Hey Mark… Sorry it took me so long to reply to this, but I am thankful for your post. I agree with a lot of the things you said here… Very good advice.
All these references to awareness and being in the moment make me suspect that you have studied Eastern philosophy a bit? I myself have been following the path of Buddhism for a couple of years now.
I like to cherry-pick good ideas from here and there. 
most of his philosophy is extracted from ‘Notting Hill’ though.
I would not be able to add something about the topic because people telling they spend long periods not listening to other people’s music have pretty said it all, but I can add an idea/experiment: sometimes it is funny and inspirational to listen to music from another room with closed doors, or in general from a non-favourable point of hearing; this way, structures of a song which could otherwise be difficult to perceive may get your attention and be a source of new ideas.
I have never done this on purpose, but everytime it happened to me the results were fascinating: many times, when I had the chance to listen to the same song from a better point of hearing, the results were really funny: music I would have hated seemed awesome from behind a wall 
I’ve noticed that before too! I think part of what’s happened to me before is hearing the music “On the wrong beat” … I.e. what I think is the “1” is actually the “3” or something like that, so it adds a completely different and weird flavor to the music. Then I get closer and I’m like… “Oh… that’s… something else entirely”
I’ve also noticed my laundry machine when it’s on the “spin dry” cycle makes some interesting rhythms. There’s also the times when the laundry gets off center and the whole thing starts banging around really loud, making what sounds like a house beat. So I have to run into the room and turn it off before it breaks itself. But I’ll usually dance to it for a second before I do. 
i love how my visualization capabilities seem to be getting better and better each year
I sometimes play CDs in the car that I haven’t heard in ages at very low volumes, just on the threshold of recognition. It’s brilliant for letting your mind take fragments of the music and then drift off with those fragments into your own creative space. I recently did this with Jon Hopkins’ Contact Note album, was a very pleasant experience.
hey
would our music benefit from us to stop listening to other’s music ?
do you think that the human brain is able to create on its very own, without any help of chance?
I have the impression that, in some extent, it is only able to make combinations of reminiscences or what you have already heard sometime, and make out what sounds good or what sounds bad (based on your tastes, which are steming from what you have been musically exposed to …)
So the process of learning to create music, or getting better at it, would be the learning of some set of rules, of which you are aware (music theory) or not. I don’t think the fact that someone practice music for years would have for consequence that he has a “better” imagination, but maybe he would have a wider “knowledge base”/overview of what sounds good and how to reach it.
By stopping listening to other’s music, maybe you restrict yourself to the access of what others have already found to be working (or not). It reminds me mathematics, learning proofs permits you to be better on others issues, not to be more limited in your way of thinking.
Maybe it is only my point of view and it is because I am a novice in music creation (so my musical thinking isn’t very much developped), but I have the impression that every time I would have composed a pleasant melody, I would have to charge chance’s account, certainly not some sort of reflection (that is where the parallel with maths stop). Some people are able to compose on paper, without physically hearing the music, but isn’t it always the process of trying and judging ?
All of this is my opinion, and “not totally” on the topic of this subject,
hoping not to do barroom philosophy and not saying too much bullshit 
sorry for the bad english
the only thought i’d give you on this (as i agree on most of it), is ‘what about the first person ever to make music?’
not to question your ideas but more for interesting thinking.
I will put up an experiment, knock up some woman and lock her up in a soundproof room untill she gives birth and then let the kid grow up in that room with only a computer with renoise as a toy just to see what it can do at age 20. Maybe it’ll create a new genre?
I am listening music all the time, and it have influence to my work, but I see it and feel it as a good one. I am still creating music that I hear in my head, and it is somehow connected to music I listen to. But it is some kind of mix of everything I like in different kinds of music. I am also not working exclusively at computer creating patterns from scratch, first there is idea that is mostly created when I am in a middle of other activities, like walking, going to job, into shopping, in times when ideas came by them self. And sometimes it takes a while, even a year maybe, between incubation of idea and it’s first recreation as song in computer-based format. So, what I am doing is constant update of myself through music and sounds that I hear every day, be it mine or music I hear on purpose or by accident.
i’d give you 20 bucks if you’d really do that.
I probably get 20 years too 
Why don’t we just hand Fritz’ kids some instruments and see what they come up with?
my thoughts exactly
maybe the relation between humans and music begins as them being listeners and not creators (birds, …)
but this still does not explain
The Western 12 note equal temperament comes down to scale and is VERY well documented! Watch the interview with the create of Melodyne I posted in this forum for a very brief rundown and take note of the books he mentions if you want some reading material.
Saying not everybody likes the same rhythms and melodies (although melody comes back to notes and scale so you should again see above) this point doesn’t really make any sense to me.
I’m not challenging the fact that music theory exists, is well documented and is a referential to write “proper” music.
I didn’t mean scale when I used the word norm. I wanted to talk about the underlying rules that determine if a majority of people is about to hate it or to like it.
I agree with the fact that not everybody likes the same rythms and melodies, but you may agree that the fact hit songs exist is a proof that there is a certain cohesion in the tastes of people (not talking about hits created by majors).
Are you able to explain in details why Mickael Jackson or the Beattles (or whatever you like) songs sound so good ?
This is what makes me feel lost
In a world of overcompressed ads, oversaturated promos, filling every space, that goes too fast, that’s too quick, you can say ok, I stop. I understand.
I understand the “silence” strategy, because music comes from a kind of zero point vacuum energy, that is close to the concept of silence.
However, let’s be logical. I don’t recommend this method. For at least 2 reasons.
1. Breaking the rules.
I cannot break expectations if I don’t know previously what are the expectations.
There are conventions. Ok. But if I want to sound unconventionnal, I have to know first the conventions. So let’s play conventionnal tracks, let’s play mainstream music. Let’s make cover songs. First.
Now let’s break something in it now, in secret, alone, in my studio. Let’s willfully ignore that someone else has also used my methods, with my tools, and the same vsti I also used, with the same presets, and starting from the same musical culture or references, let’s ignore that someone else has created a similar breakthrough in music. It’s not because we both ignore our respective works, that it will change the way we get - in secret -, nearly the same results.
If I really want to get a unique sound, a unique track, and unique results, and say that’s a pure creation, coming from nowhere, never heard before, I need to be radically unconventionnal, to use my tools the bad way, or the wrong way, to melt instruments and styles that come from very different horizons. I should even create new tools and even create new prototypes or new instruments. But (1) I have to play others to know what is right or wrong, what is conventionnal or not. And (2) I have to play others to know if they have not yet produced the same answer BEFORE. Well, am I too late or not ? I’ll never know if I refuse to play the others.
It’s logical.
The solution is not to stop listening to other’s music.
The solution is to introduce a good and true variation in a repetitive world, and to use a tool that allows you to be the first to give it to music.
2. The death of music
If we all stop to listen others, others will simply stop to express themselves. Because “why make a music that will not be heard” ? When you talk, you talk for someone else otherwise you slowly come to the conclusion that there’s nothing to say, and you finally say nothing. I’m sure that you know you’ve got someone that is waiting for you to make the supreme track, even if it’s just one person. This is the core, the source of your energy : it’s not in yourself, it’s in the hand of a good public that’s waiting for you, waiting for you that you’ve balls enough to dare. And that’s why you make what you make, because of these persons.
But have you ever imagined that you, as a musician, could be the destination of the music of another musician ? You’re the public of someone else. If you stop listening or playing the others, they will slowly come to the conclusion, that they have nothing to express. And they will slowly stop sharing and making their music for you, thinking that it’s useless. And when listeners and producer stop, men, there’s nothing anymore, that’s all.
I’m going to tell you what is the result of a global nothing : nothing “at all”.
BTW what about listening silence alltogether and because we’re ready to help our friends in our community, what about producing silence ? Let’s create empty xrns tracks and empty songs with lots of nothing. Let’s create a new genre : the nothing genre. Let’s send to our public blank cds for free. Hoping that the zero point vacuum energy will feed our mutual inspiration. For sure, the renoise dev team won’t encounter much difficulty with a NULL DSP DEVICE, that produces a nothing, for the same fee.
3. Solution
The solution is to play the others but to play them “in the background” , with a lower volume, especially the overcompressed tracks that don’t give you some space to think and elaborate something in the musical space around you.
And then, if you are up to date, concerning your musical references, and what’s going on, mainstream and underground, you need a tool to produce quickly something new, BEFORE the others.
I’ve got a question. Didn’t you used Renoise for that reason, because it allows you to get fast, quick results ? Because it allows you to track faster than fast tracker ?
The faster you are, the faster you’ll be the first, the better you’ll get chances to be new.