What if tonalities were not, after all, generic?

Not having perfect pitch, as a listener I have enjoyed the game of discerning tonality via instrumental sonority which, in every good composition, is not to be taken for granted.

Just because one can identify tonality by the key signature does not give the musician the option of not listening to the first note(s) which may, in fact, be there in order to confuse, not clarify the matter. It is a trick common among great composers to open a work with an emphatic question mark. Did you ever notice?

As guest teacher at a graduate Music Theory seminar I asked whether there was a composition which the students found difficult to begin. As the professor gasped - "we do not ask that question!" - hands shot up around the room.