What Do You Find Hardest To Write About?

Facts.

Explaining why I like things. "Because I do", is not a great answer, but it is the truth. Inarticulate, moi.

Avoiding repeating adjectives in descriptions. I want a bigger vocab.

Writing about dance music (which is most of what I've been writing about lately) without lapsing into cliches cribbed from Simon R. I stuppose it would be easier if there were more writers writing about it that I could steal from. ;)

Also, like Tom said, rhythms. I spent two days trying to write something which actually conveyed a tangible response to Omni Trio records and gave up.

Sometimes I feel like if I had somewhat of general knowledge of musical theory, etc. writing about it in general would be easier.

lineups...

Um, all of it? I feel awkward writing about the music stuff, because I just sound like an uneducated twunt. And then, when I try to discuss the lyrics, I go "blah blah blah" while dry-humping my thesaurus. And I don't even take it out to breakfast afterwards. I'm such a guy.

I find it EXTREMELY hard to write about something that doesn't hit me hard (in either a good or bad fashion). Passion might not bring out the best prose, but it certainly brings something out. When it's ehh, it's a bitch.

My comment was not intended to suggest that I find the music/rhythms particularly *easy* to write about, but I'm conscious of the fact that my writing about lyrics is worse, and that a hell of a lot more people do it quite well.

What I find interesting out of this is the occasional disparity between what you listen for and what you then describe/rave about. In hip hop, with people like Ludacris or Jay-Z my appreciation is about fifty percent due to the lyrics, sometimes more, but when I then try and express that in anything beyond a really generalised manner it just comes across as trite - it usually does anyway, for that matter.

Possible reason: when talking about dance music - or any music which focuses around sounds themselves - you're talking about a) the construction of the track, and b) the abstract, often inarticulate feeling it generates in you the listener. I'm really into literary criticism, but my angle has always been an analytical one rather than a reponsive/emotional one - ie. too articulate. So when I try to combine the first approach with a discussion of lyrics, the two approaches collide and refuse to work well together. Ultimately, I can't talk about how the lyrics make me feel, so I avoid the issue.

I find it very hard to write informatively about MUSIC as opposed to just quoting the lyrics or giving a potted history of a band or artist.

(things I have announced i am GOING to write about: I am posting instead of tackling ms ciccone)

Aside from the obvious answer (uh, all music), I find it really hard to write about dance music. I feel like some kind of charlatan- see electro thread for my admission of knowing _nothing_ about Detroit techno.

When it comes down to it, I often feel like just throwing myself down into 'ooh, I don't know much about [UK hard junglehop'n'kazoo], but I know what I like...'

Actually, this really pisses me off.

I'd like to point out that about half of my records are electronica records etc, so my feeling like a charlatan isn't because I'm some kind of narrow-minded indie type, I just can't compare and contrast so well with certain dance genres...

mike ladd - welcome to the afterfuture.

dance music. because, more than any other genre, it's about the experience, not the sound.

it's impossible to be objective about the experience.

I hate writing about things I like. I feel awkward and propeganda-ish.

Description. Any description, but especially sounds. And the vocabulary for how music is constructed is useless for conveying how the music sounds. Imagine if, when you talked about literature, you were restricted to saying things like, "She used an adjective in the subordinate clause," but were unable to name the adjective or quote the clause.

That's a great analogy. That's the kind of stuff that should have been on the cute formalism thread, except about music naturally. (But who would have understood? I'm thinking of the esoteric muso discussion on the wibbling twee thread (of all places!).)

How strange, I find dance music extremely easy to write about. Almost no lyrics = total freedom. Of course I have no idea what objectivity is, so maybe that helps too ;) But a corny anwser to the question would be: music that's in between, that is neither very good or very bad, those records that are allright. I find it very hard to write about those since I'm a bit of a hype-artist my overblown rethoric doesn't work in that area. Very irritating.

I hate writing about something I really like too. You really have to stop yourself praising it for praises sake and write a good informative review of it, and theres so many pitfalls. I tend to stay away from the more technical stuff like rhythms because as far as I'm concerned thats fairly useless to the casual reader. I'm meant to be reviewing stuff for Losing Today magazines next issue and I'm afraid it's going to be some dead dead chin strokey stuff that can't be commented on or something. We'll see.