Neocities.org

Since you haven't described your ideas so far, I'd say split them by era (stylistically) with prominent composers and a description of what "makes" the era (introduction of an instrument or a style at that time), but with music theory kept simple for those without the background.

for me, many of the peices written hundreds of years ago have many different symphonies and recordings available. even if i love a song i hear on cbc classical time, when i look it up it is played ever so different. hard to nail down a performance for every piece

@teethinvitro Good idea!! I was also thinking of a little chart where I recommend pieces based on other genres or moods of music that a reader may already be into

@geouniversal Ah yes, the eternal problem... I feel you there!!

Personally I like having lots of recordings to peruse and consider but I can be very particular at times

I like the chart idea! In my experience getting into new *anything* can be overwheling because of the sheer amount of choice you're faced with without having the knowledge about what's considered essiental and great and what's accessible for newbies. Like even if you've heard of all the famous composers, where do you start with their oeuvres?

I've heard advice for people getting into classical lit for the first time - start with something short and very narrative driven to ease you into more complex prose. Maybe including the music equivallent of that would make sense?

@theliterarybisexual Yep, huge agree!! I feel like leaving out 'the greats' would be reductive, but I also don't want to exclusively recommend what everyone knows -- I think that leaves out a lot of diversity and variety in the classical space

One idea - start with famous composers and/or pieces, then offer recommendations for less-known music for each one? That would, of course, require you to decide what is mainstream enough to count as well-known lol

YouTube is certainly the best place to discover classical recordings, streaming platforms like Spotify showcase just recorded albums and don’t usually have live recordings which makes up a large portion of classical music, they’re also not great at organizing composers’ works together because Spotify prioritizes easily digestible pieces and often leave out the composer in track titles and only include the performer…

… or orchestra so it’s sometimes difficult to know what a piece is by if you aren’t already aware, but in terms of YouTube, many channels like hr-sinfonieorchester have full high quality recordings of repetoire which you might enjoy.

Everything that @fretnoize said !! Spotify also loves chopping up pieces that are meant to be continuous just because of a movement or segment difference...

That's a great idea! I've seen people make fun of classical music (idk why) so maybe that's one reason they don't get into it. Also, it is a very specific topic, people like things that explain what is what, whether something is baroque style, etc. I like the idea of a chart, that's a good visual for anything confusing.

Also, it seems like people like music by people they can identify with. So by including people like Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Florence Price, Scott Joplin, etc, that could possibly encourage people who don't feel like they have much in common with the most famous composers.