<p>I'm really curious to hear about your listening habits. Do you listen to Classical Music? How does that compare to your listening habits with (for the lack of a better term) pop music (which will include everything else)? </p>
<p>Do you regularly go to Classical concerts that DO NOT involve yourself?</p>
<p>I will speak for my son, who just finished his sophomore year at Indiana and who would like to be a player in a symphony orchestra. He listens to all kinds of music, but classical tops the list. (This started sometime late in high school.) He has learned that to be a top player, you have to not only practice, but listen to well-played music. Apparently, according to professors and top players, the key to playing well is to be able to hear it correctly in your head and then your muscles will learn to play what you hear. He has been told this is a vital step to becoming a musician.</p>
<p>And yes, he goes to lots of classical concerts.</p>
<p>LOL, WCU! I think my son would really disagree with your division of music between only classical, and "pop" (as in everything else)! There is a huge range of music between classical and pop (which my son considers to be a lowest life form in music ;)).</p>
<p>We listen to classical and jazz almost exclusively in this family; son has a jazz library of well over 4000 tunes, and his classical may be half that? He does like some indie soloists, particularly Andrew Bird and a few others, but I would say he listens to jazz more than anything else.</p>
<p>We go to a lot of concerts too, mostly jazz and classical, but a few like Ben Folds too.</p>
<p>My son listens almost exclusively to classical music. Car radio presets are on WQXR and several NPR classical music stations, as is his personal stereo. </p>
<p>He grew up in a house with eclectic musical tastes... my wife and I were in college in the mid 70's so our tastes are generally from that era. Mine tend to be more acousitc, folk oriented: Lightfoot, Al Stewart, Baez, Mitchell, CBN &Y, etc. My wife is a little broader, and a bit edgeier... she's more apt to put on Creme, Led Zepplelin or the Who than I will, but every now and then I'll annoy the neighbors with Mountain's Nantucket Sleigh Ride (from the live album) on full volume with the windows open. Some pieces are just meant to be played like that. She did introduce me (and son) to Van Morrison, who is an incredibly multifaceted artist.</p>
<p>I listen to NPR classical all day when working. He found this incredulous when he's worked with me. I have him to thank for opening my eyes to the classics.</p>
<p>My son's tastes have expanded since entering college. Exposure to current pieces and composers, both faculty and student have opened his eyes a bit.
He's gone with us on occaision to see a concert (he was particularly impressed with the Moody Blues) but still leaves the room when I play Dylan.</p>
<p>He surprised us in middleschool by bowing the repetive rift from Iron Butterfly's In a Gadda da Vida while practicing in the living room. My wife and I burst out laughing; he just smiled and went back to Bach.</p>
<p>He leaves the house when his sister puts on hip-hop. As does she when he plays Bach.</p>
<p>To each his own.</p>
<p>Great thread, WCU. I can echo Susantm as my son does the same. Listens to a lot of classical, both because he loves it, has favorite composers, but also because he needs to for the same reason, to learn a particular piece. So on his iPod are all of his classical pieces he's learned thru the years. He also listens to everything from Zappa, The Shins, Collective Soul, Redwalls, Dream Theater & even a little Michael Jackson (he says he likes the beat). I, on the other hand, have a much more diverse listening style: anything from Leo Kottke, Chemical Bros., Ditty Bops, Marianne Faithfull, Paul Oakenfold, Lennon, Roxy Music, Beck, Louis XIV, just too many to list (I love classical, too). While he was growing up, we listened to & introduced him to, all types and genres of music. </p>
<p>Music is a wonderful thing.</p>
<p>Oh yes, concerts. Lots of classical, some rock (Collective Soul & similar), and some Zydeco; The Roches, L. Kottke.</p>
<p>A sidenote to Susantm's comment "He has learned that to be a top player, you have to not only practice, but listen to well-played music. Apparently, according to professors and top players, the key to playing well is to be able to hear it correctly in your head"</p>
<p>When my son entered college, I would constantly question the expensive purchase of complete musical scores, orchestral & chamber, that would appear monthly on his "school use only" credit card, as well as CD purchases. While I expected sheet and recorded music costs as a related educational expense, I assumed he could get the instrumental parts/recordings from the music library as needed.</p>
<p>It was only after he explained to me the need to study the score (visually and aurally) to see how his part interrelated with the rest of the instrumentation could he effectively interpret and understand the music and perform accordingly. It makes complete sense, but as a layman with no musical background, I never would have made the connection.</p>
<p>It's helped him immeasureably by doing this. Money well spent. </p>
<p>I've added 20 lineal feet of shelving in his room to accomodate scores. I'm still trying to come to terms with a long term, moveable storage solution for a CD collection now approaching 1000 titles.</p>
<p>Fun thread!</p>
<p>In our family of five, we cover a variety, but we all have our favorites. My H and S2 listen almost exclusively to classical. (I remember when S2 was in 7th grade, and his classmates asked him what CDs he got for Christmas, and he listed them off -- all classical. They were horrified.) S2 likes opera, too. He is the only one that can appreciate any jazz at all, but he is extremely picky.</p>
<p>S1 prefers anything with good guitar, including rock, and some country, although he also likes classical. </p>
<p>D and I prefer music with understandable words, including softer rock, country, musicals, Gilbert and Sullivan. Although D likes classical on the radio, she only purposely puts on a CD when she is learning a particular piece. I like classical mainly when my kids are performing.</p>
<p>We go to many, many classical concerts, not only when our kids are involved. H and I went to see Martina McBride a few weeks ago, and it was the first non-classical concert we'd been to in years and years.</p>
<p>We aren't crazy about background noise - we listen actively to our music. We all are also very fond of silence.</p>
<p>Violadad, your son needs to meet the 60 gig Ipod! Storage? No problem!</p>
<p>Allmusic-</p>
<p>You're probably right. His long term goal is replacing his Dell laptop with a mac with suitable storage that would allow ample digital storage for music as well as being a more workable platform for score transposition and composition.</p>
<p>Realistically, replacing 1000 titles via download would be ridiculously expensive on a per track basis, as would be converting the same files to whatever format for Ipod timewise.</p>
<p>What happens to the "hard copies"? I'm assuming no matter the digital storage capabilities, one would want the original (or a digital backup) in the event of a system crash. Gotta store em somewhere.</p>
<p>I'm assuming within a few years the technology changes again as well. Only a matter of time before you can order your offspring before birth prewired for cable, cell & internet connections.</p>
<p>I'll leave the technology to him. For now, I'm content to put up shelving and eventually build him a dedicated expandable piece of furniture for storage. The only pieces I've found that I like come out of the UK, and are cost prohibitive with duty and shipping.</p>
<p>Or an 80G ipod, since that's what you can get nowaday anyway. Although even 80G is far, far from enough for 1000+ CDs, even with lossy formats. Violadad, I suggest you check out ripping the CDs losslessly into hard drives - some loseless formats such as APE and FLAC are absolutely equivalent to CD quality (thus loseless) but take up only less than half the space a CD does. You can store 3-4 CD worth of music every 1G. Now the capacity of hard drive are soaring, getting a 1 TB (TB = 1000G) hard drive is totally possible, and that means storage for at least 3000 CD worth of music, and durable and entirely portable. </p>
<p>The hard part (or time-consuming part, since it's not particularly hard), of course, is getting the CDs into digital format and probably scanning the CD covers as well. I personally think that the conversion is worth the efforts because it's not only portable and durable but also gives a much superior way to organize - I know the frustration when you know you have a CD but cannot find it anywhere!</p>
<p>This is fun! I'm also surprised at the number of parents answering this thread....perhaps everyone is actually either practicing or playing at some festival like I should be...instead of being on CC. :) Or just composing or something...</p>
<p>Anyway, I have an iPod and it's loaded with all sorts of random stuff, certainly not exclusively Classical. When I said 'pop,' i didn't just mean anything 'which my son considers to be a lowest life form in music.' I simply wanted some clear cut way to divide between Classical and non-Classical music--at implying the superiority of Classical music but rather differentiating between 'music studied' and other music 'not studied.' </p>
<p>I'm having a bit of storage problem myself with CDs (I'm not a big downloader when it comes to classical music since I like to have the liner notes that come with Classical Cds especially). Though I do have most of my music digitized, I find it rather annoying listening to Classical music on the iPod. The experience of not being able to hear long segments of a Mahler symphony because it is mixed too low and then suddenly having a deafening fortissimo blast from the headphones is neither a very pleasant or healthy thing. </p>
<p>Anyway, since I started this thread, I'll list the last 10 things I listened to: </p>
<p>10) Snow (Oh Hey)- Red Hot Chili Peppers
9) Stravinsky- Rite of Spring (London Symphony Orchestra) Abbado
8) Julian Anderson- Eden (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) - album 'Book of Hours'*** MIGHT I PERSONALLY GIVE A SHOUT OUT TO THIS FANTASTIC YOUNG (in composer years b. 1969) BRITISH COMPOSER...and former Harvard Professor
7) City Life- Steve Reich
6) Schubert- Trout Quintet (Thomas Ades and the Belcea Quartet)
5) Ravel- La Valse (Pierre Boulez, Berlin Phil)
4) Neon Bible- Arcade Fire
3) This Modern Love- Bloc Party
2) Bjork- Innocence (from Volta)
1) The Dance at the Gym- From West Side Story- Bernstein and LSO recording (this parts ok...but Jose Carreras sounds REALLY ridiculous as Tony...his accent's way too heavy)</p>
<p>I'm neither at a summer camp nor practising... perhaps that's why I am wandering on CC :)</p>
<p>I listen to classical music only, with very, very few exceptions. Not that I have something against non-classical music (although that would be justified in a lots of cases), but when I feel like listening to music, I don't see why I should listen to anything but classical music; and when I don't want to listen to classical music, I figure that silence is better than anything else. I go to concerts as much as they fit in my schedule and my budget, but I do listen to recordings a lots. </p>
<p>Some (actually pretty close to the majority) of the concerts I went to are not inspiring (or involving) for me, and I guess the fault is mostly on my side it takes something very special to inspire me when I'm very tired and I'm tired most of the time with tons of classes. But that makes the few inspiring concerts especially wonderful for me.</p>
<p>Talking about the volume problem - I was listening to Verdi's Requiem just a few hours ago, and it is SO annoying to have to change volumne constantly. Maybe that's why I don't listen to Mahler and other late romantic symphonists like R Strauss and Bruckner as much as the music deserves.</p>
<p>Son listens to classical, especially Bach, Dylan and Beatles. Equally obsessed with all. He has 80G I-POD which was purchased to store most of complete set of Bach CD's purchased as X-Mas present; Mozart set recently purchased at 40% off at Borders. Current favorites: any violin music played by Hilary Hahn, who I found and adore, Bach as usual, Mendelssohn to play on violin, Chopin to play on piano, Stravinsky and Phlip Glass. Oh, and movie scores like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.</p>
<p>Husband listens to FUV -- folk, folk-rock station.</p>
<p>Daughter (20) listens to current bands I've never heard of (alternative rock), classic rock, particularly The Stones and Mozart (was a flutist.)</p>
<p>I listen at classic rock, particularly Dylan Beatles, Band on the jukebox in my head. As I said, I worship Hilary Hahn. I listen to classical a lot; could happily die listening to Bach Cello Suites (Casals) or Mozart Clarinet Concerto. I drive roughly 100 miles a day for work, and I listen to jazz (the hotter and wilder the better) while I drive because classical puts me to sleep then. Oh, I love the sad ladies: edith Piaf and Billie Holiday.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I drive roughly 100 miles a day for work, and I listen to jazz (the hotter and wilder the better) while I drive because classical puts me to sleep then.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Interesting. When my son was preparing to drive home to Oregon from Indiana, I suggested he not listen to melodic classical pieces for that very reason. He said he would actually be more likely to fall asleep listening to rock music. Apparently classical helps keep him awake, as he is busy noticing all the details about which instruments are doing what, what the dynamics are, how this particular orchestra interprets the piece, etc. A true classical music student!</p>
<p>D,Husband and I currently love:
Gogol Bordello, Bjork, Susan Graham (sings Mozart and Gluck),Big Joe Turner, Benny Goodman and anything
with Bryn Terfl. These are the sounds of summer.(Of course all this will change next week.)</p>
<p>OP asked for "current & future music majors" and responses, including mine, are from 9 parents and only 1 "current & future music major." </p>
<p>Maybe we should change the name of this forum to "Parents of Music Majors?"</p>
<p>Haha...I don't mind the parents contributing. I think it's kind of fun. But i am wondering what happened to all the kids.</p>
<p>I thought they wanted the musical preferences of current and future music majors, so I told you my kids', and threw in the rest of the family for contrast. I didn't realize that you wanted students themselves ONLY to answer; I thought you wanted to know what the students listen to.</p>
<p>Sure, the parents could all go away, but in my opinion, the value of this board would decrease significantly. Of course, I'm a parent, so my opinion is biased.</p>
<p>Don't take it the wrong way binx :) I'm all for contributions from the parents on this board, who have been extraordinarily helpful to many others students and parents in many ways. And I appreciate the responses...</p>
<p>Keep them coming...kids OR parents.</p>
<p>Ok. I confess. I'm guilty. I posted, I shouldn't have; I am guilty also of thread diversion ( I will not admit to thread hi-jacking, at least in this instance).</p>
<p>Mea culpa. </p>
<p>I'll go slink back in my corner. Or go hang out on the AARP boards. ;)</p>