How does one (grow) as a music listener/lover?

slaw a great point and for me personally the advent of streaming has really kicked this into high gear. I can go on crazy tangents listening to something, checking out whats available from other musicians on that recording and so on and so on. Also reading a review and seeing the music choices being able to dial up something that sounds interesting. And the best part, it never ends! There is just so much out there.

I find as I grow older that I am now willing to experience new for me composers that I would never have thought of before . When I was young I only listened to a very small spectrum of music from the so called Great Composers and even that was quite limited. What really broadened my horisons was when I started taking in subsrciption Orchestral concerts and you maybe had one work on it that you wanted to hear but another two things you never had heard before. Now maybe on that one night you would hear those two strange "to you" works and you would quite like one or even the two of them. That then made me look out for new works from that new composer and then as there was no internet or you tube to pre listen to something you had to buy a vinyl disc of the work and as I was just an apprentice then it meant I had no money sometimes for the rest of the week. So sometimes it was a wonderful new discovery or a very expensive and hunger inducing mistake. Now it is a great thing to spend a couple of hours on You Tube searching out works from other composers that I may have heard on radio and that then makes me buy either a CD or a Hi Rez download and move on from there. Just when you have thought that there was no promising new music for you up pops some new piano recital or symphony and away you go again. I have been doing this for over fifty years and I hope to be doing it a lot longer if I am allowed. Enjoy your muic whatever the genre.