Daily Pilot, Costa Mesa, Calif., Classically Trained column.

(From McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - The Denver Post - Colorado)

Byline: Bradley Zint

When I was about 8, I made what I thought was the greatest of musical discoveries.

As one of San Diego's youngest self-taught orchestral music lovers -- unlike many of the classically trained, I don't come from a musically inclined family -- I managed to connect the dots of disparate music to a single name. I felt the part of a diminutive sleuth who was the sole listener to a trove of melodies as good as Mozart's and as powerful as Beethoven's.

I learned that the same guy who did the music for "Superman" also did "Star Wars." And "Home Alone." And "Raiders of …