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2/1/13 8:08 P

Parents enrolled me into ballet,violin and piano all within the 5 yrs to 8 yrs of age so the classical side just evolved.

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2/20/09 1:03 P

I fell in love with classical music as I learned to play it while taking piano lessons. I heard it in music class or in movies and cartoons and liked it, but it was playing it myself that really deepened the appreciation.

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2/1/09 12:28 P

We always had classical music in the house. My dad had the radio tuned to the local classical station. I grew up taking piano lessons with a lot of classical pieces thrown in. Now it just seems natural to continue to hear it all day long.

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1/31/09 12:33 P

My Dad was always interested in music and played a little guitar. He really liked music. My brother and sister each played in the school band. I got started that way in chorus and band. Then eventually I just decided I loved and that it was also one of the most challenging and interesting things I could do. Then I went for it.

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1/28/09 12:34 P

i was the first in my family to really take up a musical instrument. piano is my all-time love and i wish i had more time to practice and play. i've also played saxophone, flute, taken vocal lessons, played guitar and currently i'm teaching myself bass and drums. i love all music, but classical is something that really stands out to me. i LOVE LOVE LOVE beethoven and mozart [it was his birthday yesterday!]...i went to vienna a few years ago during mozart's 250th birthday celebrations and had the chance to see a concert featuring purely mozart...omg i was crying the entire time. i also visited his birth house and the place he lived for most of his life in vienna!! soooo cool!!!

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1/19/09 2:14 P

I had musical parents - a trumpet-playing father and piano-playing mother. I started piano lessons in 1st grade and then took up the flute in 5th grade. I stuck with flute through 2 and 1/2 degrees, lots of free-lancing, and then went back to school for a Masters in Accounting. I quit playing for a number of years and then took it back up again as an avocation about 10 years ago.

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1/17/09 10:13 P

My father played piano for relaxation after a day at work - 2 or 3 hours after supper through the winter when he couldn't get into the garden. I had piano lessons from Dad's friend, taught myself some guitar, and violin, and then viola lessons at school. Baroque is my favourite period.

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9/2/08 11:14 A

My mother played piano a lot when I was younger. I begged and begged to learn, so I started for my fifth birthday. Now, 21 years later, I'm still playing the piano and I love classical music.

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8/21/08 8:41 A

MY MOM WOULD OFTEN PLAY CLASSICAL MUSIC WHILE SHE CLEANED WHEN I WAS YOUNGER. I GREW UP WITH CLASSICAL AND SINGERS LIKE FRANK SINATRA , BARBARA STREISAND,
MY MOM ADORED DEAN MARTIN. CLASSICAL MUSIC HAS ALWAYS STAYED WITH ME.

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8/8/08 11:40 P

I have a very musical Dad, he was always singing to me, so I started singing in church when I was 4. We actually have tapes of me singing with him when I was as young as 2, but I don't remember that. I started piano in 3rd grade, but my teacher was only ok and she moved soon after I started. Besides, I hated practicing. Like Bonnie, I started viola in 6th grade and took to it like a fish to water, but still hated practicing (I have a whole soapbox about that if anyone would care to hear it sometime). I played all the way through high school (actually played in the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra in 96, during the Olympics, awesome time, played in the Closing Ceremonies!) and majored in music in college. But the viola shoulder doldrums got me down and after 6 years in PT, finally have switched to violin. Now I teach MS and HS orchestra in SC. You know, you're about the only group of people who would care about that whole diatribe! And the only group who might be able to figure out my screenname!
Meg Stephenson

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5/15/08 9:22 P

I had a lot of musical toys as a child and always was very interested. Also my Father played guitar and my older siblings played instruments as well.

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5/12/08 5:23 P

I was brought up with classical music playing in my home all the time. My life was always filled with music.

I started to play the piano when I was 4.. but did not take formal lessons until I was in first grade.
I do not remember a time when music of some type was not in my life.

I took voice lessons as well but my true passion is the piano.

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5/11/08 7:04 P

I always loved music and the record player in our living room was the best thing in my life. I just bought a new one last year to play all my Chopin, Beethoven, and Brahms records. I have more records than CDs!

I remember when I was very small my cousin used to take me on her lap and play Chopsticks with me. Go figure. I have a very good ear for it but not good enough to get me into Juliard :) I started learning how to play piano when I was 14 and I never stopped. It still amazes me how much I don't know. I love learning new things all the time.

Unfortunately, I don't have as much time as I would like to play because of school. If I could, I would ditch all my studies and get a degree in music, or at least take a music course. But I can't and I just deal with life as it comes.

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5/10/08 12:49 P

Welcome Bonnie! I can relate to the not loving practice thing at a young age. I suspect later it was because the piano I had was very poorly in tune, and it frustrated the heck out of me when I would visit my piano teacher.

Your love for the viola sounds similar to my experience with clarinet. Don't know why it was so much easier to practice one vs. the other....yet the instrument that is currently untouched is my clarinet and I now have a beautiful Mason and Hamlin baby grand in my living room...go figure! Some day I'd like to try teaching piano or clarinet again.

So cool to be making use of your music training and getting that degree. I started out in college as a music composition major, but really hated some of the curriculum so I ended up switching to Anthropology of all things.

Anyhow, welcome and glad to have you here!

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5/10/08 10:24 A

Hello -- I joined today. My classical training started at age 3 on piano, but I hated practicing SO MUCH! Discipline was not my thing at all.
In 7th grade I heard the soundtrack for The Exodus, and at one point the viola section and violins in lower register play a very intense phrase- it pierced me, and I had to study viola! Turns out I was a natural, and in a couple of years I was studying with the artist-in-residence at the university, practicing 3+ hours per day no problem. 8-)
My teacher had me headed to Juilliard - and then I got a wierd medical condition (spent 8 years in and out of hospitals, all my parents' money went away because of it) that aborted the whole thing.

I ended up teaching piano professionally after a while; got a degree in Music History.

I have 3 violins and 2 violas sitting in my music room, untouched for years. I'm hoping my daughters will one day make use of them. They're studying piano for now.

Now I simply enjoy classical music, especially the music of Prokoviev, Gounod and Rachmaninov.

Bonnie

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5/6/08 9:13 P

Wow! I did not know that bit of info! No wonder I like Tchaikovsky. Incredible. Thanks for sharing that tidbit!

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5/6/08 9:00 P

Funny you should mention both Chopin and Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky loved Chopin and incorporated so many of Chopinims into his pieces. I happen to love Chopin. Such a romantic!

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5/6/08 7:56 P

For me it was a combination of taking piano and ballet at age 4. I fell in love with Tchaikovsky and Chopin at the same time!

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3/16/08 4:28 P

I have that same kind of relationship with my piano, too. I love playing the piano so much but I get very frustrated because I don't practice enough. Before I went to college, I had all the time in the world. Now I get annoyed when the sound I want to make isn't coming out right! I just want to pick up the bench and slam it against a wall (which is what my piano teacher's daughter did once!).

It's also annoying because I do very well with learning the notes. I don't read sheet music very well but I'm pretty well prepared for recitals. But when it comes time to play in front of people, my hands start to shake and I start to forget some of the notes... sigh.

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3/15/08 1:47 A

Today I have a love/hate relationship with classical music. I can't always make that wonderful sound happen when I play. I am listening to my Junior cello recording and I am trying not to be critical but wow intonation is a killer. Especially when you are in tune most of the time. It can be a little frustrating because when I performed I had so much adrenaline I don't even think I realized my intonation mistakes...

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3/12/08 5:27 P

It was one of several music forms I heard when I was young and immediately liked it.

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3/11/08 8:18 P

I totally hear about the teenage rebellion. Everything sucked! I happen to love the cello, with the deep rich tones. But that must have been a pain in the butt to shlep around to music class :) It's just like a grand piano or the harp. Awesome instruments to play, can't exactly carry them around with ya! For me, I love listening to the classical music station. I just lie in bed until the news comes on. It's a great way to wake up

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3/11/08 12:33 P

I got started in classical music with first taking piano lessons at a young age from both my mom and Grandma. Both are piano teachers and so I heard piano music in the early morning hours and after school. I didn't fall in love with classical music at first...I had a bit of a teenage rebellion. But I started playing cello and singing and that is the classical music that I enjoy the most. Although I appreciate piano music much more now that I don't have to wake up to scales and arppegios every morning at 6:00:)

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3/10/08 10:32 P

I know of a lot of people who think that classical is old-fashioned, stuffy, and boring. I was a little surprised to find a group who, like myself, love this stuff? How did you guys start to get into classical music?
For me, my mom plays the piano, flute, and recorder. My dad used to play the piano and guitar. We always had albums and CDs of classical music and rarely anything else. I just love the images that come to my mind when I hear the trumpets, the violins, or the clarinets.
Then I started taking lessons from the most wonderful person on earth and that was it for me!

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