Seven ways to get into classical music

Up until two and half years ago I didn't listen to classical music. Sure, I owned some Mozart and Bach, and thought it was pleasant background music, but it didn't speak to me like my favorite albums did. During my first year of grad school I was listening to Saint Saens' piano concerto 2 - and suddenly it jumped out and grabbed me, and made sense! At least a little bit...

Now I listen almost exclusively to classical - I still very much enjoy my late 90's Ninja Tune CD's, in fact I reckon that listening to electronic dance stuff actually prepped me for classical - but that's another story. Anyway, to aid others in an exploration of styles and to feel all cultural, here are some suggestions for picking up classical after living in the pop world:

1. Listen to a piece at least six or seven times before deciding whether you like it. It will take this long before you start to hear recognizable melodies. This is very different from most popular songs which you can usually "get" at the first listen.


2. Some instruments can intially sound very harsh. It took me about a year and a half before I could stand listening to anything with too much violining. You'll start to feel better about them the more you listen.


3. Don't get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff going on - try and focus on one melodic line at a time. Non-classical songs tend to use one melody with harmonization. Classical pieces delight in having two or more melodies twisting and turning around each other. Once you have heard a piece enough you will be able to hear these melodic lines as distinct entities, and also in sneaky combination.
   


4. Understand the structure of a piece a bit. Initially it will sound as if the piece wanders around doing a bunch of different things before ending. In fact there is almost always a strict underlying structure.
   


1. Sonata Form (usually the first movement) - Several minutes at the beginning and the end of the piece are very similar, and each consist of two different sections. The middle consists of the themes intertwining and changing.
2. Trio form (Often the second or third movement of a piece) - Again, the beginning and end are similar, but there is usually just one block of melody. The middle is a contrasting block.
3. Rondo form (often the fourth movement) - There will be one block of music which comes up again and again. In between each iteration there are a variety of different blocks.


5. "Classical" is actually a bunch of different styles, which sound very different once you have listened to them a bit. If you consistently dislike one era then there is probably some other period you will love. Personally (and everybody else will have different opinions) I would break it down (today, I'd choose something else tomorrow) as follows:


1. Baroque - Bach, Vivaldi
2. Classical - Mozart, Haydn
3. Early Romantic - Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn
4. Late Romantic - Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, Dvorak
5. Ultra Romantic - Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky
6. Atonal - Berg, Schoenberg, Webern
7. Modern-ish - Faure, Vaughn Williams
8. Modern Russian - Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bartok, Stravinsky
9. Very Modern - Adams, Schnittke

If you try something from each of these periods you will be getting something in a different style each time.


6. Try different forms of music - I'd recommend starting with symphonies (where the whole orchestra is playing) or concertos (where the orchestra sort of duels with a single instrument: a piano, violin or cello usually). At the other end of the spectrum are sonatas (which have similar forms to symphonies but are for one instrument and piano only) and in between is chamber music (for small groups of instruments). There are also vocal pieces but these can hard to listen to at first.


7. You don't need to spend lots of money on to get a decent performance. Pretty much any CD by NAXOS will be a good recording for less than ten dollars. A bad performance might ruin your impression of a composer for years. Deutsche Grammophon (or DG to them in the know) is almost always fantastic but a bit more pricey. Still, I was surprised how cheap classical was when I started listening.
   

I think the absolute key thing is to listen to a piece all the way through a bunch of times before giving up, that was probably the number one difference for me, and was what really caused me to switch. Good luck!!