"The fundamental difference between music and the other arts lies in the fact that music is experienced as if it reversed man’s normal psycho-epistemological process.

The other arts create a physical object (i.e., an object perceived by man’s senses, be it a book or a painting) and the psycho-epistemological process goes from the perception of the object to the conceptual grasp of its meaning, to an appraisal in terms of one’s basic values, to a consequent emotion. The pattern is: from perception — to conceptual understanding — to appraisal — to emotion.

The pattern of the process involved in music is: from perception — to emotion — to appraisal — to conceptual understanding.

Music is experienced as if it had the power to reach man’s emotions directly."

Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, 50