Tunesmith said: "The big problem with not being able to appreciate classical music is too much exposure to simple music that doesn't challenge the senses at all."

Well this is complicated. First, a lot of "simple" music, such as a lot of pop music, is actually multi-layered and very well crafted. I've mentioned this before in other threads, but a few years ago I started to help our lovely local dance teacher (and friend of both of us, in case you get any ideas!) by editing pop songs to length for her dance routines with her young pupils (and for the bunch of ladies of a certain age which included Mrs Steve!). On my laptop I was cutting and splicing all manner of songs, from Rhihanna to Don McClean to Broadway musicals. Blending bits together to make everything seamless, often even joining two songs together. It meant that I had to do an awful lot of critical listening at the joins, playing short snatches over and over again...It drove me bonkers at times, but, the thing is, I got to appreciate just how skilfully put together most so-called pop music actually is. I did over 500 songs altogether, and, though I'm never going to buy any of the records I edited songs from, it cured me of dissing all pop music as simple rubbish...

And following on from that, the perception that classical music is somehow complicated and difficult is a notion that I refute. You have to remember that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and all the rest had to make a living. A very few were lucky enough to make a living from the patronage of wealthy aristocrats, but the rest had to subsist on what they could make from subscription concerts or by earning a grand reputation. There were no CDs or other merchandise to sell to bolster your meagre earnings and you relied on people coming to your concerts, hearing your stuff and spreading the word. You don't manage that by being highbrow and exclusive. That's very much a 20th century phenomenon, intended to convey that only an elite minority could possibly "understand" classical music. Mozart took great delight in the fact that ordinary people were strolling around Vienna whistling the tunes from the Magic Flute.

Well I think that the "elite," who sit in concerts and opera houses in their posh togs, probably understand a lot less about classical music than many a working chap who sings in his local male voice choir, to pick out one example. In fact, they often fall asleep, quite likely as a result of the burgundy quaffed in the interval...

I have no music education at all, but, after fifty or more years of listening on the radio, buying records, going to concerts and doing all that Youtube stuff, I reckon I could hold down a conversation about classical music with anyone. I don't find the music at all difficult or complex (in fact, it all has a fairly simple structure). Don't let the elite fool you into thinking that you're not clever enough to understand it. The greatest music appeals on so many levels and it is of no consequence that you haven't got a degree in music. Buy yourself a box set of Beethoven symphonies, sit back and pum-pum your way through them all. Ludwig would love you for that!