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Let's test to see how 'relative' it is. I will state a piece that to me engenders a great deal of emotional response. State whether you feel the piece gives you the same feelings. If not, what piece gives you that emotional response. State it. And I'll give my opinion of it. I absolutely LOVE Beethoven's 7th, 2nd Movement (the Allegretto). When I listen to it, I get a real sense (emotionally) of what it means to be human. The conflicts, the rise, the fall, and the raw pure emotions of it. To me, music doesn't get any better than the 2nd Movement of the Seventh. One of the most important emotions I get out of the movement is anxiety over one's mortality.

I like your posts, Tokkemon. But unfortunately, you are kind of hitting a dead end in this discussion. I quite agree with your opinion, that "intellect and logic" do NOT make good music. That emotion is the primary driver of what inspires people. You can have the same notes, yet, if played without emotion, is meaningless (this is regarding performance). As for composition, you can have the most complicated melody in the world, but if it inspires nothing in the listener, it is also meaningless. However, just because you and I and some others may share this opinion, does not mean everyone does. Some composers are well in the camp that emotions are arbitrary and subjective, and that there is no universal rule for emotions. They believe any music can be emotional and enjoyable. While we may not agree with this, we can also simply run around in circles discussing it, because the world of music is so diverse, so expansive, that there are really no absolutes, and millions upon millions of exceptions. However, I will encourage you to pursue this discussion further, and I believe scientific experimentation is the best way to do it. Get a few test subjects, make sure they are in controlled states of emotion, and play them different pieces and see how they respond. That will give you a very basic data set of what music inspires emotion and what kinds of music don't. From there on, testing can go infinitely, so I would highly encourage you to collect as much data as possible, perhaps, you should see if any researchers or psychology majors will help you out. I support you on this, and look forward to hearing future discussions on this matter.

It's a pretty stupid stereotype, but whatever if they want to buy into it they can. I'm most interested in the actual stuff they do, not who they are.

Not necessary at all. I mean even if you're writing good'ol tonal music, there's so much that at a composer can only really learn by writing and hearing what they wrote, that any of the typical ear-training crap makes no difference. Then there's of course the deal with why bother learning how to "sing melodies" when your music doesn't use them that way. I mean I doubt anyone would berate Schoenberg because he couldn't sight-sing his 12 tone pieces. On that note, I only learned how to sight-sing for an exam, after that I never, ever, used it again. Likewise with 99% of the "training" you have to endure in the typical ear-training courses. I have never, ever, thought "Oh thank god I did that course!" at any moment, ever. Instead I hated wasting time. And of course the practice of melody dictation was maybe a great thing to have in 1700, but it's entirely pointless these days for a composer. I mean if you want to figure out something by ear, you're MOST likely going to be able to if you keep trying. Hell I used to play a lot of music by ear on guitar, and it didn't help at all in my exams. I still play a lot of stuff by ear and improvise/jam with people frequently, but THESE "ear" skills aren't appreciated by any of the ear-training courses I had to take. Quite irritating.