year so I hope to hear the story first hand. But my immediate family is not musical at all so I pretty much had to find my own way and learn about music on my own.

 

I sung in a boys-choir and got familiair with gregorian chant.At school we had one hour in the week music lessons.There I heard Beethoven,I was just a receptiv young man.There is a railway station were they started to play classical music,not to entertain the public but to drive away the noisy kids and IT worked.:lol:

 

Nope. And it probably would keep a therapist quite busy if I unloaded. It's been a source of anger, frustration and regret all my life. Dad did listen to that "easy listening" back in the '60s - but that's as close as it came. Mom played piano - pop/movie hits was about it. But I had an ear for the classics early on, saved my money to buy a decent audio system. Drove them all crazy. Later in life when it was clear I had a talent for music, and was making money and a reputation doing it, I still remember, painfully, my mother saying, as I was on my way to conduct a concert, "I suppose it's more of that long-haired crap." Yeah, really supportive environment.

 

I seem to be alone in my love of classical music. Both my parents sang in a choir at one point, but no love of the music seemed to stir in their hearts. My Dad loved jazz and nothing else. My mom liked anything as long as it was made no emotional or intellectual demands. I discovered classical music in my mid-teens and wanted to learn an instrument, but no way would they they support me since I was "only going through a phase". Fifty years later and I'm still going through the phase.

 

I have traced musicians in my family, albeit mainly on an amateur level. That's not unusual, since past generations - of whatever class - tended to play instruments. In the world before television, there where people in my family who played, although it would be popular tunes of the day rather than something like Beethoven. Some of their musical diet in terms of listening was classical, although they didn't have the means to pursue it beyond basics. Those raising families in the past times would put the necessities before anything else, and things like books and records - let alone concerts - where not as affordable as they are to what can broadly be called the middle class today. Playing an instrument however had practical use, and a rudimentary ability to play and read at least some music wasn't unusual even among ordinary people.

 

My dad is an alright singer and guitarist, and he knows basic theory; my mom just says she has a good ear, but that's about all you could say for her. It was nothing that made them anticipate having a saxophonist-bassoonist, then tubist+alto, then oboist+tenor. They have saintly tolerance for late-night practicing and their passengers doing theory homework in the car on the way to class. No one else in the family was ever near serious with an instrument or singing.

 

Interesting. I wonder where your dedication comes from. There must've been a few events in your formative years to guide you into a life of this kind of effort and work.

You're younger than my grandchildren and so it's like a refreshing peak into a different world to read your posts. These days I think students fix upon a career in programming because there's a lot of demand and you can make a good living (I would think that whether or not you learn to hate it is not an issue at a young age). Nursing and therapy and welding are what my grandchildren are heading for. I would rather they go into science or music because it was so much more gratifying to me. I have to bite my tongue! We're all different and we're shaped by our early happenstances.

In science you can be doing what you want to do and make pretty good money once you get a position.

 

Only cowards run in our family!

 

My parents were passionate about classical music and it was always playing in our house. Wagner worked particularly well as a soundtrack to my young life - probably because it was loud and went on for hours.

They were not musicians although my mother was a bad and frustrated amateur pianist with a tiny repertoire. My brother became a musician and still plays in a major London orchestra. I never got on with playing an instrument but devoured records so that I had built up a huge repertoire of music that I knew every note of as a listener by the time I was 18. I went well beyond my parent's tastes with a lot of listening to modern music (Bartok, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Shostakovich, Britten ... but also Maxwell Davies, Messiaen, Birtwistle, Stockhausen). I then more or less stopped listening to classical music - I spent most of my time with friends and our music was rock - until I returned to it some six years later. Even then it took me quite a while longer to return to modern music.

So I was started off by my family and grew up with music around me. Some form of music has always been important to me.

 

My grandad was a semi-pro trumpet/cornet player but his repertoire was jazz/swing. I have no idea if he liked CM but suspect he would have liked some. My love of CM is definitely unique in my family.

 

My mother and sister played piano and my dad occasionally sang at the piano. None of them liked classical music; I learned that on my own. My dad liked country music, my mom sang in church choir, and my sister and her husband became DJs and liked dance music.

My mother (dead 8 years) liked to attend an opera, vocal or choral music concert with me but usually fell asleep. She wouldn't play anything I gave her. I once bought her a cassette of Messiah choruses to play in the car. She left it on the dash and the sun melted it.

I don't discount my parents' liking music for it helped get me started. Everything I know and like about classical music I learned in school, choir, choral society or on my own.

 

Not in my family. My father was eventually converted and can listen to standard stuff, I even think he genuinely likes Brahms, but opera and 20th century send him running.