There was a segment about Art Tatum on the radio this morning.  He scared all the pianists who heard him, he was so good.  Tatum sometimes played for twelve hours at a stretch, amazing everyone with the complexity of what he could do with a song -- you can people chuckle and sigh on some recordings he made in the middle of the night.

Minds like complexity.  A mind doesn't even know it's a mind until it can tell differences, and there's nothing like music to bring differences to minds. 

[P]eople tend to prefer increasingly complex, information-laden music as they grow older and their listening skills improve.  The reverse case, where listeners go from preferring complex to simple music, is virtually unknown. (Music, the Brain, and Ectasy, by Robert Jourdain)

Music momentarily makes the brain of a Parkinsonian work again, knitting together all the jagged edges.  It's a remarkable and moving sight.  Music makes all of our minds work in ways they ordinarily can't.  I'm on this music kick today because I've been working on a beautiful Brahms sonata that has defeated me in the past, and feeling as if it just might work out this time -- 23 years after the last time. 

So if someone (say, someone from the mobile phone industry) tells you that minds just want things to be simple, think of listening to Art Tatum.  Minds enjoy a good challenge.