How do you write about music your reader has not heard?

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Since there are a lot of people here who write seriously about music, I have a question: How do you go about describing music, especially music that is in an unfamiliar genre, to an audience of readers who have not heard it? It's one thing to discuss music that you are assuming others have heard, but how do you write about something they haven't heard? How do you think about it? I guess this is too general a question, since it would presumably depend on the particular audience for a given publication. I ask because I had something published online (under a different name) for the first time in the past year and I'm already feeling pretty unsatisfied with what I wrote, on many levels. But the main thing that's bothering me now is that I don't think I succesfully imagined myself in the position of someone who had not heard the music I was trying to introduce in words.

― DeRayMi, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i'm sorry, as the pitchfork hiphop correspondent i have no good answer for this question.

― ethan, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

B-b-but Ethan what about Mos Def? ;-)

― Clarke B., Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can tell you this for sure, flowery nonsense about sonic cathedrals and suchlike do not help at all.

― electric sound of jim, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I just describe what I hear, as concretely as is necessary.

― Phil, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(Kind of a pat answer, I know, but that's really what I do.)

― Phil, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I happen to like flowery nonsense like "sonic cathedrals". But I view music more visually than most people.

― Melissa W, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But how much does it help you understand the music, if you've otherwise no real idea what it's like?

― electric sound of jim, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know. But I do find that I am usually able to fairly accurately interpret what music will sound like from visual descriptions of it.

― Melissa W, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

like all things with language, understanding works by relating to other understoods, otherwise nothing could ever be described. so music genre a is like b except c etc; shares ocmmonalities, differs by..yhow does it provoke responses etc.

― goeff, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Just say things like 'the indie Al Green' or 'Kevin Shields on a budget.' Then you give the impression you know what you're talking about. Yay!

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

uhh..use lotsa adjectives. ;)

― mt, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

and if something is really good, compare it to the Velvet Underground.

― mt, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Somebody in the thread about which kind of non-music-related class should a music critic take mentioned poetry writing, which works pretty well here. I think a lot of inconcrete things can help along those lines, like sentence cadence, word sounds, varying degrees of directness and indirectness. (A lot of these probably mean more to the writer than the reader, and subconsciously at that, but good writers make it work nonetheless.)

― Andy, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Andy is OTM. Good writing engages with the ethos of the music. I tried to do this, don't know how successfully, in the R&B piece for FT. Note the texture of the para on Maxwell, as compared to the para on Destiny's Child.

Also, I like to tell stories about music and talk about feelings and scenarios it inspires.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Really good music writing is usually enjoyable regardless of whether you've heard the music, and the reason is that it's good writing first and foremost. It feels alive; it sparkles with energy and humor and provocation and passion.

Straight sonic description usually reads to me as dead-dull as a textbook, even if I have heard the music being described. But when I can sense a writer's excitement over the record, or get a glimpse into how the music affects them, or just laugh at something funny they've written, I'm entertained regardless.

― Ian, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Krautrocksampler by Julian Cope is the perfect answer.In the book there are reviews of several obscure krautrock albums I'll probably never get to hear,let alone see in any store,but Cope's flair for description and willingness to follow the maddest images conjured up by the music makes me curious.

― Damian, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Briefly introduce this unfamiliar genre to your audience. Tell them what it is, where it comes from, and why one might care about it.

Seems simple to me. If you actually have something to say about the music, the pieces should fall into place.

― Oliver, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

is like anything else. if its good just say its good. if crap say crap. thats all peopl want to know. is it worth spending 15 quid on or not? everything else just bullshit get it off mp3 if u desperet to hear it.

― XStatic Peace, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Basically you're writing with two aims in mind:

- to make sure the reader does hear the music, or doesnt waste any time on it.

- to entertain the reader

If you keep those central it should work. "Entertain" doesn't mean "try to be funny", neccessarily. And if you try to hard to turn a reader off you'll end up pushing their contrary-button (this is what Pitchfork does all the time when doling out low marks).

― Tom, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Someone who does this "describing music you haven't heard" thing very well is Glenn Macdonald of The War Against Silence. Read this stunning review of Life Without Buildings.

― electric sound of jim, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

arent you supposed to write as if yr audience hasn't heard the music?

stories are good. describing the music baldly (or badly as i originally wrote it) is to be avoided at all costs. abstraction is good. flowery, not so. "humor" is poor judgement.

― jess, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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