However, through personal experience, I find that serious music can be much more indirect. It does not give the listener a quick, initial and superficial gratification. Only after having listened seriously to a piece of music a number of times, can the listener begin to get a much deeper, more refined all encompassing gratification. After having listened to a good piece of serious Romantic music, an "initiated" listener can walk away from the performance with the realisation that this experience has given him something which everyday life lacks. Nevertheless, the "uninitiated" listener walks away from listening to the same piece without having realised what the music had to offer!

I personally find that modern mainstream commercial pop music gives the listener a quick, superficial and shallow gratification; it is also much more direct, it demands little time, and the listener, generally, does no

Some topics in this essay:
, serious music, pop music, uninitiated listener, mainstream commercial pop, classical serious music, commercial pop music, nineteenth century romantic, nineteenth century, music artist, commercial pop, commercial considerations, mainstream commercial, classical serious, top 40,