Childhood Introduction to Classical Music
Flipping through channels one evening as a child, I discovered a symphony on PBS that captivated me like no music had before. Soon after, I bought my first piece of classical music - Tchaikovsky's 'Pathétique' on cassette tape.
This is Part I of a series on my music listening journey from childhood to present day.
My first real introduction to music of any sort when I was a kid was clearly Classical Music. I fondly recall tuning into the local PBS station, WFUM Flint, TV28 on Saturday evenings to watch whatever symphony they were showing.
Growing up we only had OTA (over the air) TV stations which amounted to only 5 or 6 stations on a good day. We also had to get up from our seat and walk over to the TV to turn the knob to change channels; we didn’t have remote control. My parents had a remote control though, me. “Jeffrey, go change the channel.”
Of the few stations we could receive the PBS station was among them and it came in quite well too since we were only 15 miles away from the broadcast tower. One fateful Saturday evening I was turning the knob to find something to watch, probably a cartoon, or some kind of action movie and came across a symphony playing.
These days when someone asks me what kind of music I listen to, or what genres, my answer usually goes like this, “anything that tickles my ears.” That Saturday night so long ago stumbling upon a symphony really tickled my ears for the first time.
Now I’ve heard music before and quite a lot growing up. But it was my parent’s music and was mostly just background noise while mom was in the kitchen cooking something to eat. Or the family would be going someplace in the car and the same music would be playing as was in the kitchen. Classic Rock or Adult Contemporary - what they call Pop today I suppose. That music was fine and I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t really tickle my ears so much.
Those Saturday evenings with a PBS symphony were not only enjoyable for me, but even a little magical. The music, the instruments and orchestration really spoke to me and moved me in a way that I wanted more. I recall the very first recorded music I bought with my own money. It was a couple of cassette tapes of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pathetique”). I played those tapes over and over again from a cheap knockoff Sony Walkman and crummy little earphones. But I enjoyed every minute, and every note of it.
Not too long after that I eventually found my way to the Pop music of the day that young people like me would listen to in the 1980’s. That music started to tickle my ears a little more than Classical Music did. It was also what my peers at school were listening to and of course I had to listen to it as well to fit in appropriately.
Time marched on and I joined the U.S. Marine Corps and continued with the Pop music of the day for the 1990s. After my enlistment ended in 2001 I returned home and at some point started mixing in Classical Music with my Pop and Rock music occasionally. While Classical Music was on a long hiatus it never disappeared from my life completely.
Over the years since leaving the military my musical tastes have continued to evolve. Presently, all the Pop, Rock, and whatnot is in the backseat of my listening playlists. In the last few years I’ve started listening to Classical Music a lot more and have added Jazz to the mix as well.
In Part II, I'll talk about why I've moved to listening to Classical and Jazz far more than Pop these days.
