Someone suggested that the harmonic repetitiousness of Ravel's Bolero ought to make it a "mediocre" piece. Well, yes, it IS a mediocre piece. Certainly there is much better Ravel, as others pointed out in another thread. But harmonic immobility alone is surely not what makes it, or any other piece, mediocre. There is little harmonic movement in the second movement of Schubert's Quartet #14, which is anything but mediocre. As Steve Schwartz pointed out, predictability is not (exactly) the key variable either, for if that were the case, EVERYTHING would sound mediocre to us once we got to know it. However, we may have a clue here. My own (subjective) criterion for great music is exactly the way a piece affects me after I know it well. Mediocre music quickly loses its novelty, and its interest or emotional effect. Certain great works have the truly mysterious characteristic that they never seem to "wear out" in this sense. As Steve asks: "Does the Beethoven Fifth Symphony, for example, become less good as you know it better?" That is as good a test case as there is. The first movement of the Fifth ALWAYS shakes me by the throat, the millionth time almost as much as the first. I don't understand how it works. If I did, I would program a computer to write music with that characteristic, whatever it is. Jon Gallant and Dr. Phage