>Some people seem to think it spoils the magic
>of art to think about it on a technical level, but - no
>offense meant whatsoever - I usually find that opinion comes
>from people who haven't ever pursued that knowledge. People
>who do know theory don't usually spend much time bitching
>about how they liked music better before they learned the
>circle of fifths.

There are several aspects of music where the appeal or even straight-up sound cannot be explained in theoretical terms and I do feel that historically, people with knowledge have dismissed those things as irrelevant. For example, the classical establishment initially deemed jazz as primitive and inferior. Why was that? Because the melody and harmony in the sense it could be theoretically explained with the language available was simplistic compared to classical and since rhythmic studies in classical focused mainly on note-values (quarter-notes, pauses etc.) and horisontal patterns (triplets etc.), the whole swing-and groove-aspect of jazz was neglected as well. So basically: it had nothing to offer and was primitive. People without the knowledge obviously didn't have that problem and were actually faster in general with accepting the music, even complex stuff like Be-bop

Same with rock'n'roll obviously-how do you explain the brilliance of Little Richard in theoretical terms? You can't really and therefore he's not brilliant.

EDIT:Hip-Hop too of course (duh!)

I don't think that aspect should be overlooked...