Alex Ross began studying piano at the age of 10 and later played oboe in his high-school orchestra.

But perhaps the defining moment in his life was hearing Leonard Bernstein conduct Gustav Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony at the Washington National Cathedral. He then embarked on a life of discovering, experiencing and writing about music, first at The New York Times from 1992 to 1996, and since then as the resident music critic at The New Yorker.

His first book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, became a best-seller and has been translated into 16 languages. Selected as one of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of 1998, the book won a National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize.

Understandably, anticipation for his second book has been fierce. He has just published the provocative and fascinating Listen To This. Like his first book, there are essays on classical music, but throughout the book a theme emerges. Although he listened to classical music and opera music exclusively as a youth, Ross has had a late-blooming discovery of popular music. That discovery reveals not just another side of Ross, but, through his lenses and writing, the revelation that music of all kinds should not be pigeonholed into genres, but embraced.

Ross answered questions through e-mail posed by The Salt Lake Tribune about his journeys, why classical music and opera should not be intimidating, and what in God's name Bob Dylan's "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" is about.Q: What prompted you to begin to love popular music? A: I grew up listening purely to classical music, and paid no attention to any other kind. Once I got to college, though, I became interested in twentieth-century composers, and went through a period of reveling in these very far-out, dissonant, avant-garde works—John Cage, Stockhausen, Xenakis, that sort of thing. Fellow DJs at my college radio station pointed out that they, too, had equally "unlistenable" music on their playlists: the free jazz of Cecil Taylor, the avant-rock of Pere Ubu and Sonic Youth. Those were the first "pop" records I bought. I then made my way to mainstream bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. What I've found is that others have discovered classical music by moving along a similar path, in the opposite direction. You don't have to start with Mozart or Beethoven. You can begin with Steve Reich or Arvo Pärt and go backward from there. Many, including you, have likened writing about music to dancing about architecture. So what do you hope readers — both passionate music fans and casual listeners — get out of reading your latest book? I quote that old line about "dancing about architecture" at the beginning of the book. But then I say it's not true—writing about music is no more difficult than writing about any other art form. It's impossible to capture any great work in prose, but you can use metaphor, description, and other verbal devices to give an inkling of what a Rothko painting is like, what a Frank Gehry building is like, what a Mahler symphony is like. I hope that through my writing casual listeners will take an interest in music that they may not yet know, while passionate fans will find fresh perspectives on old favorites. What would you say to those who are so scared of classical music and opera that they would never step foot inside Abravanel Hall and the Capitol Theatre? There's nothing intimidating about it! Classical listeners aren't a fancy lot these days. Many have regular jobs and aren't millionaires. It costs a whole lot more to go see Barbra Streisand or The Rolling Stones. Don't worry about what to wear or how to behave; dress as if you were going to a play. Before you go, listen a few times to the pieces on the program. You can easily download a cheap iTunes recording or listen [for] free on YouTube. Once you get a feel for the landscape of the work, once you recognize a few landmarks, you won't feel lost as the music goes on. Do you believe that there are limitations of pop music that aren't inherent in classical music or opera? Are there things that modern songwriters and performers can learn from classical/opera composers, and conversely, are there things modern classical music and opera composers could learn from pop and rock songwriters and performers? Musicians of different genres have much to learn from each other. People in the classical world have a terrible fear of being seen as vulgar or careless, so they don't take as many chances in their composing or playing, and consequently aren't as expressive as they might be. Likewise, many people in the pop world have a fear of being seen as pretentious. So, even if they're very smart about music or the culture around them, they hide it. I love an artist like Björk because she combines the best of both worlds, and doesn't worry about how she is perceived. What is the best advice you ever got about writing about music and criticism? And what is your best advice?The critic John Rockwell, when he was at The New York Times, told me that I should go to Europe and hear as much music as I could. I spent the entire summer of 1995 traveling from one festival to another, devouring the musical scene. The Times gave me a thousand dollars plus a rail pass, and I somehow eked it out for three months, sleeping on friends' couches and staying at some of the worst fleabag hotels in Europe. I learned so much from that expedition: I had a set of reference points that totally changed how I listened. I'd advise neophyte critics to take in as much music as possible, wherever they can find it, and to seek guidance at every turn from editors and smart, candid friends. Above all: revise, revise, revise. At the end of the book, you have a section on "Suggested Listening." In the time since you've written that, is there something that you believe you have overlooked? Of course, many good new recordings have come out since the book went to press, but I don't think I overlooked anything really important. In any case, it's not a comprehensive survey—simply a subjective list of recordings that have meant a lot to me over the years. One of the very best is the last: Radu Lupu's disc of late piano pieces by Brahms. It's one of the most purely beautiful records ever made. You spend some time in the book ruminating about Bob Dylan's closing track of "Blonde on Blonde," "Sad-Eyed Lady of Lowlands." Yes, it is majestic, but what in the world is Dylan talking about?The words are very beautiful, even if we're not sure what they mean. They seem to arise from that long-limbed, rising-and-falling melody that is heard over and over in the chorus: "My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums..." These long vowels, with a few consonants strewn among them. I don't think we need to pin down what it means, and we might be disappointed if we ever found out exactly what Dylan had in mind. Mystery is essential to music's power.