How did classical music get started?

Humans have been making music since their brains were big enough for it - with voice, drums, flutes and other primitive instruments. The way the actual style of classical music came about was pure chance - some guy put together some notes, they sounded nice, people liked it, people copied him. One thing that is often misunderstood about classical music is that there’s only one kind - the conventional term “classical music” covers centuries of music. It’s been around since the medieval ages, while popular music has been around for 100 years, at most. Technically, “the classical era” is a small portion in between the baroque era and the early romantic era.

Popular music branched off from classical music fairly recently, when western music began to be influenced by cultural music. The biggest factor was African music - the ancestors of jazz, ragtime and blues - which influenced many western composers - most notably Debussy. Slowly, at the turn of the century, there was a new breed of music coming into it’s own. Cultural music, together with experimentation with dissonance and unconventional instruments. Composers like George Gershwin were the beginning of Broadway, and these newer styles of music began to take hold. Later on, in the 40s, Sinatra’s jazzy, but still noticeably classically-influenced, music became insanely successful. This early popular music branched into the many genres you find today.. Sorry, I ended up about 5 miles away from where I started :)