When encountering a composer's work for the first time, it's a perfectly natural response to compare it to music we already know. We all do it, and this instinct to relate the new to the familiar can help US begin to understand new musical languages and idioms. However, if we really want to come to grips with new voices, to fully understand what we're hearing and how it's affecting us, it's important to move past reacting to music in terms of what it is like, and to move on to engaging with what it is.