Kafka wrote:
“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
definition of great art - a traumatic experience you voluntarily put yourself through?
i think that applies to literature, film, theatre... there are films and novels that you end feeling "wish it were not so, but it must be so" (examples countless - McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Dream Life of Angels, Madame Bovary...)
not sure it works with music or visual arts
there is nothing traumatic or upsetting about e.g. "Marquee Moon" or Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony or In A Silent Way or "Neon Lights" or...
music can grant you feelings of glory or exultation or simple well-being / cleansing clarity that are not simply reassuring or mind-closing
is even such a thing as tragic music? tragedy is a property of the narrative form, and music isn't exactly narrative... certain most popular music is more like a loop of feeling, a frozen moment... it has to be repeatable
talking of repetition and spirit-dulling habits: what if you
find your magic, in music, and it never stops working, and it's
your magic, for you and your time. so there isn't a real impetus to expand your horizons simply because every expedition can lead as easily to non-magic as to a new kind of magic - indeed it's more likely to end up with empty hands
that's my prototype for a defense for e.g. endlessly playing old jungle and pirate tapes