10 Simple rules for learning to enjoy classical music

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Here are ten simple rules that, almost accidentally, led me to begin enjoying classical music.

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Before talking about how to learn to enjoy classical music, some people might wonder why in the world anyone might want to do that. I'm sneaking up on 50 years old, and up until about two years ago, I thought of classical music as just slightly more enjoyable than a root canal. Now, here I am helping to build the Steemit's Best Classical Music facebook page and the @classical-music steemit account. What changed my mind?

There are three things that I especially enjoy about classical music that I don't find in modern music. These are its connection to history, its amazing complexity, and its intellectual challenge.

In a way, I guess that it's similar to studying genealogy. As I've begun learning (Ironically, from my 15 year old son - @cmp2020) about classical music, it is fascinating to put the pieces I hear into historical context. For example, did you know that Beethoven was writing his masterpieces around the tumultuous times of the various political upheavals in France? @cmp2020 even tells me that one of Beethoven's pieces was named for Napoleon, and then renamed in anger when Napoleon declared himself emperor. I was never a student of history, so sometimes these relationships are forgotten soon after I learn them, but it is still interesting to pick up what I can. This music has a historical context that often makes it more interesting to listen to. This context may also account for some of the music's complexity.

When you listen - really listen - to many classical pieces, the complexity is astonishing. You'll hear a theme come and go, forget about it, then suddenly be surprised when the same them reemerges out of nowhere with some unexpected variation. And this, in turn, may lead to the intellectual challenge that comes with listening to classical music.

Listening to classical music can be a much more active experience than listening to my other favorite genres: country, bluegrass, folk, and rock. Listening to identify the themes and patterns in a piece can come to feel almost like solving a puzzle.

So now that I've persuaded you that you really do want to learn to enjoy classical music, here are ten simple rules that I followed during the last couple of years to develop my own appreciation for the art form.

1. One piece at a time

My first step on the journey to enjoying classical music came when @cmp2020 switched piano teachers. His first teacher taught from mostly contemporary music. He played a few simple classical tunes, but mostly it was music by (relatively) modern performers like Billy Joel, Elton John, and Three Dog Night. When he left her, he was working on Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag, which he completed with his next instructor:

After that, however, his next instructor insisted on classical music, so I heard Bach's First Invention rehearsed over and over and over (and over) again, until it sounded like this:

This constant repetition for six months or more gave me a level of familiarity that I'd never had from listening to any other classical pieces, and one day I realized that I really enjoyed it. When I had listened to classical music in the past, the pieces all ran together, but the level of familiarity that I accidentally developed with Bach's First Invention opened my mind to listening to more.

2. One composer at a time

It was about this time that we switched @cmp2020's piano instruction again, to the Bryn Mawr Conservatory of Music . He also started taking lessons in music theory, which led him to launch his composer birthday series here on steemit. Now, every time a famous composer has a birthday, I have 10 new classical pieces to listen to on youtube. It is fascinating to hear the different styles from each of these composers.

3. One performer at a time

Having developed an appreciation for classical music, what I also like to do now is to pick out a performer from one of the pieces that I am already familiar with and extend my knowledge by listening to two or three other pieces by that individual in an evening. Some of my favorite performers include:

Leon Fleischer

Hillary Hahn

Julia Fischer

Simone Dinnerstein

And I learned of most of them here on steemit!

4. Talk about it

I definitely don't think that I'd get as much enjoyment out of classical music if I couldn't talk about it with @cmp2020. As with most things, it helps if people around you share your interest. The metadata surrounding classical music can be almost as interesting as the music itself, but that metadata often needs to be shared to be appreciated.

5. Make a game out of it

This actually goes back to before I started listening to classical music. It is a holiday tradition that when we're on a long car drive during the holiday season, @cmp2020, his mother, and I will cover the information panel on the dashboard with our hand and race to guess the performer and title of whatever Christmas Carol comes on the radio next. We keep score, and whoever has the most points at the end of the car ride wins.

Now that @cmp2020 and I share an interest in classical music, we will often challenge each other to guess the composer and era (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or Modern) of a classical piece when it comes on a programmed music station. Obviously, I usually lose to the music theory student, but I'll keep trying!

6. Learn about the people

Until recently, I thought of the classical music composers sort of like austere museum pieces. When you start learning about them, it turns out that there's all sorts of humor, drama, and tragedy, hidden out there in their life stories. For example, it's far more interesting to listen to Antonín Dvořák's Stabat Mater (Suffering Mother) when you learn from @steemswede that the piece is autobiographic, because Dvořák lost three of his own children. Another example is Gesualdo, who murdered his wife and got away with it. His music takes on a new dimension when you listen to it with that knowledge. Similarly, I understand that a German exchange student in @cmp2020's school this year was suitably surprised by the title of this Mozart piece:

When you learn to think of the composers as people instead of wax figures, it makes their music all that much more interesting.

7. Youtube, Pandora, and Music Choice are your friends

I have two primary styles of listening to classical music, active and passive. When I am actively listening to classical music, I go to the buffet, youtube. Maybe this is sacriligeous to a true enthusiast, but you actually don't have to listen to a whole hour and 23 minute symphony. I listen for as long as I enjoy it, then I find something else.

On the other hand, when I'm passively listening I'll listen to it on pandora or on musicchoice.com. I usually prefer pandora on a mobile device or desktop computer, but on cable TV, Music Choice is great, because they display little bits of trivia about the piece and composer that they're playing. If I'm working, or focusing on something else, but I just want to have some classical music on in the background, those are my weapons of choice.

8. See it live

There's nothing like seeing a classical piece performed live, and if you scout around, it doesn't have to cost much. We saw Faure's requiem at our church, and we saw a number of Baroque pieces by Bach, Vivaldi, and others, at the nearby Barnes Foundation. Both performances were free and very enjoyable.

9. When you see it live, listen to it on the Internet first

On the other hand, before I started listening to classical music, we saw two very expensive performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra. One was by Brahms, and I don't even remember who the second was - but it featured Lang Lang on piano. I didn't enjoy either of those performances anywhere near as much as the two mentioned above, and I think it was for a very simple reason. I was not familiar with the music before-hand. For me, having an idea of what to expect seems to make the experience far more enjoyable.

If you read The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, this will probably make sense. It does to me, anyway.

So when you know you're going to see a piece performed live, pull it up on youtube and listen to it a few times. Contrary to what I wrote in rule #7, in this situation, you really do need to listen to the whole thing.

10. Follow these steemit accounts

There are many good steemit authors of articles about classical music. @cmp2020 and I have launched the @classical-music account, where we try to share the best of them. I'm sure I'm missing many, but the individual authors that come immediately to mind for you to follow are @cmp2020, @katharsisdrill, and @steemswede. These authors don't just share the music videos, but they give you some of that all-so-important context, too.

Please comment if you know others that should also be followed.

Conclusion

So that's it. I'm late to the game, and I'll never be an expert on classical music, but by following these simple rules I have changed my mindset and learned to enjoy listening to classical music. No guarantees, but I bet they will work for you, too.

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Thank you for your time and attention.

Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.

Follow: @remlaps

RSS for @remlaps, courtesy of streemian.com.

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