Although I was exposed to music at an early age, with my parents buying Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and various children's folk music records, which I liked,and had seen The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, which was a thrill, the first music that really got inside of me in a special way was the first movement of Beethoven's symphony No. 6. I was about 12 years old, at home on a rainy afternoon. Out of boredom, I put on my parents LP of that symphony, performed by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra conducted by Hermann Scherschen. I was just curious to hear it. That unexpectedly became a magical moment. I've heard classical music around the house before, and had gone to San Francisco Symphony children's concerts, and had watched Bernstein's children's concerts on TV and enjoyed them, but the music never really affected me as it did at that moment. I took the needle off after the first movement, and put it back to the beginning. I must have done that three or four times before deciding to listen to the rest of the symphony. From then on, I was hooked. It was later that I had similar experiences with folk/traditional music, and rock. I can point to just a few other moments like that, but that was the first one.

-chanteyranger