Electronic And Classical Music

I grew up listening to classical music, not by choice. It's what my parents listened to exclusively. So every car ride anywhere, it was classical music. By and large, I did not care for it. It was dull and boring to me.

I never got more than a taste of any contemporary music, which was way more appealing to me. Modern music had obvious melody, things you could sing. It also had lyrics that people could sing. Classical music was nothing more than a semi-random assortment of sound. No instrument ever had a melody. It was always jumping back and forth. To hear any instrument's part alone was like looking at a single girder and some bolts and trying to envision an office building.

As soon as I got to college, I had almost immediate access to modern music, thanks in large part to my friends exposing me to their various music libraries. From there, I found my way into electronic music, and as the years passed, I got deeper into electronic dance music, house, drum and bass, dubstep and all that jazz.

Recently, I decided to listen to the classical music station, and I was really shocked. Everything I love about electronic music I could find in classical music. And the extra irony is that it is actually all the things I originally hated about it. Basically, I had to go through an evolution from simple melodic tunes, to similar tunes with electronic influence, to pure electronic tunes, at which point I gained the appreciation for the high-level goings-on of this music.

That said, not all classical music is equally great, just like all other forms of music. And it also helps listening to music of a certain period that resonates with me (the Romantic period, like Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and Beethoven all do that kind of sound more than Baroque or Classical period music). Still, I was amazed that I could gain an appreciation for music I once couldn't stand by listening to music that most classical musicians can't stand.

This easily translates to the written word, both as a reader, and a writer. Stories have more in common than they have different. You may find as you grow up that you have gained an appreciation for a form of writing you once hated. Partly it comes from new understanding; partly it comes from evolving tastes.