Music and struggling

[Mandryka]

 What I like to do is  to get clearer about what a performer is doing, and what the performance shows about the music.

[some guy]

I should at least be able to recognize my ideas in Cato's spoof, shouldn't I? That is, the original should still be recognizable through the distortion, no? But I don't recognize anything.

This could have been funny, I think. Even for me.

[Karl Henning]

I didn't think it a spoof ....

[Cato]

I should at least be able to recognize my ideas in Cato's spoof, shouldn't I? That is, the original should still be recognizable through the distortion, no? But I don't recognize anything.

I didn't think it a spoof ....

Right, I just used "Some Guy" and the Carter because S.G. started the topic and mentioned that work.

The Mystery of Music!

Here is another example of the mystery of music: some time ago an anthropologist discovered a "lost tribe" deep in the Amazon basin.  He found them because he followed the sound of drums to their village.  To his amazement, the drums were being played in relays by members of the tribe, who played 24 hours a day!  Able to understand the language somewhat, the anthropologist asked the chief why the drums were played all the time.  The chief's eyes got very wide, and he whispered: "Drums beat, life good!"

Fascinating, thought the visitor, and he began to investigate this superstition, but could discover nothing except the belief that as long as the drums were beating, "life" was "good."

By chance, on his last day with the tribe, the anthropologist was with the chief when...the drums stopped beating!!!  People started crying, and seemed instantly depressed!  So he asked:

"Chief!  What's wrong?  Why did the drums stop beating?"
The chief trembled and gasped: "Time for bass solo!"

[Brian]

This thread really hasn't gone the way I expected it to!

Allow me to speak up in defense of struggling. It seems to be getting an unfair reputation around these here parts.

A few things maybe we can all agree on?

1. Performers can struggle. Both with the technical demands of playing a work, and the cognitive/emotional/spiritual/etc. demands of playing a work well. If there are any doubts, I'm sure one of the GMG piano players who's tried working through a Beethoven sonata will be happy to fill you in. (And for that matter, Karl can vouch that composers can struggle.)

2. It would be useful to us all to agree on a meaning of the word "struggle". Some uses of the word "struggle" may be weird, or a sign of a weird listener. But others may well be perfectly fine.

3. Struggling is not always entirely in the listener's mind. Other circumstances can factor into it. For example, I do a lot of listening at work, while I'm writing my stuff and dealing with emailed requests. That is a time for 20% attention-span listening, not 100% attention-span listening. I can do a decent job judging the quality of a performance of a very familiar work, one I've heard dozens of times. I can also do a decent job judging whether or not I like an unfamiliar work that's fairly simple in its language, structure, and/or emotional approach.

On the other hand, if you tasked me with listening to Art of Fugue and telling you lots of opinions about it, while I'm at work, that's gonna be a struggle!

There are probably other factors too. Atmosphere of the listening experience, the musical language and your familiarity with it, even the quality of the performers. Like, say you want to hear a new work by Frederic Rzewski, but the pianist is me. You're gonna struggle with that music.

4. Although what's "easy" varies from person to person, of course, I think it is eminently possible for Great Art to not require any struggle at all for almost any/everyone willing to give it a fair chance. Beethoven's Fifth, maybe, or Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is not challenging to read, in the simple sense; but it is challenging, if you think about it in a certain way, and it can yield many different experiences if you read it over the course of a lifetime. Music can be like that.

[EDIT:
5. Many people use "struggling" as code for "music written in 20th/21st century languages that sounds kinda unpleasant to the average ear." Which, I don't doubt their sincerity in saying they find that music difficult. I find a lot of that music difficult! But some guy, and especially Mirror Image, are proof that everyone is different, and that "tough music" = "modern music" is a false equivalence. Maybe MI is the only one, but there are people who find Schnittke relatable and just can't get into Mozart!]

-

As for me, I'll confess that sometimes I "struggle" with music, by some definition or another. An example is Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3, which I just listened to again today. What I mean is this: I love the scherzo and finale, but there are elements of the other two movements which I simply don't understand. Don't understand, that is, why Chopin wrote them in that way. (Similarly, why did Sibelius end his Fifth Symphony the way he did? Or, why does Elliott Carter sound like that? )

As for some guy's question of "why bother?" the answer is similar to what others have suggested. It's like solving a puzzle. Or, it's like climbing Everest. I'm not REALLY looking to figure out what Chopin's true intention was. Nobody can do that, right? But I'm trying to figure out what it means to me - or, how to make it mean something to me. How to "find the way in". I don't think you'll find many people who say that struggling with music, in this way, is not fun. Or who would say that it's a chore. (Unless the music is shitty...)

After all, it's also fun to come to terms with an unfamiliar-tasting food, or a weird bottle of wine, or a Faulkner novel, or an enigmatic episode of Mad Men. Maybe there are people who say that struggling with art sucks, but I really think that's a straw man. Or, at any rate, it's a man who's not me.

[Karl Henning]

This thread really hasn't gone the way I expected it to!

Allow me to speak up in defense of struggling. It seems to be getting an unfair reputation around these here parts.

A few things maybe we can all agree on?

1. Performers can struggle. Both with the technical demands of playing a work, and the cognitive/emotional/spiritual/etc. demands of playing a work well. If there are any doubts, I'm sure one of the GMG piano players who's tried working through a Beethoven sonata will be happy to fill you in. (And for that matter, Karl can vouch that composers can struggle.)

2. It would be useful to us all to agree on a meaning of the word "struggle". Some uses of the word "struggle" may be weird, or a sign of a weird listener. But others may well be perfectly fine.

3. Struggling is not always entirely in the listener's mind. Other circumstances can factor into it. For example, I do a lot of listening at work, while I'm writing my stuff and dealing with emailed requests. That is a time for 20% attention-span listening, not 100% attention-span listening. I can do a decent job judging the quality of a performance of a very familiar work, one I've heard dozens of times. I can also do a decent job judging whether or not I like an unfamiliar work that's fairly simple in its language, structure, and/or emotional approach.

On the other hand, if you tasked me with listening to Art of Fugue and telling you lots of opinions about it, while I'm at work, that's gonna be a struggle!

There are probably other factors too. Atmosphere of the listening experience, the musical language and your familiarity with it, even the quality of the performers. Like, say you want to hear a new work by Frederic Rzewski, but the pianist is me. You're gonna struggle with that music.

4. Although what's "easy" varies from person to person, of course, I think it is eminently possible for Great Art to not require any struggle at all for almost any/everyone willing to give it a fair chance. Beethoven's Fifth, maybe, or Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is not challenging to read, in the simple sense; but it is challenging, if you think about it in a certain way, and it can yield many different experiences if you read it over the course of a lifetime. Music can be like that.

[EDIT:
5. Many people use "struggling" as code for "music written in 20th/21st century languages that sounds kinda unpleasant to the average ear." Which, I don't doubt their sincerity in saying they find that music difficult. I find a lot of that music difficult! But some guy, and especially Mirror Image, are proof that everyone is different, and that "tough music" = "modern music" is a false equivalence. Maybe MI is the only one, but there are people who find Schnittke relatable and just can't get into Mozart!]

-

As for me, I'll confess that sometimes I "struggle" with music, by some definition or another. An example is Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3, which I just listened to again today. What I mean is this: I love the scherzo and finale, but there are elements of the other two movements which I simply don't understand. Don't understand, that is, why Chopin wrote them in that way. (Similarly, why did Sibelius end his Fifth Symphony the way he did? Or, why does Elliott Carter sound like that? )

As for some guy's question of "why bother?" the answer is similar to what others have suggested. It's like solving a puzzle. Or, it's like climbing Everest. I'm not REALLY looking to figure out what Chopin's true intention was. Nobody can do that, right? But I'm trying to figure out what it means to me - or, how to make it mean something to me. How to "find the way in". I don't think you'll find many people who say that struggling with music, in this way, is not fun. Or who would say that it's a chore. (Unless the music is shitty...)

After all, it's also fun to come to terms with an unfamiliar-tasting food, or a weird bottle of wine, or a Faulkner novel, or an enigmatic episode of Mad Men. Maybe there are people who say that struggling with art sucks, but I really think that's a straw man. Or, at any rate, it's a man who's not me.

Smashing post, Brian. I did not struggle to read and absorb it. Near as I may judge, my brain is coping!

[jochanaan]

...it was jochanaan's reference to sitting down and relaxing that alerted me to what I'd left out of the OP. Sitting down and relaxing is not congruent, for me, with listening to music, which is always and forever an active and engaged process. What I notice is that I never think of this activity as an effort, as in something that I engage in reluctantly. Since I do it for fun, like other people run marathons, I do it no matter how much energy has to be expended....

By sitting down and relaxing my body, I free my mind to engage actively with the music.

[Mirror Image]

This thread really hasn't gone the way I expected it to!

Allow me to speak up in defense of struggling. It seems to be getting an unfair reputation around these here parts.

A few things maybe we can all agree on?

1. Performers can struggle. Both with the technical demands of playing a work, and the cognitive/emotional/spiritual/etc. demands of playing a work well. If there are any doubts, I'm sure one of the GMG piano players who's tried working through a Beethoven sonata will be happy to fill you in. (And for that matter, Karl can vouch that composers can struggle.)

2. It would be useful to us all to agree on a meaning of the word "struggle". Some uses of the word "struggle" may be weird, or a sign of a weird listener. But others may well be perfectly fine.

3. Struggling is not always entirely in the listener's mind. Other circumstances can factor into it. For example, I do a lot of listening at work, while I'm writing my stuff and dealing with emailed requests. That is a time for 20% attention-span listening, not 100% attention-span listening. I can do a decent job judging the quality of a performance of a very familiar work, one I've heard dozens of times. I can also do a decent job judging whether or not I like an unfamiliar work that's fairly simple in its language, structure, and/or emotional approach.

On the other hand, if you tasked me with listening to Art of Fugue and telling you lots of opinions about it, while I'm at work, that's gonna be a struggle!

There are probably other factors too. Atmosphere of the listening experience, the musical language and your familiarity with it, even the quality of the performers. Like, say you want to hear a new work by Frederic Rzewski, but the pianist is me. You're gonna struggle with that music.

4. Although what's "easy" varies from person to person, of course, I think it is eminently possible for Great Art to not require any struggle at all for almost any/everyone willing to give it a fair chance. Beethoven's Fifth, maybe, or Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is not challenging to read, in the simple sense; but it is challenging, if you think about it in a certain way, and it can yield many different experiences if you read it over the course of a lifetime. Music can be like that.

[EDIT:
5. Many people use "struggling" as code for "music written in 20th/21st century languages that sounds kinda unpleasant to the average ear." Which, I don't doubt their sincerity in saying they find that music difficult. I find a lot of that music difficult! But some guy, and especially Mirror Image, are proof that everyone is different, and that "tough music" = "modern music" is a false equivalence. Maybe MI is the only one, but there are people who find Schnittke relatable and just can't get into Mozart!]

-

As for me, I'll confess that sometimes I "struggle" with music, by some definition or another. An example is Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3, which I just listened to again today. What I mean is this: I love the scherzo and finale, but there are elements of the other two movements which I simply don't understand. Don't understand, that is, why Chopin wrote them in that way. (Similarly, why did Sibelius end his Fifth Symphony the way he did? Or, why does Elliott Carter sound like that? )

As for some guy's question of "why bother?" the answer is similar to what others have suggested. It's like solving a puzzle. Or, it's like climbing Everest. I'm not REALLY looking to figure out what Chopin's true intention was. Nobody can do that, right? But I'm trying to figure out what it means to me - or, how to make it mean something to me. How to "find the way in". I don't think you'll find many people who say that struggling with music, in this way, is not fun. Or who would say that it's a chore. (Unless the music is shitty...)

After all, it's also fun to come to terms with an unfamiliar-tasting food, or a weird bottle of wine, or a Faulkner novel, or an enigmatic episode of Mad Men. Maybe there are people who say that struggling with art sucks, but I really think that's a straw man. Or, at any rate, it's a man who's not me.

A great post and some excellent points you've made here, Brian. There's so much music I 'struggle' with, but, for me, it's a matter of perception. I know the kinds of sounds I'm drawn to, but, at the same time, I know what I don't enjoy and probably will never enjoy because the composer's music simply isn't for me. Time is short and I say it's best to continue to explore the kinds of sounds our hearts and minds desire to hear.

[zamyrabyrd]

And of course, so many of us are sharing stories of music which left us cold on first hearing, but of which we afterward came to be enduringly fond . . . that it makes me shake my head a bit at Debussy insisting on instant gratification. He ought to have known better 

I think Debussy was quite serious in the sense that one perceives a work of art on different levels. His musical aesthetics were influenced by visual art, so a viewer or listener doesn't have to know the intricacies of technique but can be impressed by the proportion of the work upon first impact. An interesting study of Debussy and the 'golden mean' and how he applied it to music, although as a composer, he covered up his tracks pretty well, is "Debussy in Proportion" (1983) by Ron Howat.

Zb

[zamyrabyrd]

As for me, I'll confess that sometimes I "struggle" with music, by some definition or another. An example is Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3, which I just listened to again today. What I mean is this: I love the scherzo and finale, but there are elements of the other two movements which I simply don't understand. Don't understand, that is, why Chopin wrote them in that way.

I think Chopin was trying to fit the material into the mold, rather than the other way around, a dilemma for most composers of the Romantic period. His 2nd sonata is more compact and works better, I believe, in terms of overall form.

ZB

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

This thread really hasn't gone the way I expected it to!

Allow me to speak up in defense of struggling. It seems to be getting an unfair reputation around these here parts.

A few things maybe we can all agree on?

1. Performers can struggle. Both with the technical demands of playing a work, and the cognitive/emotional/spiritual/etc. demands of playing a work well. If there are any doubts, I'm sure one of the GMG piano players who's tried working through a Beethoven sonata will be happy to fill you in. (And for that matter, Karl can vouch that composers can struggle.)

2. It would be useful to us all to agree on a meaning of the word "struggle". Some uses of the word "struggle" may be weird, or a sign of a weird listener. But others may well be perfectly fine.

3. Struggling is not always entirely in the listener's mind. Other circumstances can factor into it. For example, I do a lot of listening at work, while I'm writing my stuff and dealing with emailed requests. That is a time for 20% attention-span listening, not 100% attention-span listening. I can do a decent job judging the quality of a performance of a very familiar work, one I've heard dozens of times. I can also do a decent job judging whether or not I like an unfamiliar work that's fairly simple in its language, structure, and/or emotional approach.

On the other hand, if you tasked me with listening to Art of Fugue and telling you lots of opinions about it, while I'm at work, that's gonna be a struggle!

There are probably other factors too. Atmosphere of the listening experience, the musical language and your familiarity with it, even the quality of the performers. Like, say you want to hear a new work by Frederic Rzewski, but the pianist is me. You're gonna struggle with that music.

4. Although what's "easy" varies from person to person, of course, I think it is eminently possible for Great Art to not require any struggle at all for almost any/everyone willing to give it a fair chance. Beethoven's Fifth, maybe, or Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is not challenging to read, in the simple sense; but it is challenging, if you think about it in a certain way, and it can yield many different experiences if you read it over the course of a lifetime. Music can be like that.

[EDIT:
5. Many people use "struggling" as code for "music written in 20th/21st century languages that sounds kinda unpleasant to the average ear." Which, I don't doubt their sincerity in saying they find that music difficult. I find a lot of that music difficult! But some guy, and especially Mirror Image, are proof that everyone is different, and that "tough music" = "modern music" is a false equivalence. Maybe MI is the only one, but there are people who find Schnittke relatable and just can't get into Mozart!]

-

As for me, I'll confess that sometimes I "struggle" with music, by some definition or another. An example is Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3, which I just listened to again today. What I mean is this: I love the scherzo and finale, but there are elements of the other two movements which I simply don't understand. Don't understand, that is, why Chopin wrote them in that way. (Similarly, why did Sibelius end his Fifth Symphony the way he did? Or, why does Elliott Carter sound like that? )

As for some guy's question of "why bother?" the answer is similar to what others have suggested. It's like solving a puzzle. Or, it's like climbing Everest. I'm not REALLY looking to figure out what Chopin's true intention was. Nobody can do that, right? But I'm trying to figure out what it means to me - or, how to make it mean something to me. How to "find the way in". I don't think you'll find many people who say that struggling with music, in this way, is not fun. Or who would say that it's a chore. (Unless the music is shitty...)

After all, it's also fun to come to terms with an unfamiliar-tasting food, or a weird bottle of wine, or a Faulkner novel, or an enigmatic episode of Mad Men. Maybe there are people who say that struggling with art sucks, but I really think that's a straw man. Or, at any rate, it's a man who's not me.

I do agree wholeheartedly with the concept of struggle as is represented in your first four points, however I can't say I relate with point 5 and the remarks made in your postlude to your list. On the idea of music being a puzzle, well, from a performer's perspective I can completely understand where a struggle to understand a musical language and aesthetic lies. More often than not it is related to the amount of knowledge one may have on the objective aspects of music. From a listener's perspective I still find that listening to music is never a struggle to understand, yet it is a changing and expanding personal taste in music over time. Familiarity, mood, expectations etc. are all things that happen when choosing something to listen to and ultimately influence the listening experience.

You mentioned Carter, so here's my own experience of his music this year/ I recently performed a piece of music by Elliott Carter for solo guitar called 'Shard.' I struggled whilst learning it due to my technical abilities (the last page of it is a nightmare to play!!!) but on another level I did struggle with creating a strong, musical interpretation once I had mastered the technical aspects. I soon looked over the composition for a second time, and without the guitar, to embark on an analysis of the composition. Carter's use of metric modulation to smoothly move from one tempo/meter to another was a key element in the interpretation of it, because what essentially happens is that he uses rhythmic and metric centres in the same way Mozart would use harmonic/tonal and thematic centres to create a sense of an overarching musical 'narrative' where music moves away from and returns to the opening theme(s) and home key. This piece I played ended up being an exploration of textures and contrapuntal voices on the guitar within Carter's methods of harmonic and melodic writing with a structural 'narrative' implied by the tempo and meter. The modulations to other tempos and meters created the same kind of underlying musical tension as the modulations to various related keys do in a sonata-form composition.

These kinds of compositional things, however, are near-impossible to be picked up by anyone listening to the music and basically are only ever mentioned much when working out how to interpret the music or if someone somewhere has to do an analysis of it (here's one if anyone is interested https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/G_Capuzzo_Elliott_2003.pdf). From the perspective of purely listening to the music, a live performance may be very interesting for unfamiliar music that one may 'struggle' with, especially if one walks away having found the music to be characterful due to the interpretation! Schoenberg explained once that his music was merely 'badly played' when addressing the 'difficulty' of his music. Perhaps, over time, newer works (which people allegedly struggle with more often) will have stronger interpretations due to more scholarly work done on them and a greater body of recorded performances. I am just speculating here though, but this reasoning could be true for some people.

[some guy]

I didn't think it a spoof ....

tbf, neither did I.

[some guy]

Wow, some people whose opinions I usually really respect praised Brian's almost totally off the point post, leaving it to me to do the dirty work. Thanks a lot, guys! Well, I know it's difficult to impossible, but if you can forget who is writing this post and just look at what's been written..., well, just try, OK.

1. Performers can struggle.

Yes, but I wasn't talking about performers. And the connotations of struggle with what performers do are mostly neutral.

2. It would be useful to us all to agree on a meaning of the word "struggle". Some uses of the word "struggle" may be weird, or a sign of a weird listener. But others may well be perfectly fine.

OK, but what are they? What are the "weird" ones? What are the perfectly fine ones? You're leaving us hanging here, Brian! Finish your thought.

if you tasked me with listening to Art of Fugue and telling you lots of opinions about it, while I'm at work, that's gonna be a struggle!

An entirely unlikely scenario. And one in which the struggling would not be with the music.

4. Although what's "easy" varies from person to person, of course, I think it is eminently possible for Great Art to not require any struggle at all for almost any/everyone willing to give it a fair chance. Beethoven's Fifth, maybe, or Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is not challenging to read, in the simple sense; but it is challenging, if you think about it in a certain way, and it can yield many different experiences if you read it over the course of a lifetime. Music can be like that.

The OP covers this. And I finessed the difficulty concept a little later on to explicitly cover "easy."

I see struggling as an active, conscious thing, something that is not pleasant. That is, I see the reports of struggling as indicating that for the strugglers, struggling is conscious and unpleasant. And I said already that for me it's a matter of awareness. If I am expending effort in listening to music, I am not aware of it. What I am aware of is the music. And music, generally, is something I quite like.

5. Many people use "struggling" as code for "music written in 20th/21st century languages that sounds kinda unpleasant to the average ear." Which, I don't doubt their sincerity in saying they find that music difficult. I find a lot of that music difficult! But some guy, and especially Mirror Image, are proof that everyone is different, and that "tough music" = "modern music" is a false equivalence. Maybe MI is the only one, but there are people who find Schnittke relatable and just can't get into Mozart!]

It's certainly true that "'tough music' = 'modern music'" is a false equivalence. No argument there! But what I was attempting to express was how I find the concept of difficulty--all of it, including struggle and ease--not useful for describing anything that happens to me when I listen to music. My perplexity, as expressed in the OP, was how it could be possible for my impression, from reading many dozens of accounts of struggling, to be true--that listening to music is a struggle, and not just 'modern' music, either.

As for some guy's question of "why bother?"

Not my question.

It's like solving a puzzle.... I'm trying to figure out what it means to me - or, how to make it mean something to me. How to "find the way in". I don't think you'll find many people who say that struggling with music, in this way, is not fun. Or who would say that it's a chore. (Unless the music is shitty...)

After all, it's also fun to come to terms with an unfamiliar-tasting food, or a weird bottle of wine, or a Faulkner novel, or an enigmatic episode of Mad Men. Maybe there are people who say that struggling with art sucks, but I really think that's a straw man. Or, at any rate, it's a man who's not me.

I would say that if these activities look like struggling to someone looking on, they are certainly not presenting themselves as struggling to the person doing them. To the person doing them, they are, as Brian very astutely points out, fun.

That's not what I was on about in the OP. I have seen dozens, hundreds, of posts in the last couple of years online where people talked about struggling with this or that, dozens of topics started in order to elicit stories of struggling with this or that--none of them positive experiences. So much, that I reached the limit of my credulity and wanted to share my incredulity, to test it in public and see if I was correct in being incredulous. For the most part, as I said, my suspicions have been confirmed. It's really not such a struggle for everyone. There may be other reasons for the existence of so many strugglesome posts--that a topic that explicitly asks for struggles will get struggles, for instance, or, as Brian just pointed out, that "struggle" is often code for "modern music not worth struggling with"--and no, that's not how Brian put it! ()

Certainly, this thread has pretty clearly pushed the idea that listening to music is fun. That at the very worst, if something is difficult and needs to be struggled with, the effort is worth it, because listening to music is fun.

[Karl Henning]

Wow, some people whose opinions I usually really respect praised Brian's almost totally off the point post, leaving it to me to do the dirty work.

Well, and why not discussion?  I suppose I must apologize for brevity.

[Karl Henning]

BTW, Michael, I appreciate your extended comments.  Who knows? I may be able to compose more of a post soon . . . .

[Karl Henning]

It's a struggle.

[Madiel]

I suspect for many people the "effort" (whether you use the term or not) is the sense of pleasure also found in completing puzzles or figuring out a mystery novel a chapter or two before the end, etc.  It is not a struggle in the sense of painful agony, but the fun struggle to complete a model airplane with 100 parts.

Pretty much...

I was going to write a fair few thoughts in response to this thread, but it's 1 am here and if I allow myself I could spend a long time writing an epic essay. Suffice to say for now that music has both emotional and intellectual rewards and some people are going to focus more on one or the other, and find different music appealing accordingly. For me, it's important that music intellectually engages me, and that includes there being a process of "figuring out" the structure and musical language of a work. This applies to popular music as much as it does classical. Some of my very favourite albums are things that puzzled me on first listen, but they were from artists who already had "runs on the board" that meant I wanted to persist.

Music that reveals all its impact on a first listen is generally less satisfying that music which appeals but requires some concentration from me and some unlocking. See: the vast majority of things I've said about Vagn Holmboe while trying to evangelise the forum singlehandedly as to his genius.

[Elgarian]

I'm not sure I can contribute anything original to this - the main aspect of what I want to say having been covered by several others (my thanks to them for writing so interestingly about this). But I think my starting point is that I don't think this is uniqely a musical issue. Can't the basic question be asked of almost anything? Is chopping firewood a pleasure or a struggle? (It's either or both, of course, depending on the person and the circumstances.)

My second point concerns the words pleasure and struggle. Both embrace such a range of subjective experience that we can't be sure we're each talking about the same feelings. Someone earlier mentioned the pleasure of puzzles. That pleasure encompasses both the thrill of solving, the frustration and struggle of not solving, and the relief at the end of the struggle. But it isn't the same for everyone. Puzzle-solving isn't a pleasure for everyone. If you're really good at it, it might not involve a struggle either. And there are some kinds of struggle we might like (mountain-climbing?); and other kinds of struggle we might not (boxing?). The upshot is that I don't believe this is as simple a question as it sounds.

However, it so happens that Michael is a very lucky person. He has (which I conclude from  previous discussions) a natural and very wide-ranging empathy/love for sounds. (I was going to say musical sounds, but I think just 'sounds' might be closer. He'll tell me if I'm wrong.) That gives him, as it were, a foot up the ladder. He hears an unusual relation between a collection of sounds and his interest is immediate. So before he ever gets to ask questions, he's in there, in the thick of it, loving it, like plunging into a newly-discovered swimming pool on a hot day.

I'll be honest: I don't have this facility myself. (I have an equivalent in the field of visual arts: the automatic thing I do on first entering a room is to scan the walls for anything interesting.) So that means that on first hearing a new piece of music I don't automatically think 'how interesting, or 'how attractive'. My first response is quite often, simply ... 'whaaat??' If it seems interesting I might be willing to 'struggle' to see if the 'struggle' leads to 'pleasure'. I usually rely on past experience - or just current whim - to decide.

But I don't enjoy the 'struggle' aspect of listening to music, usually. I look forward to the time, after three or four listenings, when the piece is familiar; when I know my way at least roughly around it; when the pressure is off. By then there's still the pleasure of new discovery, but no more struggle. If I knew of a way of getting to that state without the struggle, believe me I'd take it. But there isn't one. The struggle is the means to the pleasure, and I seem to find it mostly (but not always) worthwhile.

[some guy]

It's a struggle.

I'm with ya, there.

[some guy]

However, it so happens that Michael is a very lucky person. He has (which I conclude from  previous discussions) a natural and very wide-ranging empathy/love for sounds. (I was going to say musical sounds, but I think just 'sounds' might be closer. He'll tell me if I'm wrong.) That gives him, as it were, a foot up the ladder. He hears an unusual relation between a collection of sounds and his interest is immediate. So before he ever gets to ask questions, he's in there, in the thick of it, loving it, like plunging into a newly-discovered swimming pool on a hot day.

Not only absolutely correct, but very beautifully put.

I do feel lucky, it's true. I'm very glad to have this empathy/love for sounds, I must say.