I used to care what people thought about it. It would hurt, and I would want to hide it. Conceal any traces of it. Pretend that it didn’t belong to me. I was called dull, boring, not considered a real teenager.
People would say, “Classical music? That’s a little squarish don’t you think?”
“Aren’t you too young to be spending time with that?”
“Don’t you have any actual taste?”
Those words would burn and scar me. I wanted people to think I had good taste, to be interesting to people. For people to like what I liked. And sometimes I would tell others that I liked pop music. That I liked Katy Perry as much everyone else did. That I would dance and sing along to Beyoncé.
But it just wasn’t true. I wanted to be able to gossip about Miley Cyrus like everyone else. Frankly, I’d rather have an intellectual conversation about how Johannes Brahms manages to intertwine and switch the melodies halfway through his “Intermezzo in A Major.” It’s just the truth. And my love for classical grew and it became harder and harder to suppress. I was a sixth-grader with a love of Bach and I hated it.
So one day, I just stopped suppressing it. I tentatively let people see through the cracks in my facade and what lay beneath. People laughed at my face. Sneers, disbelief, slow nods and suppressed giggling. I experienced all of it. And it was hard. No one cared to listen to me rattle on about the intricacies of Rachmaninov’s “Piano Concerto No. 2,” or Debussy’s “Deux Arabesques.”
“Shut up.”
“I don’t want to hear it right now.”
“Hannah, I don’t want to hear your stupid music today.”
I didn’t want to be ashamed of letting others know what I truly am like on the inside. That I spend most of my free time listening anywhere from Bach to French opera. That I spend up to 21 hours a week practicing piano and guitar, or that I will go sit in the stairwell of my house and play guitar because it has the best acoustics.
But that’s the way it is. Plain and simple. I’m a nerd, so what? It’s me. It wouldn’t be me without it.
To most, classical music is just noise, and that’s all. Food for the souls of old and lonely people who sit in rocking chairs and twiddle their thumbs. Or perhaps for geniuses as they work on a cure for cancer. I’ve heard it described only as a use for elevator music, that it is just tasteless background music for old people to listen to.
Surely, not something teenagers would be into. I’ve heard all of the excuses: it’s boring, lacks energy, or the right beat, it has no lyrics, you can’t dance to it. I’ve heard it all. I hear it close to every day. My family rolls their eyes when I find myself dancing to Bach sonatas. It can be danced to, even if it is in the most unattractive way possible.
However, like most seem to think, I wasn’t born with a love of classical music. And it wasn’t just picking up a guitar that got me started in music. Most say that when you try out an instrument it’s just “poof!” magic. You have this unbreakable bond with the instrument and you now have this shared musical soul for all of eternity. It’s romanticized all of the time. But people don’t understand how it really works, and nor did I at first.
I, like anyone else, judged people who listened to classical music. I grew up with Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood and K-LOVE in the car, my mom’s soul food. It became the music I went to for every emotion. And now my three younger sisters are into Ariana Grande, and other variations of pop music. I don’t even want to discuss my 11 year old sister’s new fetish for Johnny Cash.
Getting into classical music was an intriguing process. And it still is. When I did try listening to it, I wasn’t astounded. It took time to become fascinated.
I started playing acoustic guitar in fifth grade, intending to learn some chords, read music, be able to strum along to some of my favorite Carrie Underwood songs. It went in the opposite direction entirely. By the next year and a half, I had bought a classical guitar, and was playing Bach. How that happened is still strange, even to me.
The first song anywhere close to classical that I played on my guitar was Silent Night, a piece I wanted to learn to play during Christmas for my family. It was played in a finger style, a style where you don’t use a guitar pick, just your fingers and there is minimal strumming. It was the first taste that I got of anything even a little different from acoustic style. It was odd, the shapes were different, my fingers plucking in complicated and intricate patterns.
I heard combinations of notes, accidentals all over the page, yet sounding so perfect together; the guitar accompanied itself. And that was what was fascinating to me, and beautiful. Something I knew that if I kept with it, I would find even more patterns, shapes and complicated sound and beat.
After my third year of playing classical guitar, I couldn’t take it, I needed something else. I felt like there was so much I was missing, different composers and sounds I wasn’t hearing. Piano was my first instinct. It had always jumped out at me as being something I would love to play. a
My great grandmother played piano at Juilliard and taught students for most of her life. I couldn’t help but think about the possibilities of mastering the piano such as my great grandmother did. So I plunged into it. And by some miracle, I am at the same advanced level in both instruments.
The amazing thing about classical, is that it doesn’t run out. It would be impossible to listen to every classical piece composed in a lifetime. It just proves how much classical music is in our lives, yet it is virtually absent in teen music culture.
Yeah, people can call me a nerd if they want to. It doesn’t bother me. I used to be a person who told others they were nerds for listening to classical music, so I understand. I understand why people aren’t automatically drawn to classical music. Why a lone clarinet playing a mournful melody, or a slow violin may not elicit the same feelings as modern music today might. It’s an appreciation that has to be experienced.
Five years ago, I would ignore any semblance to classical music. But now, it’s as if it has been in my life the entire time. It fits in naturally. With the way that I think: analytically and passionately, and with the way that I live: in appreciation of everything that I hear, and in step with a constantly ticking metronome.
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