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Some of us have been playing the piano and done other music for many years. Lately I have been thinking about what influenced my musical preferences and taste. Why did I learn to play the piano, and why do I prefer playing and listening to certain kind of music?

Thinking back I realise that the music I listened to and played during childhood has strongly influenced me.

Here is my story, and I'm also interested to hear yours.

My parents were teachers in a small community pretty far from the nearest town. During their education they learnt to play the pump organ, and when I was nine they bought one for our home and sent me to the local church organist for lessons. I don't think they were very ambitious, and I was the first pupil the organist ever had. They gave me an introductory album and although I never was a fast score reader I learnt the principles of musical notation and basic fingering of scales and simple pieces. Playing fast and with virtuosity was never an issue, but I liked exploring the pieces in the album and after a year I could play simple pieces like this song by Danish composer Oluf Ring: https://app.box.com/s/bk5f9yt3zb9wzzrhj80s

Along with playing the pieces from the book I also liked to experiment with harmonies and spent lots of time just improvising. These improvisations, of course, mostly reflected music I already played, but relatively quickly I learnt playing songs by ear. In addition to the basic piano album I also got the organist's score for the hymns of the church, and I very quickly got fond of many of the old Norwegian hymns. Since these ones are hardly known outside Norway I present two of my childhood favorites.

Evening hymn, melody by Ludvig Lindemann:
https://app.box.com/s/605k6rrpo0zd9p3y36hp

Norwegian hymn melody (also used by Edvard Grieg in his last composition "Salmer, Op.74):
https://app.box.com/s/7h1wpt9ng62dxls3kmsv

Just for the record, I play these hymns by ear, but harmonies are very close to the original organist's scores.

Certainly I also listened to other music. When I grew up television was unknown in Norway, but the radio was almost always on, and occasionally some melody caught my ear. Here is one song I heard just a couple of times, but which I liked very much. I have no idea where it comes from.

https://app.box.com/s/72mb6mfjfeg9tcxxa3l0

I didn't understand any text, so it was probably English or American. Maybe someone can help me identifying it. I play it from memory, so perhaps I make some mistakes.

Since we lived pretty far away from the town I was never taken to any classical concerts. My father once attended a course for orchestra conductors, and I remember I was really carried away by the orchestra. I still remember some of the pieces they studied during the course. Except from attending the course my father never conducted an orchestra, but he was the conductor of the local brass band that mainly consisted of local farmers and fishermen. Anyhow I thought they played very well.

My first real encounter with classical piano music was some years later when I went to high school. One of my teachers went through music history and I learnt how to discriminate between baroque, Vienna classic, romantic and impressionistic music. At the same time my parents traded the pump organ for a piano. Being pretty busy with school I decided to study piano music on my own. To begin with I was most interested in playing popular music (from the sixties) by ear, but I soon became interested in Grieg, Chopin, Beethoven and others. Just a pity that I didn't get instructions by a teacher at that time.

Anyhow, these were my musical roots. Now, fifty years later I still prefer listening and playing music in the same style as a youngster (although I now also listen to classical music from the 20th century). And whenever I compose some music I find that I prefer to use chord progressions and harmonic turns similar to those I played when I still used the pump organ. So, this is my excuse for being a bit conservative when comes to music....

Thank you for that lovely post and the music Ganddalf!

Music was and is always valued in my family. People go around the house singing. This is normal. My mother has always sung with ensembles. Both my parents sang lullabies to tuck us in at night, and sang songs together while my dad played guitar. They gave me records (yes, vinyl) of The Point by Nilsson, the soundtrack to the musical "Annie," and my favorite which had Peter and the Wolf on one side and the Nutcracker Suite on the other. I also remember dancing around the living room to my mother playing Beethoven on the piano, specifically the second movement of the Pathetique sonata and the Six Ecossaises in E flat, both of which are favorites of mine to play now. The advantage of piano over the record player was that I could dance around and she wouldn't skip

As soon as I was tall enough to reach the piano I started trying to play it. My mother taught me the rudiments of music reading using the "Annie" score. When I was in second grade they sent me to a local Suzuki piano teacher. The Suzuki training plus an independent urge to read all the music I could get my hands on, all by myself, was the perfect start to my music education and I never stopped.

I grew up in a home without music - literally. The only pop music I heard was when relatives and friends brought their records, or when I went to visit them. The ancient gramophone at home was really an item of furniture, and there was no radio...

But then two programs (or series of programs) appeared on the TV (then, B&W) - Victor Borge's comedy-recitals, making fun of music which sounded intriguing, but which I'd never heard; and amazingly - because this was in a 'developing' country far, far away from 'Western civilisation' -, a complete Beethoven piano sonata cycle produced by Austrian TV, played by Paul Badura-Skoda and Jörg Demus, who shared the honors between them. Their playing styles and body language intrigued me almost as much as the music - Badura-Skoda stiffly, er, stiff in the Germanic tradition (though he's Austrian), Demus showing the whole gamut of expressions on his face while he played. The presentation by ORF was minimalist, with just titles and no spoken introduction, which was just as well, as I knew next to no English then, let alone German.....

And around the same time, I also saw the movie 'The Great Waltz' which was about the life and music of another Austrian, J.Strauss II. The choral version of The Blue Danube that was performed in the film entranced me - this was the first time I'd heard a group of people singing in four-part harmony. Not to mention all the orchestral music, and the different sounds each instrument made individually and collectively.

So, ABBA, the Bee Gees, Elton John, Simon & Garfunkel, Beethoven piano music and Viennese waltzes was all I heard, until I started piano lessons at 10 - thanks to my uncle, whose four children all learnt piano from when they were 6 years old. That prompted my parents to keep up with the Joneses, and they bought a little Yamaha vertical for their children.

And my uncle then proceeded to encourage my developing interest in classical music by playing me music from his record collection, from Bizet's L'Arlésienne Suites to Mendelssohn's piano concertos to Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, when I went to stay with his family during school holidays. Those were the musical highlights of my childhood......until I progressed enough on the piano for my teacher to give me Denes Agay's 'Easy Classics to Moderns'. I was now playing real music by real composers for the first time. (The bright red color of the cover also helped ).

But it was only when I was sent abroad in my early teens to further my schooling that I became exposed to lots of classical music and could sing, as well as play (chamber music) with others. That started me on the long road to discovery, which I'm still on now, decades later.

When I was a kid, I got into a choir. All the other boys could read music except me, so I asked for lessons and was given a piano teacher. Thus started some years of classical lessons, and continuing with the choir, and doing theater and musicals. The kind of music I liked the most at that time was basically the Impressionists, Broadway, and the jazz that I would hear on the classical station on Saturday nights.

Then when I was a teenager I got into 80s pop and progressive rock from the 70s.

Those tastes have pretty much stuck with me throughout my life.

Your story has enlightened me but broken the spell, I always assumed you took the name bennevis after Ben Nevis the tallest mountain in Britain. I pictured you as a highland gentleman living in the Fort William area of Scotland. There goes that theory.

This post is wonderful!
I have been listening to music from as far back as I can remember. I grew up in a household full of such diverse taste in music and I was so fortunate to have been exposed to all of it. As a young child I remember dancing with my sister to the beats of Cuban Rumba and Guaguanco. I always watched my Grandfather take turns dancing with my Grandmother and then my Mother to Cuban Danzon (kind of their version of a formal waltz/minuet). Then, there was Frank SInatra, Billie Holiday, Sara Vaughn, Tony Bennet, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Prokofieff, Mozart, Johann Strauss and my favorite back then, The St. Thomas Boys Choir Christmas album "Noel." It made me love Christmas. I remember memorizing all of the traditional British Carols. I sing and play them to this day. How I wish I could find a clean recording of this album. It is out of print. I was four years old when my Mom brought it home that Christmas Holiday. Now, I'm soon to be 57. Thank goodness for memory.
My Mother played the piano. She had a beautiful professional upright. I got my love of music and talent as a pianist from her. The day that she came home with both Beatles albums and sat us down to give them to us saying "I don't know if you girls will like them, but everyone else does", I knew at that moment I wanted to be a musician after my first listen.
I did not have a piano growing up. But, I could play by ear. I had a little toy piano and I remember coming home from having seen "The Sound of Music" and playing "Do-Re-Mi" from beginning to end. That soundtrack had a profound affect on my musicianship and musicality. At the age of ten I got the electric guitar I wanted for Christmas. My twin sister, Lili (also a musician - singer/songwriter) got the "Emenee Electric Piano Organ". She loved the Vox sound of the 60's bands. The irony of it all - we both went on to become musicians, but I play the piano and she plays the guitar.
My formal musical studies began at the age of 15. I had a great music program at my Catholic High School. I had a phenomenal teacher, Ms. Clark, who taught my everything she knew. I fell in love with the Classical period, The Romantic Period and the Impressionists. To make this very long story shorter, I went on to earn my B.A. in Music. I have performed professionally with my sister for many years. I hold classical music close to my heart, practice just about everyday and have discovered my second love of Jazz.
Remembering these specifics reminds me of what matters most. That, this passion for the piano, for music, is a life force that keeps me sane and centered, when things aren't so right, when life isn't so fair. And, that it was handed down to me by those loved me and shared the same passion.

Thank you,

What a great topic, enjoying the stories so far and look forward to many more.

I grew up in Scotland and shared a bedroom with my brother who was five years older than I. My musical taste was shaped primarily by the records he bought around the early 70’s and played on his little mono record player which was all day and into the wee hours of the night. He loved the Beatles but moved into more progressive rock. Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath to name but a few and I became a Yes fan before any of the other kids had even heard of them at school. I thought I was pretty cool at the time but I had some dark secrets. For his tastes were wide and not always so trendy but no matter what he bought I ended up loving as well and have quite a few of them in my own CD collection some of which were pretty hard to find.

Things changed though with the movie release of Clockwork Orange, I couldn’t see the movie as I was too young but read the book while listening to the soundtrack. A large amount of the soundtrack is classical music played on synthesiser and this was revolutionary. Soon more records of the same type arrived in the house, “Switched On Bach” and "The Well Tempered Synthesiser” followed by “Sonic Seasons”, a double album of synthesized seasonal weather sounds with storms, tree rustling and rain. That one was a bit hard for me to love, as was the day he brought home a best of Chopin record. I had started listening to more traditional classical music, Beethoven, Holst, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and loved all the popular symphonies but could not take to classical acoustic piano, how things have changed.

The first record I bought was a second hand copy of Genesis’s “Nursery Cryme” and became a huge fan overnight, their music dominating a large part of my life. There are other bands I like but as the years have went on they all seem to fall into the same category of progressive and symphonic rock. All of the bands I like have strong keyboard players and to my ears at least have classical roots. Little wonder when I took up playing piano I am so drawn to classical music as my inspiration. After all of these years I can now listen to Chopin and am just blown away by the music. I hope one day to be able to play some of the works but as they say “the rest is history” (yet to be written).

Actually, you are quite right about how I 'acquired' my user name - Ben Nevis is my favourite mountain (I'm also a mountaineer), and I have walked/run/climbed it from every conceivable direction and in all seasons, in everything from running shoes to crampons & ice tools in winter.

Unfortunately, my attempt to become a Scottish highland gent has (so far) eluded me, though I've been known to wear a tartan kilt and play bagpipes at the base of said mountain.

I'll be making my annual pilgrimage up north this summer, and will be making my re-acquaintance with my namesake once again....

The school I was sent to, where I flourished in the music scene, was in the UK, but not Scotland (too expensive for my parents....). It was actually the same school where one of the UK's best known concert pianists, Barry Douglas, attended. Picture, if you will, a young school kid who'd just passed Grade 6 ABRSM, watching a teenager not much older, playing the Liszt B minor Sonata with coruscating virtuosity on the Yamaha grand in the school chapel, and who would go on to win the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow a few years later......how could that kind of experience not inspire one to practise harder, to (try to) achieve that kind of musical and technical heights?

Students in the school who did music were encouraged to give lunchtime recitals in the chapel. I was never brave enough (OK, I was never good enough ). I well remember a girl in my music class who played Mendelssohn's Cello Sonata No.2, with great intensity, partnered by our teacher on the piano - it's still one of my favourite chamber works.

I grew up in a very musical household. My father and mother both sang in the church choir, and my dad played euphonium for many years. He quit after a while, though, and took private voice lessons. My older sister took piano lessons and I begged my parents to let me take lessons too. When I was about 5 they agreed and made me promise to take lessons for 10 years, which I did. I would sing with my family a lot, but most often with my sister. We would sing old slave songs from the south while we did dishes (dunno how we learned those, none of our family was raised in the south, but I think we felt like we were slaves having to clean up the kitchen after dinner LOL). That certainly made the chore more enjoyable though.

My father got into audio equipment and set up his stereo in the finished basement, and we would go down and listen to things like Shostakovich's 5th symphony, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, things like that. None of us are Russian, either, so go figure on that LOL! We also would listen to Beethoven piano sonatas, but no opera. Mostly orchestral stuff.

I was a teen during the late 80s, and I listened to some pop music, but got more into classic rock (Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, the usual fare). But also was very into Journey, Rush, Genesis (old and new), Kansas, Marillion, Heart, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, things like that. The singing had to be good, and keyboards too.

In high school I was in the Jazz and Madrigal choir, and the jazz choir got to tour Europe with the jazz band. I wanted to be in the band doing jazz piano, but since my lessons were strictly classical up to that point, I had no clue where to begin so that never really happened. Now I don't really miss it since I can play with other musicians. By the age of 15 I quit piano lessons but continued to teach myself. My focus, however, was more on singing.

To this day, I feel I'm a much better singer than I am a pianist, but I love both and I've tried giving up on both of them over the years with no success. I'm still at it.

southern rock, elton john, beatles,beach boys,country music, fiddle music...just about everything

What a thoughtful question!

I wish I knew what idiotic idea possessed me when I took up piano. I'm pretty sure that I asked my parents if I could study it.

As a ragtime player, it very well might have been the ragtime revival of the '70s. "The Sting" had come out a year or so before I picked up piano and "The Entertainer" got plenty of airplay on the radio in those days--it was a different time.

I took up piano in 3rd grade and it might have been the thing that made me ask. But I didn't actually play any ragtime pieces (in my case, simplified) until teenage years. My teacher, OTOH, was definitely influenced by the ragtime revival. He'd taken some lessons and hated them, but then the ragtime revival happened, he fell in love with the music, and started attacking full rags. I think "Maple Leaf" was his first.

Your countryman Grieg made music that I enjoyed, "Wedding Day at Tr(o)ldhaugen" (I'm not even venturing into the diacritical territory that wouter entered lest Monica be disappoint) was a piece I played and enjoyed in high school and my brother fell in love with it. A few years ago, he gave me a two-month warning--I ended up playing on a chintzy keyboard with unweighted keys--but it somehow came out okay anyway.

Well I grew up listening to electronic music so I listened to a lot of Jean Michel Jarre and Isao Tomita. That influenced me greatly! I also got interested in classical music at a young age.

This is a lovely post. I was brought up in Scotland and my earliest memories of music, in the 1950's, were from radio. I was the youngest in the family and remember treasuring the time alone with my mother before I started school. She used to sing to those 1950's 'favourites'. We seem to have a memory of certain sounds that evoke particular emotions. Although my husband is less than 2 years older than me, he has completely different musical memories and doesn't relate at all to the sounds that move me. Thank you for posting this.

I heard and listened to everything as a child.
Was very influenced by the preaching in music. Everything that caused me to think.
All the songs about Vietnam, and Civil Rights. The Stones, the Doors, and others.
Other stuff about thinking like Moon River, Send in the Clowns.
Nat King Cole was huge. Sounded good even on AM Radio. Barbara Streisand had a special purity that she hasn't been able to hold on to.
In elementary school, we studied much Classical as well as music from Plays. Remember the teacher telling use about some of the Masters who were never recognized or profited in their lifetime. They did it for the sake of the music, not profit.
I remember when Queen first came out. Bohemian Rhapsody. This was different. This guy had an education in music.
Was intrigued by the music in The Godfather.
I remember the movie: The Sting. Beautifully done music.
Love Story had special music.
I remember Star Wars. How the music was appropriately and slightly corny. Just how John did that I was intrigued by. Close Encounters of the Third kind. I thought that was absolutely brilliant. The Indiana Jones series and John made the music very appropriately corny. How did he do that?
In my 20's I stumbled upon Classical that I really really loved. It was because I had become an audiophile. Translate that as wasting tons of money on stereo equipment. When we finalized my purchase. The owner of the store handed me a very special recording called an Original Mastered Album. He told me that when I thought my stereo wasn't working right, to play this album. It was Beethoven's 9th Symphony done by Seiji Ozawa. Always been a fan of Seiji ever since.
In my 20's something happened. I then couldn't listen to Rock music for 25 years without becoming depressed. Too many bad memories. Especially one song from 1970. Got so bad I finally just started to sing it. The more I sang it, the more I changed the words. Until it became what it is to me now. All the changes are real. Am no longer depressed by Rock.

EDIT: Everytime I see an interview with someone who created something really special in music. They always say that the instant any thought of fame or profit enters their mind. They lose all their creativity. The creativity comes from something greater.

When I was very young, approx 4 years, Mozarts concert for Flute and Harp and his concert for Clarinet.

"As a ragtime player, it very well might have been the ragtime revival of the '70s. "The Sting" had come out a year or so before I picked up piano and "The Entertainer" got plenty of airplay on the radio in those days--it was a different time."

I don`t remember the ragtime revival, we were too full of Prog Rock (ELP, Argent) and the usual Slade, Kate Bush (my knees wobble at that voice) . . but I do remember buying a Wurlitzer Electric piano and hearing just everybody playing "The Entertainer" on them at the time. London was rocking then. . . (that was the worst musical instrument I ever bought)

Classical(romantic period music. Movie theme music like E.T. And the sort.

This is fun!

Even though I had no musical training in my younger days (I'm a 50-year old 1-year beginner), music has always been very important to me. I always remembered my dad playing guitar--badly. As a teenager, my first album was Meat Loaf's "Bat out of He**." Awesome piano-centric rock! My next album was "Pieces of Eight" by Styx. Then I discovered Bruce Springsteen and "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "Born to Run" Born to Run is got to be one of the greatest albums ever made, IMHO! About the same time, my two brothers formed a band. I really wanted to be part of it, playing piano/keys, of course. What stopped me was that I didn't want to horn in on their gig and I was afraid I would have no musical talent (like my father).

Through college and grad school, I continued to find solace through music, the words and music of Springsteen, Styx, U2, REM, speaking to me, giving me strength. For years, I really wanted to play piano but never got around to it, possibly because life got busy, possibly because I feared I would just frustrate my self trying in vain to learn. (In grade school I had made an attempt at learning guitar with a few demoralizing group lessons--oh, how we are such products of our youth.)

I finally took the plunge about a year ago when I was going through my divorce, and have never looked back!

I grew up surrounded by classical music. By the time I was 7 or 8 I knew that there is nothing better than Beethoven after hearing the Violin Concerto for the first time. My dad must have noticed that I was wearing out that cassette of the violin concerto, so he would buy more Beethoven, the symphonies, piano concertos, overtures, and place them among his collection. I couldn't have enough of it. I only found out after having my own children that my father didn't really like Beethoven much, preferring opera and Strauss, but never said a thing when I played all those Beethoven on his hifi every chance I got. That's when I realized he really bought them for me.

However, it was this corny little piece playing on the radio around Christmas of 1978 that inspired me to want to play the piano, but no lessons were forthcoming as my mom looked at pianos with me but after seeing prices never bought one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LRsYn9ufY0

There were three albums my mother used to play when I was very small. She'd usually play them after we had gone to bed, but our house was small and the walls thin. I used to lay there in the dark and listen to the music, and I thought it was the most beautiful music I had ever heard. To this day they remain some of my favorite classical/instrumental works. The albums were:

1. Scheherazade, by Rimsky-Korsakov. The violin solo still sends chills down my spine.

2. Russian folk songs. This was a scratchy old album produced in Russia (cyrillic language etc.) with versions of classic Russian folk songs, such as Song of the Volga Boatmen, Kalinka, etc. I've not been able to track down a CD or reprinting of it... though I've tried!

3. The Soul of Spain, by 101 Strings. Arrangements of Spanish classical music. My favorite was "Maleguena," which has some of the most haunting melody lines I can think of.

Thanks for the stroll down memory lane.