I always used to listen to quite a bit of classical music because my dad liked it, and if you've got any ear for music at all you have to enjoy Mozart.
When I listen to music today, it is about 99 percent classical. I rarely even listen to folk music, the music of my own specialty, because folk music is to me more limited than classical music.
You know I'm a bit of a dag because I listen to classical music. I recently bought myself an iPod and downloaded every piece of classical music that I had access to onto that.
My parents met in music school and my father was a music professor and conductor. Growing up, we always had classical and contemporary music playing. There was a lot of Mozart and the Beatles.
I got a classical piano training when I was little, and we also had music study lessons where we'd have to listen to a lot of classical music.
There are three virtuous styles of music; classical, jazz and heavy metal. I do love classical music but I don't listen to it much anymore and I never listen to metal, so I am not very interested in music that is difficult to play.
I do not think classical music faces any threat because new music is being made through computer, as the real charm of classical is its purity, and one who is seeking purity will surely find classical music in spite of so many alternatives.
I think my love of music comes from my dad. I was born with an ear for music, like him, and started with the piano when I was 4 but fell in love with the drums. My dad always has music playing.
My dad used to listen to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and my mom liked Michael Bolton and Roy Orbison. She was pretty big into country music, too. So there was a wealth of music being played in the house, and I kind of took it all in.
I enjoy bluegrass, folk, gospel, and classical. I don't listen to music when I write. I sometimes listen to music just before I sit down to write.
I listen to either romantic classical music, Brahms or Beethoven or something like Mozart, or I go all the way contemporary and listen to Metallica or Adele, Radiohead, jazz, whatever it is that is completely opposite.
I learned some classical music history, which I had done quite a bit at of Performing Arts. But I got some more with a great teacher named David Noon, who I've been in contact with quite a bit in recent years.
I grew up in a classical music household. My dad is a phenomenal musician who can play any and all instruments, can sight read, can play by ear.
My mom played 12-string and sang, and my dad could play pretty much any wind instrument and had a great ear for harmony. Soon enough, my sister and I got into music because we were always around it, and people were always listening to it.
My dad was a jazz fan and he used to have lots of old 78s, so I grew up with big jazz bands and the likes of Duke Ellington and Count Basie - although I really liked show tunes from those big musicals as well. I've always kept my ears open, as it were, when it comes to music. It doesn't matter to me what type of music it is. If I like it, I'll listen to it.
Composers don't just sit in a room and write things that are in their heads, they actually listen to a lot of music, pop music, jazz, rock and roll, any combination of music that catches their ear.
I never listen to music when I am writing. It would be impossible. I listen to Bach in the mornings, mostly choral music; also some Handel, mostly songs and arias; I like Schubert's and Beethoven's chamber music and Sibelius' symphonies; for opera, I listen to Mozart and in recent years Wagner.