Alec O.

I only know very basic music theory and spend most of my time listening to popular music, because when I listen to classical, I may like some of it, but I will only be listening to it as though it is popular music, (e.g. "That was a catchy tune.") and I am not capable of truly appreciating it. I cannot identify keys or particular chord progressions; things of that nature just by listening to a piece of music. I would like to be able to appreciate classical, but my guess is that I would have to spend about the amount of time learning music theory that I would a new language or a sport before I would begin to be able to appreciate it. For those of you on this forum who are capable of appreciating and evaluating classical, I'd like to know how long you've had to study music theory to appreciate classical or when you first started studying music theory.