Your Earliest Musical Exposure And Obsessions

[Mirror Image]

What was the first song or piece you ever heard that led you to pursue music as a life-long passion?

I'll go first: when I was 8 yrs. old, I saw the video for Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire on MTV (remember when they actually played music videos and had some kind of musical significance?) and I was absolutely awestruck by this song. I asked my parents to please buy me a recording of it and I remember my dad brought home a cassette tape of it (it was released as a single) and I wore that tape out. I'm not sure why I became so obsessed with this song, but the video was so cool and the song itself had some great hooks in it. Anyway, this is what really got the musical ball rolling for me, although I do remember even earlier my dad playing some LPs of Miles Davis, The Police and many other artists.

https://www.youtube.com/v/eFTLKWw542g

[LKB]

I was a young boy when " Beatle-mania " swept the world. The songs were being played in the house every day, and at first l took pleasure in them without wishing to sing along or actively participate.

But in 1965, Help! hit the record stores ( and movie theaters ). The title song has a simple drum lick which, for whatever reason, was enough to turn me into a percussionist.

A couple of years later my father channeled my interest into classical music. The rest is, as my family would say, very loud history.

[vandermolen]

Definitely The Beatles. I even, as a child, saw them twice in concert, although all you could hear was screaming.

[greg]

The soundtrack to Formula One for the PS1, much fun racing to the soundtrack.

Especially since it contained Satriani's Summer Song, and if I had to nail down one song that got me into guitar, it's this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vp7TmTfVZI


Believe it or not, though... the earliest music that I remember really enjoying was Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. In 1st grade, we watched an animated cartoon with the music to that, and the music really caught my ear. But I didn't know what it was at the time. Took like another 10 years until I learned about Prokofiev to know that it was his music.

[Brian]

This may not count because I don't remember it at all, but when I was 2-3 my parents had to put on Pavarotti records all the time because I would yell "Want fat man singing!"

[MusicTurner]

This may not count because I don't remember it at all, but when I was 2-3 my parents had to put on Pavarotti records all the time because I would yell "Want fat man singing!"

[71 dB]

As I have told here before, I hasn't really into music until in high-school. I didn't understand why people spend money on music and bother to listen to it so much. The answer was that I hadn't discovered music that speaks to me. Most of the music I was exposed to as a child just didn't interest me. I didn't even know I have to discover my own favorites. Some music however interested me before high-school:

Max Roach's drumming in jazz
John Williams' music for movies (Star Wars etc.)

It has been a gradual process for me to discover the wonders of music. My taste is a bit weird and it takes time to become aware of what's out there. Anyway, high-school was a radical change and British electronic dance music of 1988 really lured me into the world of music, stuff like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpeRShWMdYM

What was the first song or piece you ever heard that led you to pursue music as a life-long passion?

I'll go first: when I was 8 yrs. old, I saw the video for Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire on MTV and I was absolutely awestruck by this song. I asked my parents to please buy me a recording of it and I remember my dad brought home a cassette tape of it (it was released as a single) and I wore that tape out. I'm not sure why I became so obsessed with this song, but the video was so cool and the song itself had some great hooks in it. Anyway, this is what really got the musical ball rolling for me,...

Well, Billy Joel DID start the fire in you. 

[Jo498]

My mother recounts a story that I supposedly identified Mozart on a Mozartkugel (candy) as "the man who made that music", i.e. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik on some classical sampler "Wunschkonzert" LP. I don't remember this at all, so not sure if it is true.

I do remember a nice picture book + vinyl "Peter and the Wolf" and later another LP of it with Nutcracker suite on the B side. And the Carnival of animals and the Britten Guide to the orchestra
But I was not obsessed with or listened to much music as a child, nor as a young teenager. I remember being interested in national anthems, probably in the wake of the Olympics 1984, the first year where I remember watching a lot of them, both winter and summer games and my dad eventually got an LP with such anthems; he also had one with the German military ceremony "Grand Tattoo"/"Großer Zapfenstreich" (that has the "Yorkscher" march by Beethoven and Bortnyansky's prayer...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro%C3%9Fer_Zapfenstreich

The first classical music I was very fond of, was, a bit later, the shortish Tchaikovsky pieces Capriccio italien, Marche slave, "1812" as well as the bflat minor concerto.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Yumi Arai: Hikoki Gumo.  Pink Floyd (w/ Syd Barrett): The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I was around 9 years old.




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[Olias]

My mother tells me when I was three, my favorite record was an audio story called "Tubby The Tuba" in which the orchestra instruments were characters in the story.  Apparently, I would often set up all my stuffed animals like an orchestra and conduct the record.

In junior high school, I switched from trumpet to french horn so I could sit behind a cute ginger cheerleader who I had a crush on.  I was very shy though and didn't talk to her very much because my nerves were a wreck.

[Szykneij]

Definitely The Beatles. I even, as a child, saw them twice in concert, although all you could hear was screaming.

That's awesome! One of the few acts I really regret not seeing live. When I was very young, my mother always had music on, with the Liberace and Arthur Godfrey televison shows viewed regularly. But for me, it was also the Beatles that really aroused my interest. Later on, it was Dvořák's New World Symphony that attracted me to classical.

[relm1]

Definitely The Beatles. I even, as a child, saw them twice in concert, although all you could hear was screaming.

That must have been so annoying.  I can relate.  I once saw a theatrical re-release of 2001: A Space Odyssey (a film very concerned with stillness and silence) and all I could hear were loud popcorn munchers. 

[LKB]

That must have been so annoying.  I can relate.  I once saw a theatrical re-release of 2001: A Space Odyssey (a film very concerned with stillness and silence) and all I could hear were loud popcorn munchers. 

You're the first person I've ever encountered to compare my favorite film with my favorite pop group... if l can ever come up with the right trophy, you'll certainly receive it. 

[San Antone]

My earliest memory concerning noticing music in a way that stopped me in my tracks must have been when I was around ten years old.  I overheard my sister playing an LP of Gershwin's piano roll version of Rhapsody in Blue.

All of my early musical memories are connected to something I overheard from my sister's bedroom.  That's how I heard The Beach Boys and The Beatles, but they were a couple of years later after the Gershwin.

The music of Gershwin, The Beatles and The Beach Boys has remained current my entire life.  I've only expanded from those pebble drops in the ocean of future musical discoveries, which I can trace to either that Gershwin experience or those two early rock bands.

[LKB]

My earliest memory concerning noticing music in a way that stopped me in my tracks must have been when I was around ten years old.  I overheard my sister playing an LP of Gershwin's piano roll version of Rhapsody in Blue.

All of my early musical memories are connected to something I overheard from my sister's bedroom.  That's how I heard The Beach Boys and The Beatles, but they were a couple of years later after the Gershwin.

The music of Gershwin, The Beatles and The Beach Boys has remained current my entire life.  I've only expanded from those pebble drops in the ocean of future musical discoveries, which I can trace to either that Gershwin experience or those two early rock bands.

You were lucky. I'd hate to have been influenced by what was coming out of my sister's bedroom... 

[San Antone]

You were lucky. I'd hate to have been influenced by what was coming out of my sister's bedroom... 

Well, she is six years older than me, and I was too young to notice what she listened to before Gershwin.   

[Daverz]

I think it was stuff from my parents record cabinet, like Man of La Mancha.