On the other side of the spectrum, I myself am a relative musical neanderthal, having gone into the book not even knowing what the word "fugue" meant. I was fascinated by the way he related this sort of musical "recursion" back to general mathematical problem solving. When I read OP's dismissal of it, I figured I was just underthinking whether it was a good analogy or not, being the unsophisticate that I am - nice to see that somebody who does have some expertise on the subject weighing in.