[Gloin the Dark]

I’ve always been obsessed with potato chips, for example, since I was a wee lad. My whole family is…there must surely be some genetic thing going on there…

Maybe, but the commonality could also be explained by the shared environment. For instance, you all (I assume) understood Norwegian without any genetic involvement in the explanation, or any innate predisposition.

I find the idea of an innate attraction to the likes of sweet or salty tastes (whether we’re talking individually, familially or collectively as a species) much easier to buy, though, because these are perceived directly by our taste buds. There could be something vaguely similar in the perception of primitive musical phenomena such as the special intervals (octave, perfect fifth, etc.).

It took me a long time to really get into Ralph Vaughan-Williams…

Funny, that’s almost the polar opposite of my experience. As a teenager I found myself dissatisfied with nearly all music I heard, until a chance encounter with Vaughan Williams led me to an intense preoccupation with his work, and, in turn, to the standard orchestral repertoire in general. I still count his Symphony No. 6 among my three favourite pieces.