Originally Posted by Notes Norton
I like my music to be predictable most of the time but with nice surprises mixed in. I like themes and/or motif development, as that adds interest to me. I think melody is important, probably because my primary instrument is saxophone. Too much repetition bores me, as it becomes too predictable. I also like a release from the tonic key somewhere in the song. Too much of the same becomes too predictable, too.
I don't play the sax, and agree with this. One way I look at music is a dialog or conversation between the composer/performer and me. A piece of music is trying to communicate something, quite often emotionally. The question becomes, am I able to interpret and understand what the "message" is. If the answer is yes, there is a possibility I will like it. If the answer is no, it's not for me.

Since you play an instrument, I'm curious about your thoughts on the "10,000 hour rule". Here is what Levitin says.

The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert – in anything. In study after study of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again.

https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677
BiaB 2025 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.