Bacholyte

I was more-or-less raised around classical music, and started swimming with the stream only faster (as Quentin Crisp would put it). Dad was definitely not a musician (although his brother was). However, for a non-musician, his appreciation of classical music was above-average. The light classics, anyway. As a former G.I., he always had a vague aversion to German music after Beethoven. To listen to Wagner would be especially unpatriotic. Mom played the piano somewhat, like every self-respecting young lady in her time (especially an upper-mid-westerner of German background) and kept at it just for pleasure. I must have been about 14 before I was confident that I could play better than she did. Naturally, a good middle-class home would also have a piano, in her view, and all the children would take piano lessons for a couple years at least. As I recall, all of my grade-school teachers could play the piano, too; it was almost taken for granted. How the times have changed.

One piece playing on the phonograph often when I was a little kid was Romanian Rhapsody no. 1 by Enesco. It's very bright and cheerful and easy to listen to. That wouldn't be a bad start. At age 10, by then fascinated by the organ, I discovered Dad's old "78" of the Piece Heroique by Franck and nearly wore it out. It was the first piece of organ sheet music I ever bought, and I tried to learn it (quite a hopeless task at that stage). It so happened that he had heard the college organist play it when he was in college, asked him what it was, and bought a recording when he could. Some thirty years later, I would became an eager student of that same college organist: nice circle of good karma.