Listening

When I was 12 years old, my mum bought me a cassette tape of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. This was the start of what quickly became a strong interest of mine.

I wanted to better understand the material I was reading about music, so I asked whether I could study music theory. My teacher, Mair Shankster, took me from knowing nothing about music theory to Grade 8 Theory of Music.

I enjoy listening to recorded music. I often listen to BBC Radio 3. I do not enjoy attending performances in person. I prefer to listen to recordings that were made under studio conditions. I find extraneous sounds quite distracting. I would prefer to listen to the music with as few mistakes in the performance as possible. Even recordings of performances made under studio conditions contain many mistakes, but I think that these recordings tend to be more accurate than live performances. I hope never to attend another performance in person. I get so much more enjoyment from the music when listening at home.