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I touched on this within some other posts but I wonder if anyone has experienced the same or can offer advice on how to overcome this.

Basically, I would love to write music. I have the technical ability, I have the recoding software and hardware. However I do not seem to have the ability to write music.

Over the years, I have identified where this problem comes about. It is my inability to be able to like or enjoy music until it has grown on me, or until it becomes familiar.

Pretty much every song I know, or even have come to love I did not enjoy the first time I heard it and dismissed it as rubbish or just didn't like it at all.

Usually the way that I find I like a song is where it happens to come next on an album or I am doing something that prevents me skipping the track. Slowly the song becomes familiar and I start to enjoy it and can make a real decision on whether it is good, rubbish, I like it, I don't like it etc.

I noticed this was the case some years ago and now, if I think I might like a band, I almost force myself to listen to the album and yes, it does seem like a chore. I will constantly be tempted to switch it off and listen to something I like. However I persevere and after a few listens, sure enough, I find songs I like. Often I eventually like the whole album. Some songs go on to be my all time favourites.

This problem that I have causes a huge stumbling block when it comes to composing my own music. If I cannot even identify some of my all time best songs from the first or second listen, how can I possibly tell if what I am composing is any good?

Each time I get something that might be a great starting block it gets dismissed.

Previous advice I have received is that you should just write and eventually you will write something good in amongst a lot that might not be so good. However I would like to at least feel it is worth writing at the time and then dismiss it later if it was not so good - after I had a chance to really find out whether I liked it.

Recently I have been attempting to overcome this by listening to new music that I have never heard before and trying to identify songs that I like or that I realise that I could come to like from the first listen however I feel like I am failing at this.

Here is the most recent examples.

New album by Slash

1st & 2nd listen - didn't enjoy any tracks at all. Guitar work sounded like it had been chucked together. Very uninspiring.

3rd to 4th listen - still nothing. Forcing myself to listen to this now.

5th listen - started to find the intro to "promise" quite interesting. Played this song a few times.

6th + Listen - "Promise" is now very familiar as listened to a lot. Where I have been busy doing other things the next tracks have been left to play so starting to become more familiar and so I am enjoying them more.

I am currently at the stage where I am familiar with the whole album. There is two tracks I do not like. The rest I don't mind. I enjoy a lot of the guitar work and respect some of the compositions.

New Ozzy Album

1st & 2nd Listen - Overall too heavy, uninspiring same old same old. Nothing that jumps out that I like.

3rd listen I start to get more into track one. This is where it sometimes comes on when I am busy, before I change the album!

I am currently on about the 4th or 5th overall listen. The first few tracks are starting to grow on me. I am now not so keen to turn it off straight away.

Could some of these songs turn out to be good after all? I think I might find one or two in here now that I do really like. I could never have forseen this from the first listen. I might even go on to really enjoying the whole album.

In conclusion - I know that I need to somehow train myself to have an open mind when first listening to music. As I am so aware of this issue I really do make every effort. Perhaps if I cannot train myself to like something on the first few listens then perhaps I need to to try and identify music that I think i will like down the line.

It all makes composing music almost impossible at the moment.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this or am I just completely mental??!!