I’ve always meant to listen to more classical music, if only to enable me to answer more questions on University Challenge
FWIW Moe, I’ve been on a mission these past few years to see how well I could do in a typical episode of Radio 4’s Counterpoint despite getting almost none of the classical questions right. And I’ll say this much; I haven’t finished last very often.
I passed Grade 8 theory easily enough in my early teens, but always by scoring the maximum number of points available on notation, musical terms, etc. to compensate for the inevitable haemorrhaging of points when asked to name X number of symphonies from old white dead geezer Y.
My relationship with classical music as a whole is… complicated. It was always in the house growing up, and my folks switched to Classic FM from Radio 2 at the earliest opportunity upon launch. You might as well have superglued the dial in place there for all subsequent radios owned.
There was always an element of snob value to it being played quite as much as it was, however, and that also manifested itself in the piano lessons I was obliged to sit for north of a decade. Practising the same three pieces for months on end at the whim of the Associated Board drew all the fun out of the genre and by extension the playing of the instrument.
For all that, I still prefer piano-based classical, or better still solo classical piano pieces, as much to hear how it ought to have been done. I loves me some Satie, some Bach’s Preludes and Fugues and some Baroque (especially any of those madrigals by the likes of Monteverdi which appear to consist of not much more than the same motif on a harpsichord throughout).
Decades of relative neglect, however, have reduced my playing technique to an ugly, uncoordinated stab, not even pub standard. As my perfect pitch has conversely remained intact, I’m essentially a musician who can no longer play music, which is frustrating beyond belief.
I tend to steer clear of full symphony orchestra thingies, especially those with bombastic, dominant, inescapable string sections, which ramp up my tinnitus far worse than the loudest gigs I could possibly attend.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.