When I was in college for my undergraduate degree I was required to take a coures in music apreciation. I was not very happy about it at the time. I remember talking to my councelor and explaining that I had played guitar most of my life and that I should take a Jazz Improvization course that was offered instead. He explained that it would be a big PITA (Pain In The Ass) in terms of administration and that I would have to audition etc. I told him that I had no problem doing an audition and would prefer to learn something instead of just checking a box. Basically, I was not able to get him to sign off on it unfortunately, and I ended up taking the music appreciation course.
I have absolutely no regrets about taking the music appreciation course. I have always respected and apreciated classical music, and the course filled in many of the blanks that I had about classical music and the artistic periods of history.
For some reason lately I have felt like listening to classical, the Romantic Period to be specific which contains my favorite composers. I purchased some mp3’s from amazon, but then found that there is a lot of music available from Wikimedia Commons that has been donated from various sources and appears to be recorded in Ogg Vorbis which makes sense.
Just wanted to say thanks to all of the people/performers that donated the music. Being able to legally download un-encumbered outstanding music is really cool.