That's true, but we can jump right back into the nurture vs nature on that one too. For that one I'm pretty certain it's both though. F. ex. being curious about why your parents are making weird noises in their bedroom and seeing them in the act might make you a little less curious about things in the future.

Overanalyzing can't really be combined with just listening. But it does lead up to it in a way. After a while, the listewner becomes so experienced at analyzation that he's learned to judge the overall quality by instantaneously picking it apart and putting it back together. That's because the listener knows what to look for, so there's no need to spend too much time analyzing it. It becomes instantaneous second nature, and thus "overanalyzing" it becomes a false label because it just takes simply listening to it to decipher it at that point. It becomes a second nature/mental reflex.

"Knowing what to look for" is one of the reasons why I think it will more likely put you in a closed set of genres like I mentioned earlier. I also think it's possible to understand whether or not you enjoy a song without having to dive into it on an analytical level.

I write music myself (self taught, probably not very good) and I insist on reading only very little musical theory when I need it most. I like to explore by ear and not let any genre conventions control what direction I go in. This produces interesting results, since I'm really just making it up as I go along.*

Never been one to sit and analyze music closely. To me, it's all about emotions and atmosphere. The challenge is to deactivate the intellectual part of my brain when I compose, as it often gets in the way and goes "hey, you can't do that! THat's too weird!".*

When listening to music, wouldn't one just listen to what the instruments are playing and let the music show the way? I don't understand why I would want to sit and analyse its structure, scales, etc.?

*(basically saying that intuition will carry you very, very far as long as you're not trying to be Mozart)

Yeah, you're right. Much too big a tangent, really.

If anything, it opens the user to new genres. Opening yourself top a style of music that you just don't like will likely keep you away from the genre for a long time. Trying to find out what makes the genre good by analyzing it is what opens a person to exploring the genre. And that's the whole reason I'm into shoegaze, hip hop, a lot of electronic genres, and more. In fact, that mental process is practically the basis for my Loveless story.

Uh, that means you're not opening up to it then.

That same thing can happen through increased exposure. Also these examples don't sound like you knew what you were looking for but rather that you had to find it. I'm not saying that analyzing music doesn't help certain people (I don't know the preferred nomenclature these days), but it runs the risk of closing people off of music because it can lead to an establishment of firm rules that music is not allowed to break.

Explain how feeling music on an emotional level sans analysis can be restrictive when a person intentionally explores new kinds of music.

That's what I was saying. If you just jump into a genre without knowing about it because you don't know how it works, you'll be less likely to get attracted to it later. Whereas if you attempt to understand it by not comparing t to other genres until yopu're experienced enough, you'll first learn to like it based on the quality and then you'll find other things to like about it as you go along.


I've never met a single person that became less attracted to a genre because they specifically searched for the quality in a new experience. If I didn't do that, for example, I never would have liked My Bloody Valentine, some Radiohead albums, Frank Zappa, ambient in general, and experimental rock. If it runs the risk of closing off genres, it runs the possibility of opening people up to them even more because they're using the unique things that separates their usual interest level from the new musical experience as the basis for what makes the unique sound good in the first place rather than just listening to it and deciding on whether you like the sound or not. Sure, increased exposure helps, but this process can sometimes get a user into a genre on just a couple to a few albums rather than spending so much time trying to like it whether or not he plays the music himself or just hears it at random a lot.

You're missing my larger point that judging things by the wrong criteria when analyzing can lead to people misinterpreting what makes something good because it doesn't match up with the arbitrary fixed idea of what's good or isn't. Also, I've already mentioned that it can be helpful for someone who needs to categorize everything, so you continuing to spout off your experience isn't really that relevant.

"I've never met a single person that became less attracted to a genre because they specifically searched for the quality in a new experience."

Meaning what, exactly? Just trying to follow the train of thought.