When I was young, I was quite tardy in music class (obviously no talent). My dad always says each person should learn at least one sport and one music instrument to be complete. I learn to play a little guitar, joined high school marching band and I learned to appreciate music. University and high school entrance exams do not include music and physical education grades in those days in Taiwan, no one cares about music. All the years, I study with music on my headphone. That is how I concentrate and block background noise. I used to be able to tell the classical composer by the style when listening to a piece of classical music. It is so clear like hand-writing. I hang out with students from Shepard School of Music at Rice instead of Engineering students (no wonder I am not an engineer today). I have met many musician friends, we went to chamber music and concerts, sat in the front-row at Faculty club to listen to Tchaikovsky prize winners play chamber music is an experience you will never never never forget. I lost my classical music record-collections moving to America. It was too expensive to re-build what I had, I never did. Today, young people don't appreciate classical music or Beethoven because 1) they don't have a good audio system to understand, live concert is too expensive. 2) they don't have the intelligence to imagine a deaf composer like Beethoven can have all that sophisticated music in his brain. 3) some classical composition was only made to show off musician skill, not made for melody. 4) we had Victor Borga, they don't. If you have not ever had a good quality listening of Beethoven's 5th with someone explaining to you like DiscoveryOrchestra, I suggest you give it a try. It is an experience you will never forget. Please enjoy magnificent Tchaikovsky music and Russian 275 years of ballet from St. Petersburg like Swan Lake, Nutcracker on youtube. I should have had my name as Pyotr instead. Despite of the superb video-audio home theater system I built, I have not listened to classical music for a long time, probably because AV are not so portable like today you can enjoy La Traviata: Libiamo ne by Verdi on your portable device.

My favorite new age composer is Yanni, classical composer is Rachmaninoff (Piano Concerto No. 2, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini ), I never like Mozart much - too orderly, except Mozart Clarinet Concerto which the 2nd movement (Adagio) is used for soundtrack Out of Africa. I like Cake Walk, Coppelia, Giselle. Phantom of Opera is awesome. I can sleep in Mozart Clarinet Concerto 2nd movement (II Adagio), Phantom of Opera, Wienaski Violin Concerto, any time moonlight shining through my windows. Kenny G Breathless, Grand Canyon Suite, and Greig Piano Concerto, Yanni, the all time greatest, is more melodic and festive, Kitaro in concert is more spiritual, Get inspiration from soundtrack Gladiator, with sweat tear blood, never give up; George Fenton soundtrack of movie Dangerous Beauty, Vangelis soundtrack of movie Alexander, James Newton Howard soundtrack of movie Blood Diamonds, a group in Germany called von Imagenes is amazing (I discovered them when we were in Cannes, France ). We listen to 3 CD for 9 months without changing CD. Apache Native American Music Best Native American Red Indian Songs, more Native American songs Buffalo White It is similar to, if you rememeber Lost Mohican 1992 soundtrack. We love Chantal Chamandy a night at the Pyramids. Try Thalia (lyrics ). Latin music will move you (physically). Jackie Evancho has a singing voice like angel at age 10 singing Lovers - movie sound track. (You should try listen the original Chinese two string violin instrument) Bond girls are men's fantacy, see comments below video. Sarah Brightman Tu Quieres Volver  (composed and first performed by Gypsy Kings)

If you love some romatic melody, try Yanni piano music or Benise - Spanish Guitar for lost lover video . MP4 or MPG2 are also available. I have all my favorite concerts converted to MP4 PSP on BlackBerry. It is amazing to see these concerts on 1080P (using upvert DVD player $59 which re-calculates/renders the pixal images) and high-quality audio-video with full range 20Hz-20,000Hz sound that human ears can hear. I also listen to popular easy-listening such as Julio Iglesias or Teresa Teng. It is really Teresa's singing that brought down the China iron curtain despite anybody else claims whatever credit.