Opinion · Listen with someone else
Stop asking what music people like. Ask for one moment.
“Do you like Japanese music?” can produce a perfectly friendly “yes” and nothing else. Ask a listener to pick one moment in a song and it could take you anywhere from the first drum entrance to a final chord that arrives a second early.
Try この曲のどこが好きですか。 “What part of this song do you like?” They can name the chorus, point to a timestamp or hum a line. Answer with one observation about the same moment, then offer a song that does something similar. Keep the initial listening excerpt short and share a link the other person is willing and able to open. Talking about the sound still works if the audio cannot be played on the call.
The Japan Foundation’s Marugoto materials use talking about music preferences and responding to another person as conversation practice. Turn that into a lesson by asking a student to compare two ways of describing an example. One names a style. The other explains a moment they can hear.
Someone can know a lot about theory and say very little about what a song does to them. Make it easy to practise the second skill.