I never really got any musical exposure as a kid. My parents weren't interested in music; I just got a little of whatever was playing on the local general-interest AM radio station. My teenage years were the the heyday of Elvis Presley and his contemporaries but I never got into Rock 'n Roll.

In college started to develop some interest in folk music -- we're talking the Kingston Trio, then Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. A couple of years graduation after that I got my first stereo system; (Dynaco electronics and A25 speakers, and a Lenco t/t and Shure cartridge). I got further into folk, notably Baez, Collins, Mitchell, Ian & Sylvia, and Gordon Lightfoot; (today I retch at the very fhough of listening to Lightfoot). But then I got more into classical music, and since it has been my era of expansion.

Yeah, I pretty much started with Bolero, (a recording of which I'm not sure I could find in my collection today), and Debussy's La Mer. I proceed to Renaissance and Baroque; I loved Handel and Bach. Then to Hayden, Mozart and Beethoven. After awhile chamber music became my favorite subgenre as it still is today.

Today I like the Moderns, notably Shostakovich, Bartok, and Prokofiev. And starting about a dozen years or so ago, I became fairly interested in contemporary classical and am still expanding in this area. Today I especially like Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez, and Harrison Birtwistle.

I like Schubert and some Dvorak but otherwise have struggled with the Romanitic era. I still haven't got much use for Brahms, and pretty much hate Schumann and Bruckner. I can tolerate a Mahler symphony once in a while.

After much struggle I've come to appreciated Schoenburg, Berg, and Webern, (the "Second Vienna School"). It wasn't easy.

The point is, though, that I have expanded my interest in classical and still strive to expose myself to more music -- and struggle to better appreciate the stuff I like less well such as Brahms.