Readers may have some relationship with European classical music. But other forms also exist from China, Africa, Indonesia etc. Music before pop hits might merit your attention. Anyone starting in Euro classical will probably begin with Beethoven’s Symphony 5 which teaches structure but possibly not full range of emotion that could be delivered. Many others do more. I am a fan of Mahler and some others we might discuss later. Most readers will have free internet from youtube but I can’t do that here. I get joy instead another way so see https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1siA6eHEqD?spm_id_from=333.788.videopod.sections As an example. I would hope to learn readers’ joy in music across imagined boundaries.
When I first became an adult I fell in love with Classical music, especially Franz Joseph Haydn. But then I read People's History of the United States and from there studied the atrocities of European colonialism and mass genocide and it disgusted me so much that I could no longer enjoy the music because of the murderous evil culture it has always been a part of. I'd love to learn of old music similar to classical from Asia and SE Asia where 2/3rds of all humans on the planet live, but the white man's culture has done way too good of a job of erasing / suppressing that history so there's limited options to study it.
I start many mornings listening to Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite; a habit I picked up from my father, who would play it as we rattled out at daybreak in his old pickup to hit the trails at dawn. It's a good starting dose of light classical for little minds and ears.. I have since advanced in classical as well as other styles. At this moment I am enjoying Stephanie Biddle and her talent for jazz. Give her a listen. It is worth the effort. I like most music, except rap, mostly I am poisoned by how women have been used in some of the rap. And, of course, Bobbie Weir just died and the Oregon Ducks just lost... "Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile." kris
Western pieces: only a select few of the smattering this ignorant old dog has bothered with... have really touched me. But there are those that get thru this thick skull and hit differently. Cliché ones like Erik Satie's 'Gymnopédies', Debussy's 'Clair de Lune' and Bach's 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565', check. But a few less mainstream... Mussorgsky's 'Night on Bald Mountain', famous for being in Disney's 'Fantasia' (which I got into hearing Melodica Men play it for Halloween) or Astor Piazzolla's 'Libertango', which I'd first hear about on NPR, driving to work on a blazing hot day in Phoenix). One from elsewhere... this one from China, played on guqin (guzheng?), one of my fave Chinese instruments: Think it's called 'Flowing Water', a traditional piece for the guqin dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644):
Calling classical music “the pop of its time” confuses popularity with purpose. While some works were widely enjoyed, much of classical music was shaped by religious function, aristocratic patronage, and long-term artistic exploration rather than commercial appeal or mass markets. It’s less yesterday’s pop and more yesterday’s architecture: built for durability, symbolism, and craft, not chart position. What we now call classical music includes court commissions, church ritual, elite patronage, and experimental art music, much of which was never meant for mass consumption the way pop music is. Some composers like Mozart or Verdi did write crowd-pleasers, but equating the entire classical tradition with pop is like calling all literature “airport novels” because some books once sold well.
My likes include pretty much every genre of music, but as a corollary to 'I know what I like when I hear it' is also know what I don't like when heard, or being educated more about the bkgd of the song / artist, from those lacking a conflict of interest Guess an aspect of that others tend not to like... is if I happen to like one work from a certain genre or artist, they're offput I don't like more. Very, very rare imo, all or even most of an artist's output gels with me (ex: Prince who's very prolific, but own only 4 - 5 of his songs). Have many, many other artists in playlists, claiming one song and one only
