Miércoles 11 Feb 2009, 2:35

Coming from a very musical family (listening to my parents' rehearsals for Schubert songs – e.g. Winterreise – already as a small child) and having learned playing piano and cello in my childhood and youth, when I grew older I opposed to listen to my parents' classical music any longer.
But what was striking, I didn't switch over to mainstream pop music, which was ABBA, Boney M., BeeGees and so on in those days of the 70s. I had a rather special taste instead, including Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Nice, Jethro Tull… with quite obvious classical influences. But also my more mainstream favourites differed significantly from music for the masses. These were Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Supertramp, Mike Oldfield, and thereof especially the long songs/pieces – I name Father of Day, Father of Night, Fool's Overture and Tubular Bells respectively. "Normal" pop music appeared too boring to me, although I wasn't really able to explain the difference.
Looking back I realize that all my old favourites belong to the Progressive Rock genre. And thanks to last.fm I discovered much more of them :-)

I'd like to support a point made by mennochen in a discussion in the 70s progressive rock group: The 'elitist' view of pure classical music lovers isn't justified. I think there are real masterpieces in rock music too, especially in progressive rock. In addition to the few pieces or bands I named above I'd like to mention for example Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen; I wish we could perform that great song in our choir aCHORd, but I think it's too difficult, too complex for amateur singers, what a pity!
What is the reason for that 'elitist' view? In my opinion it may merely come from the difficulties to access the unknown territory on the other side of some invisible border; and to find rare occurences of great music amongst tons of rubbish, produced only for commercial reasons.
BTW: The same holds true in both directions. I think lots of people don't dare to access classical music because they don't know where to begin. (At least that was true with me; it took me some years during the 80s to get a kind of overview.) They might hear some boring Mozart or Haydn pieces or crying opera singers fulfilling their prejudices, and so they turn away again.
(I admit that it's the same with me and more modern music styles: hip hop, rap or tekkno? – no idea. I can't find anything positive in it, it just drives me aggressive when I occasionally step across it. Maybe someone is able to guide me to something worth listening in it, but I'm afraid that will be very difficult.)