Do you still enjoy the music without analyzing?

Yes.

I haven't listened to music without some level of analysis for most of my life.  Before I started teaching myself piano at age 9, I would hear music and simply enjoy what I heard.  But after learning to play an instrument, I began listening to how music is put together.  Started playing guitar at age 13, and it just got worse.  When I ventured into recording a few years later, that was it. Never could listen to music the same again.
 
I still enjoy it, of course, but there's always that part of my brain that picks it apart.  Not in a bad way, though.  It's just how it is.

I have another analogy of this.
 
I did go to a instrument making school many years ago.
It was ok.
But the teacher in drawing and the workshop had 3 fewer finger on his left hand.
He lost them in a workshop years prior.
No need to explain more in detail about that.
 
 
So he told us we had to choose between being instrument makers or instrument players.
You cannot do both 100%. (or 50/50)
 
Being a maker, hinders you from playing, and can in fact destroy it.
You can loose fingers, and get cuts, hands gets numb after hours of hard work.
 
Being a player, hinders you from working fast enough in the workshop.
You will be too scared of your fingers all the time, to be productive.
 
So is it this way as a musician, composer, recorder, producer too?
That you can't be both a music fan and a music maker?

 
 
Some thoughts ,
What some people call listening is total BS ...
Listening is a very active activity where the listener participates in real time as the music plays . Not the passive outer shell of the thing that people try to pass off as listening ..
Example , Dudes woman is pissed off and wont shut up ...if said dude wants to keep her and have peace in his life again he has to pretend he is listening ...
 
That is how many people listen to music
 
Listening to music is a choice . Think about it for a moment . It can be no other way
 
In any given moment the amount of sounds our brains and ears have to process are staggering ...
 
Example , As i type my post I have the sounds of my apt going on ..a fan above my kitchen stove and Duke pacing around wanting to go out . All Left ear BTW...my right ear is hearing the sounds of the highway a few hundred yards away combined with the sounds of planes coming and going to and from an airport that is 20 miles away ...
 
Now what's my point ?
 
it is simple and complex all at the very same time
 
On this forum we have people that have trained their ears in many different ways ...
A guy like Bit can hear a tune and know instantly what rouge frequency's are jumping out of line and ruining the mix.
Over the decades he has put in the time and trained his ears to be able to do so at will  ...
I can not for the life of me picture him out with a few friends having a picnic in the woods and saying to his friends You hear that waterfall ? it sounds all wrong , there is way too much 4 K in the sound . The Waterfalls  over hyped 4 K is conflicting with the upper mid's of the tree tops frequencies ...
The Fletcher Munson  curve is not helping this either ...the sound of the waterfall is all wrong
As we all know Bit would never say that so it must have been Mini Bit a new apprentice from the forum saying it ....
 
In my above example 2 points have been addressed ..
 
1 , Out of all the sounds of the woods somewhere along the line a choice was made consciously or subconsciously to place the listening attention on the sound of the waterfall ....Focus ....
Not the sounds of the cows mooing in the field a mile down the road .
 
2 , When a sound comes into focus one can choose to be vulnerable and experience the sound in real time while their critical mind rides shot gun . Acceptance .
Or one could put their critical mind in the drivers seat  and fight the sound the whole time it is playing in real time ...The Desire not to relinquish control .
 
I have often made that mistake ...my brain will actually try to fill in the right frequency's .
This happens to be common when the listener is experiencing severe emotional distress to what they are hearing 
 
Then we have people that can hear all aspects musical of what they are hearing ...
By that I mean a musician that hears and can identify all the various elements within a musical performance ..
 
 
A, They can hear all elements of the melodic and harmonic structure .... B , they can hear all elements of the rhythmic structure ...
A ='s hearing and being able to identify an A minor when you hear one .
B ='s hearing and being able to jump in and ride the pulse of the tune with the full knowledge of what is taking place rhythmically  in real time .
 
That is the realm I live in ...I can hear most of the various ingredients of each of the performers playing and that is where I like to spend my time ...not so much on the technical production end of things ...
 
Anyway I'm gonna cut this short .
 
I enjoy listening to music so much I  have spent many "the whole night " listening to one song .
That happens a lot when I'm transcribing sections of music that I want to play on my guitar .
I'm actually grateful to be able to listen to music and have my analytical mind just come along for the ride ...
 
I am not impressed with the way the whole music bizznezz has turned out since the days of people sitting in the same room and playing the basic tracks to a song all together ,,,
 
that's my story and I'm sticking too it
 
Kenny 

No. It actually makes a lot of sense.

I find myself analyzing most music that I listen to, but there are some songs that are just beyond music.

At the risk of sounding unhinged there are some songs to me that are almost like a narcotic. I listen to it and I have this ecstatic moment which is really hard to explain. And it can be just a short refrain or some guitar accompaniment  and it just makes me feel really good.  And then I kick back and have a smoke. Kidding.
For example, the song Shenandoah gives me goose pimples. Major 7 chords make me happy.

It's not just me. There are a couple books around that talk about it, one of which is Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy by Oliver Sacks.

No.

I do both simultaneously. 

Susan Rogers, who worked a lot with Prince as an engineer and is nowadays a psychologist who's done work on audio perception reckons musicians do hear music differently to non-musicians and focus on things non-musicians tend to miss. 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgBZHIUUn8Q

If it's a good song it will draw me in emotionally.  The analytical side sleeps.  BUT, if it's a sh***y song...out of boredom, sometimes I end up analyzing it.

OK boys and girls .
Is music like           ? they say  there's no such thing as bad        you fill in the blank

 
Kenny
 
 
 

 
Kenny

kennywtelejazz
OK boys and girls .
Is music like           ? they say  there's no such thing as bad        you fill in the blank

 
Kenny
 
 
 

That is one life like blow up doll you have there Kenny.