# Are you naturally skeptical of listening to composers you haven't heard?



## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

I've got to admit I have a problem with having a "guilty till proven innocent" attitude with any classical music I haven't heard. Maybe it's due to the fact that getting to know a composer's works is so time-consuming that I've developed a natural defense mechanism which wants to subliminally discourage me from putting in all that effort. Anyhow, I really wish this wasn't so because it would be wonderful to be eternally optimistic about every new composer I hear and only develop a negative attitude after a large number of listenings which don't satisfy me. However, whether it is Debussy, Schumann, or Stravinsky, it just isn't so for me. Before I come to love any composer, my mind tells me they must be inferior to the glorious music I already know. 

Anyone else the same way or the opposite of me?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I understand the feeling. I used to feel this way too, but somewhere along the way it changed and not through any effort on my part. I got to where I started craving new composers and new music as I got older. That's counter-intuitive isn't it? I can't imagine what could have caused this change.

On the other hand "coming home" to the music I've loved for decades is super sweet after a long bout of roving ear.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I tend to stick with my favorite composers and tread other territory cautiously. Partly that is out of fear that I will really like another composer and have to buy a whole lot of CDs.


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

I am the opposite of the OP. I try and listen to any new piece with an open mind (or is that an open ear?) Participating in Saturday Symphony and the String Quartet thread were excellent opportunities to experience unfamiliar music in hopes it might become a future favourite. While there were many misses, such as Brian, there were also hits, such as Rautavaara who I am eager to sample more of. Even when the initial listen wasn't so great, I try and revisit a composer later on with an equally open mind in hopes that I'll be more favourably impressed.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Not at all if the composer belongs to a period I am familiar with. I would say I am familiar with all periods in terms of the sounds each period produces from Renaissance up to contemporary. So if an unknown Baroque composer was listened to for the first time, I would feel quite comfortable. Similarly with many composers of the 20th century, including the extreme avant-garde although I find it impossible to distinguish between the sounds of some composers from others.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

D Smith said:


> I am the opposite of the OP. I try and listen to any new piece with an open mind (or is that an open ear?) Participating in Saturday Symphony and the String Quartet thread were excellent opportunities to experience unfamiliar music in hopes it might become a future favourite. While there were many misses, such as Brian, there were also hits, such as Rautavaara who I am eager to sample more of. Even when the initial listen wasn't so great, I try and revisit a composer later on with an equally open mind in hopes that I'll be more favourably impressed.


I almost feel like we're in agreement though. I also _try_ to enjoy new composers and pretty consistently expand my library. But I was talking more about the way my mind wants to instinctually reject new music. It's a internal battle between my conscious thinking mind and my subconscious influencing mind.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

This discussion has brought back a memory of one of my art teachers back in the stoned age. He had a tedious habit of smugly repeating, "When you say 'I know what I like,' you're really saying 'I like what I know.'" To which I silently thought to myself, "Okay, Captain Obvious. How the heck are you supposed to like what you don't know?" Or more likely something a little less printable.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I think the OP shows a good insight into this defense mechanism which can be called selective attention, to keep us from getting overwhelmed. We all must have it to some degree... I go through phases where I fall more completely into this pattern, some might say trap, with its enticing bait of getting to know one or two composers of the day/week/month's work very well. 

So these are just some thoughts I have on the matter: 

As another poster here puts it, each composer has their 'isms'(recurring patterns, motifs, etc), and it is easy to get hooked on them for a while.  You might not even know that your stimulation is rooted in those 'isms', and that this makes you unable to evaluate a broader palette of works from different composers with any semblance of accuracy. That may be part of why a lot of us here don't like ranking. Because we understand that with time and the proper stimulus/erosion of prejudice, so much music can become accessible to us and the ranking limits that. 

But its really fun to notice and appreciate the 'isms' too. No harm in that.

I think its good to recognize that you just have your limitations as a listener, and rather than be skeptical, just note that it could take time to get into a composers work and that it may be for you or it may not be. That's my current 'wishy washy liberal listening' take on it all.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Weston said:


> This discussion has brought back a memory of one of my art teachers back in the stoned age. He had a tedious habit of smugly repeating, "When you say 'I know what I like,' you're really saying 'I like what I know.'" To which I silently thought to myself, "Okay, Captain Obvious. How the heck are you supposed to like what you don't know?" Or more likely something a little less printable.


Haha I actually like that little quote quite a bit. Very true.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

It depends. I'm naturally skeptical of late-Romantic style composers between roughly 1880-1950. Not any of the big names, just the ones people like to trot out as the greatest underrated composer ever because they make a lot of loud noises and an obvious cyclic form or "darkness to light" theme.

Other than that I'm pretty open. When it comes to contemporary music, it is a little hard to tell who to pay attention to and who to ignore. There's just so much.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I am also opposite the OP.

I have always been open to new music in various genres. I love the idea of getting to know the works of a composer I haven't heard before. Discovering new music is one of the joys of music.

Couple that with the fact that I listen almost exclusively to 20th and 21st century classical music, will almost assuredly mean I will need to be open to listening to lesser known composers. 

I am sure that quite a high percentage of my collection, maybe even the majority, is made up of music I previously haven't heard by lesser known composers. 

So I say, the more composers I haven't heard the better! Who knows how many great pieces I will find?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

violadude said:


> It depends. I'm naturally skeptical of late-Romantic style composers between roughly 1880-1950. Not any of the big names, just the ones people like to trot out as the greatest underrated composer ever because they make a lot of loud noises and an obvious cyclic form or "darkness to light" theme.


I remember I got you to listen to a bit of Ernst Boehe a little while back. What an experience that was!

I tend to reserve judgment until I feel I know enough. Even then, my judgments are subject to frequent revision. Whether that counts as skeptical or not, I don't know.

I think we all have our own areas where we will willingly or even gladly endure something second or third-rate in the interest of deepening our knowledge of a style, a genre, or a Nation's music. Sometimes you'll even make an unexpected discovery. That's part of the fun of trying out contemporary music, too. You never know where the next thing will be.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I'm not just open, but extremely curious to hear music by composers I've never heard before . Who cares if they aren't as great as Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms et al ? That's no disgrace .
But there is lots of really interesting and substantial music out there which is rarely if ever performed .
Too many orchestras, by no means all, tend to stick to the same old bel9oved favorites by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and other world famous composers .
Unfortunately , they're FORCED to , because too many audience members are set in their ways and would rather be waterboarded than listen to something by a contemporary cmposer, even one whose music is not at all thorny and complex .
But on CD, there is incredible diversity of repertoire, also in opera, chamber music etc . More than has ever extsed before on recordings . We collectors of classical recordngs have never had it so good . 
It's like being the proverbial kid in a candy store . With the click of amouse, you can get a mind-bogglingly wide variety of classical music , including works by composers virtually no one alive 
today has ever heard of ! 
When I was a teenager in the late 60s just starting to become a classical music freak and buying classical LPs, there was plenty to choose from, but nothing remotely close to the sheer variety available today , including much music that had'nt even been written back then by so many contemporary composers . \
You can get anything from ancient works by Dufay , Machaut, Palestrina, Gesualdo , and so many others to recent works by John Adams, Philip Glass , Thomas Ades, Elliott Carter ,
Pierre Boulez and so many others of the present day .
Hundreds of operas that had never been recorded before are now available from FOUR centuries !
And I haven't even mentioned the myriad things now on DVD !!! 
It's an embarrassment of riches !


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## Grizzled Ghost (Jun 10, 2015)

I basically have the same issues as Dustin − i.e. a tendency to be skeptical of new-to-me music.

My neurosis however comes in a slightly different form. There are some composers I just LIKE. And there are some composers I just DISLIKE. These are probably fairly primitive emotional associations with specific composers, likely formed on the basis of fairly superficial aspects of early exposures. Maybe one composer had better album artwork or I got a good deal on my first purchase; or maybe I checked out a smelly CD from the library or I listened to a weird piece on a day I wasn't in the mood for weird.

For example, I LIKE Villa-Lobos but DISLIKE Bartok. So of course when I listen to a new piece of music by Bartok, I have a tendency to be less accepting than when I am listening to a new piece of music by Villa-Lobos.

Sometimes I try to circumvent this a priori bias by pretending the new piece by Bartok is really a new piece by Villa-Lobos (or vice versa). I try to use this trick to get a better sense of how well I would like this piece if I didn't know or had no prior opinion about the composer.

This trick seems to work about how you would expect. I tend to give the Bartok music a fairer listen, and tend to be less easily enamored by the Villa-Lobos piece. Fade to gray. 

On second thought, maybe our silly biases make life more interesting! There's no law that says we have to be objective or fair in our personal likes and dislikes. Why not have fun with it?


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I tend to assume that all (or almost all) renowned composers have something good in them, and I'm employing a broad definition of renowned. If I don't like it at first, I put the onus on myself to stick with it. I have to come to them, not the other way around.

Of course, I don't have time to sample it all.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Some of what everyone has said so far sounds like me.

I enjoy testing out new composers (some of my forays are posted in the Current Listening), but I also want to hear my albums, about 80% of which are pretty new to me (I spent the past 4-5 years _greatly_ expanding my collections of my favourite composers). There are also a fair number of composers in my collection that I know by only a single disc. Quite honestly, I am overwhelmed beyond imagination.

How will I ever get to know the stuff I bought and get to know a few more pieces by the composers I barely have any knowledge of and find new composers that I want to audition by hearing lots of their works, too? I'm already listening many hours a day and I am falling ever further behind. I don't want to waste days on end trying to find stuff I _might_ like, while ignoring the things I already love and want to hear, but often barely know, but, likewise, I don't want to stop discovering new stuff either. It is very time consuming and I think I have found a balance that works for me: some days, I hear only my albums, some days I hear one, a few or even many new pieces, as my whims direct.

I enjoy the Saturday Symphonies, like D Smith already mentioned, and I was pretty interested in the post-50s thread, until it became so huge that keeping up was hopeless. I think a better idea might have been a group listen of one piece a week, SS style. I would have found this easy to do, but to be confronted with a gargantuan and ever expanding list of new pieces, many of which are many hours long, was impossible to sustain.

I think the problem is not putting in the effort, because I do, but getting hooked on new composers. I just haven't found many that really grabbed me. I have a couple of new names that are tantalizing me a bit, but not enough to intercept the balance I have found.

Part of it is also the current delivery system: albums by new composers are extremely expensive, typically selling for $15-$20 and more on the Amazon Canada site. I don't gamble at those prices. As a result, my forays into the unknown are almost exclusively web-based, especially YT. Files just come and go, they're added to my listening history, I mark them as favourites and the stream is endless. Discoveries get lost in the mountains of further discoveries. Having an album is like making a discovery and picking it up and putting it into one's pocket, instead of just marking the coordinates of it's location on a map.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I have no fear for the unknown ! 

If humanity in general feared the unknown we would still be living in caves and music would be humming and banging stones together!

/ptr


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## Guest (Jul 31, 2015)

I enjoy listening to music, so the time it takes to do that is not an issue. Time spent not time-consuming. Time-consuming is surely only for things you don't really enjoy.

And I really enjoy listening to music. It's not an effort. Again, effort is for things you don't really enjoy. Listening to music is a great pleasure. Whatever "effort" there is is subsumed by it's being simply an enjoyable activity.

Although there are inevitably things that I don't like, that doesn't affect the overall circumstance. There are people I don't like, too, but that doesn't affect liking to be around people. There is food I don't like, but that doesn't affect the general situation of liking to eat.

So while there are things I tend to avoid, I don't understand the emphasis on the avoiding. (I am naturally skeptical of people who report skepticism about things they claim to enjoy!) I don't like Herbert Howe, so I don't listen to his music. And if I see his music on a concert, I suck it up. There will be other things I will be able to enjoy, I'm sure. I certainly don't avoid things I don't know. Just as it's true, as someone has already pointed out, that you can't like something you don't know, it is equally and even more significantly true that you cannot dislike something you don't know, either.

I do know this. I enjoy listening to music.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Yes. This is because of my bad experience of listening to Mozart, that man has such a terrible sense of humor. And in fact not only Mozart, but Mahler as well. I tried to discuss about his symphonies, composition, philosophy, how to maintain unity in large-scale works etc. but he always kept redirecting the discussion to his dirty jokes - he literally found innuendos in everything.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Since I joined TC, I have been listening to much more new (i.e. unfamiliar to me) music and composers than before.
This is all very exciting!


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

For me, one of my prime motivations for listening to music is that I've never heard (of) it before. This applies both to composers who are new to me and little-known works by more established composers. Without this constant hunger for discovery I would never have come across wonderful composers such as Caldara, Stradella, Zelenka, Myslíveček, Kraus, Reicha, Schmidt, Atterberg, Holmboe or Rihm.


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## Guest (Jul 31, 2015)

I'm the opposite of the OP. I haven't heard many composers so it's all pretty much new to me. I love the adventure! (I'm the same with food: if it's new to me I want to try it!)


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

some guy said:


> I enjoy listening to music, so the time it takes to do that is not an issue. Time spent not time-consuming. Time-consuming is surely only for things you don't really enjoy.
> 
> And I really enjoy listening to music. It's not an effort. Again, effort is for things you don't really enjoy. Listening to music is a great pleasure. Whatever "effort" there is is subsumed by it's being simply an enjoyable activity.
> 
> ...


I also love listening to music but what I mean by putting in "effort" and "time-consuming" has to do with the fact that repeated listenings exponentially increase the enjoyment of a work. So for instance, with complicated works like Grosse Fuge or especially long works like a Bruckner symphony, I enjoy it the first time usually to at least some degree but after 5, 10 or 20 listens I enjoy it WAY more.


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## MrTortoise (Dec 25, 2008)

some guy said:


> I do know this. I enjoy listening to music.


5,000 desert island discs worth!


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## MrTortoise (Dec 25, 2008)

It doesn't always turn out this way, but often if my initial reaction to a work is too overwhelmingly positive I find myself tiring on the music after repeated listening. Much of the music that I most dearly love I initially found either impenetrable or left me with a curiosity that prompted me to listen again. Like I said, this is not always the case, but it has happen enough so my initial skepticism focuses on my judgement of the music and not the music itself.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm now listening to 20-25 composers that I wasn't listening to 5 years ago. Thanks to all of you music hounds.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

No I am not I always hope for the best.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

superhorn said:


> I'm not just open, but extremely curious to hear music by composers I've never heard before . Who cares if they aren't as great as Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms et al ? That's no disgrace .
> But there is lots of really interesting and substantial music out there which is rarely if ever performed .
> Too many orchestras, by no means all, tend to stick to the same old bel9oved favorites by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and other world famous composers .
> Unfortunately , they're FORCED to , because too many audience members are set in their ways and would rather be waterboarded than listen to something by a contemporary cmposer, even one whose music is not at all thorny and complex .
> ...


I have always been partial to horn players.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

arpeggio said:


> I have always been partial to horn players.


.............................


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I'm always willing to explore new composers. Some real finds, some real duds (according to my taste). I can't imagine being restricted to just a handful of the big names.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MrTortoise said:


> It doesn't always turn out this way, but often if my initial reaction to a work is too overwhelmingly positive I find myself tiring on the music after repeated listening. Much of the music that I most dearly love I initially found either impenetrable or left me with a curiosity that prompted me to listen again. Like I said, this is not always the case, but it has happen enough so my initial skepticism focuses on my judgement of the music and not the music itself.


It's sort of the opposite of Bill Nye's joke about Wagner's music being better than it sounds: some music sounds better than it is.

Or maybe it's like "love at first sight": that statuesque blonde beauty knocks you for a loop and you can't get her out of your head for days, but when you get her across the table from you at Le Beau Monde you learn that her favorite classical composer is Yanni.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Believe that may be Edgar Wilson Nye, not Bill Nye (the science guy...) The Internet gets confused sometimes. It was quoted in Twain's 1924 autobiography, and Bill Nye wasn't born until 1955...

Oops. As somebody pointed out, EW Nye's pen name was "Bill Nye," so please disregard!


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## Guest (Aug 3, 2015)

Dustin said:


> Anyone else the same way or the opposite of me?


I'd say marginally more sceptical. Part of me 'knows' that it's a waste of time listening to Webern (for example) because he's got nothing on those I love. A lesser part of me acknowledges that there will be composers out there as wonderful as Beethoven and Sibelius and that I just haven't got around to listening to them yet.

I console myself with the thought that whatever innate conservatism currently rules me, I have previously overcome it to explore Beethoven and Sibelius and Mahler (definitely guilty until proven innocent!) and Messiaen...

(But Wagner? I understand he's eating his hearty breakfast right now!)


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## Guest (Aug 3, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Believe that may be Edgar Wilson Nye, not Bill Nye (the science guy...) The Internet gets confused sometimes. It was quoted in Twain's 1924 autobiography, and Bill Nye wasn't born until 1955...


Edgar Wilson, whose nickname was "Bill."

How soon we forget....


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

In researching E.W. (aka Bill) Nye, I ran across this anti-Chinese poem by Bret Harte, about a card game among himself, Nye, and a "Heathen Chinee" named Ah Sin. The poem was evidently widely quoted in the anti-Chinese immigration debates of the late 19th century. Harte later disowned the poem.

Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland.

Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see, --
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, 'Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,' --
And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game 'he did not understand.'

In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs, --
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers, -- that's wax.

Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar, --
Which the same I am free to maintain.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Yet the cards they were stocked
> In a way that I grieve,
> And my feelings were shocked
> At the state of *Nye's sleeve,
> ...


Haha. So Nye was cheating as well, and they were just sore that Ah Sin was a more adept cheater! Quite funny.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

For me, not really skeptical. I try to find out about the composers, their works, their places in history, etc. before I take the plunge (sort to speak). This is how I get to know and appreciate a great deal Russian/Soviet music (and plus Scandinavians like Nielsen & Sibelius, which led to Stenhammar, then Atterberg, then Melartin, and so forth), British, French, American Eastern European, etc. Plus, radio (WNCN and WQXR when I was growing up in NYC), public broadcasts (PBS/WETA), concerts, libraries, and reviews (Gramophone, Amazon, and so forth) proved to be more valuable in discovering obscured works than I ever anticipated, and for that, I remain immensely and eternally grateful.


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

No skepticism at all for me. I have a very broad diet when it comes to music. I enjoy new experiences. If they are not enjoyable experiences they are at least educational ones.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Antiquarian said:


> No skepticism at all for me. I have a very broad diet when it comes to music. I enjoy new experiences. If they are not enjoyable experiences they are at least educational ones.


I agree, that's the best way to look at it. There are many extreme avant-garde piece that I do not enjoy listening to in the slightest but many are educational in some new way, and that can be a good thing.


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