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Originally posted by mymindsblank:
Remember that critics of anything are usually people who are unable to do the thing they are critiquing.

Music criticism (or professional appreciation of music and the arts) has been around as long as music has been around. Wiki if you must.

Plenty of music critics are current/former musicians: Rollie Pemberton, Drew Daniel, Matt LeMay and Sasha Frere-Jones just to name a few.

Seriously, dude. Seriously.

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Some want to use music critiquing to springboard their "career", and some just want to get paid. Thats how I see it.

...Yeah. That's great.

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Wiki if you must.

I'll take your word for it.
If criticism didn't pay off at some point it, like many things, would only exist for the enthusiasts. I guess I'm a cynic.

Anyway...

I'm all for reviews offering more technical aspects of albums, it would be more interesting than hearing a story about the listening of the album or listing each song's influences. I might even learn a thing or two.

By chance Yay!, are you an amateur music critic?

Nah, he's a pro.

"Pro"? "Amateur"?

I dunno. I've worked for one particularly prestigious media organization producing a music podcast and I've done my share of reviews in college and small-time online publications. I'm applying for bigger internships now.

So, I'm a pro on a smaller level, but a small fry on the level I have my eye on.

But either way, I do everything I can to make sure I know my shit.

That's interesting. Do you find it difficult to give a negative critique? I used to have to give critiques in art classes and found it difficult to say anything negative, even if I really felt that way. I knew it was not helping their future artworks to lie, but I would anyway. Maybe it was because the creator of the piece was usually standing in front me.

By the way, I could tell you were a journalist/critic type because you took my quotes out of context.

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Originally posted by mymindsblank:
Remember that critics of anything are usually people who are unable to do the thing they are critiquing.


Music criticism (or professional appreciation of music and the arts) has been around as long as music has been around. Wiki if you must.

Plenty of music critics are current/former musicians: Rollie Pemberton, Drew Daniel, Matt LeMay and Sasha Frere-Jones just to name a few.

Seriously, dude. Seriously.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that critics "usually" can't do the thing they're critiquing, but I think there is some degree of truth in mymindisblank's statement. The music critics that I know personally are all writers, not musicians. They like music, and are knowledgeable about it, but they studied for careers in English Literature or Journalism. They write music reviews because they a)like music and b)can write. And I think that that is one of the main issues that bothers me in regards to music criticism: Does a passion for music and an ability to write qualify a person to be a music critic? And if so... How good can the music reviews be if these are the only qualifications that the person has?

Conversely, every art critic that I have met has been a graduate of art school or has been a professional artist, or both. I'm not saying that you have to go to music school to become a reviewer, but it does seem to me that there is a discrepancy between the standards for rock criticism and the standards for criticism in other mediums. I guess rock is a populist art and so the criticism has to be populist as well. Or is that just an excuse for bad writing? Edit: I should have said "bad criticism."

Once again, these issues are mostly based on questions that have arisen on the basis of my personal experience with the critics that I know. I'm sure that lots of music critics are very well rounded in their musical knowledge, but every time I read a poorly conceived review, I ask myself these same questions.

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Originally posted by Yay!:
Rollie Pemberton

What did he do? I remember a couple reviews of his and I'm curious what he's been up to.

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Originally posted by Yay!:
Keep in mind I'm no expert in music theory. I took it in public school... American public school and some dabbling in a private music school.

One, arbitrarily, can turn anything abstract into something concrete by drawing lines where there weren't any before. It makes an order for him or herself. That order in our music discussion is, if you'll allow, melody and rhythm.

So in music theory-based music criticism, some will dismiss certain peices of music as amelodic or arrhytmic or even atonal and "not making any sense." I've heard this criticism before, criticisms like "Autechre isn't music" or "John Cage isn't music." This same criticism might say that these are sound artists and not musicians.

I speak of formalists following formalism when I talk about those who think in terms of "right" and "wrong" music. Those who say "that chord's not supposed to do that" as if it were something objective, and they use music theory to back up their opinion as mathematical music fact.

(I realize these people are not the majority and they are as subjective as we are. I haven't met many of these people on my own, but I have become aware of this perspective.)

I'm talking about those who follow major and minor chords like scripture and for whom an augmented chord is "iffy." God forbid something slightly displeasing or foreign to their ear should waft their way.


I hope that better explains what you disagreed with.

To be real, I made this thread mostly thread with the intent of hating on a style I dislike a lot (p4k). However, this is obviously self-promotion because I obviously value the qualities of educated reviews I mentioned in the first post. I'm a soon to be graduated music major and a "music writer" or whatever you want to call it, so that's mostly how this topic was motivated. It's good to see someone who agrees with me on the p4k matter. You articulated the notion of prose vs. music review well. I hadn't really thought of it that way.

There are some large-sized divots in this post that I'm curious to hear you speak more about. "John Cage isn't music." Music is usually defined as an intentional organization of sound. If you put your dog out back because it's barking in your face, you may not be making music though you organized that sound, but in general John Cage is not all that extreme on the "what is music?" spectrum. I know you're playing the fool, but still. Music theory is a recursive kind of art. There are phenomenon that occur in compositions. Composers put down musical ideas that come to them. Usually these ideas or sounds are organized by some kind of system. An example of a system is tonality. Another system is twelve-tone principles or serialism. For John Cage it was indeterminancy. When a composer composes a piece, it is music theory's job to figure out how the system works and why the composer would put such sounds together. Music theory job is not to tell you what is "right" or "wrong" in a song. There are wrong notes if your system is picking notes at random form the C major scale (as Philip Glass has done). F# doesn't fit into that system. However, maybe your system is C major with some surprises, who knows. The moral of the story is that it's the music that dictates theory and not the other way around.

That's why theory is so important to understanding music. I don't use theory to say The Arcade Fire is technically unsound at this one point. I use it to ascertain compositional intent. If I deem that they don't fulfill their intent, or their intent is fulfilled but boring, that is the music-critical subjective judgment on some objective conclusions I made using things I know about the compositional underpinnings of their works.

DISCLAIMER: Unless you love to see people writing about writing about music, which is awfully self-indulgent and meta and absurd, do not read this post. Thank you.

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Originally posted by mymindsblank:
By the way, I could tell you were a journalist/critic type because you took my quotes out of context.

Haha. Nice. I thought it was obvious outside of that. I just think I'm a huge snob sometimes... or most times.

Quoting you in full...

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Do you find it difficult to give a negative critique? I used to have to give critiques in art classes and found it difficult to say anything negative, even if I really felt that way. I knew it was not helping their future artworks to lie, but I would anyway. Maybe it was because the creator of the piece was usually standing in front me.

I don't find it too hard, no. Keep in mind a lot of criticism becomes instinct.

I think any flaws, or simply weaknesses, of a work usually make themselves more obvious than the strengths. For me, anyway. This is probably because I choose to describe and clarify strengths, thereby "praising" them with neutral and qualitative (NOT evaluative) adjectives, and I simply give the surface of the flaw/weakness, and I usually don't delve too much into it because sometimes I feel putting so much time into it would waste my time as a critic, frankly. It's up to the artist to improve his or her work's flaws, not mine. I see my criticism as, at its best, a peice in itself where I can write non-fiction/prose/poetry about the best parts of someone's music. Any constructive criticism about what can be improved is incidental, realy.

I think the face-to-face thing is a huge factor. Yes, it would be difficult, and awkward, for any and every critic to negatively criticize a peice if the artist is right in front of them. My God, of course.

Don't get me wrong, I've totally said less-than-glowing things to musicians faces before.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but for the sake of a real example I'll disclose this:

The first time I saw Engine Down live, I flicked off the band as they were performing. I WAS IN THE FRONT ROW. And, as you could tell by my raised middle finger, I hated what they were doing. Again, I'M NOT PROUD OF THIS.

I was waiting for Ted Leo to come on because he's actually, you know, talented. The bassist of Engine Down came up to me and we had words. I'm not kidding about this. I wish I were. It didn't get belligerent, but it was confrontational, and I could tell he kind of wanted to buck up. Ironically, I really liked his rig set-up and wanted to ask him about it, but I figured it was a bad time. Frankly, I was so stunned I couldn't get many words out. Most musicians won't confront critics like that... which, by the way, is something I think should change. (I'm a total sucker for musician/critic beefs.)

As as side note, thank God that band isn't making music anymore, because the really talented member(s) in that band was/were being muzzled.

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I knew it was not helping their future artworks to lie, but I would anyway.

This may seem harsh, man, but you will get absolutely NOWHERE in music criticism if you keep lying. Other than it being generally unethical, it's also unhelpful. You will tread water and you will be stuck somewhere you don't want to be. Great crit, like great art, takes honesty and courage... courage of your convictions, whatever they are. Honesty may not always be the best policy, but it should be the first. That's my advice to you, and I suggest you take it to heart.

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Originally posted by DFelon204409:
It's the music that dictates theory and not the other way around.

That is VERY well said. I want to post this on the wall in my room.

John Cage was a random example, man, and I wouldn't take too much to heart. I will be filling in the divots later if it comes up, but maybe this will sate you; I can tell you what I had in mind when I mentioned him:


I had in mind was Cage's idea that a lack of ordered sound, and hell a lack of ANY sound, can also be music. Rests can be music. Non-sound can be music.

Cage also posits in his essay on silence, and correct me if I'm wrong, music student, because I read it some time ago, that there is never any such thing as 100 percent lack of sound, that the temples and heart pulsing create sound in our body. Our body processes and the sound of a room we are in (a faucet dripping, wooden boards expanding and contracting with temperatures, etc.) always makes sound, and therefore a kind of tonal/melodic or atonal/amelodic music.

Tell ya what, I'm waiting for the composer (maybe he or she is already out there!) who uses sound unhearable by the human ear in a peice. He/she could call it, "Hey, You, That Dog Over There! Yeah, You!"

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Tell ya what, I'm waiting for the composer (maybe he or she is already out there!) who uses sound unhearable by the human ear in a peice. He/she could call it, "Hey, You, That Dog Over There! Yeah, You!"

The Beatles used dog whistles on Sgt.Pepper.

Is that true? I hadn't heard that in a while. I heard that it was just an urban legend.

The dog whistle is in the run-out groove at the end of side 2, at about 5:07 of "A Day in the Life." You can actually hear it if your hearing is pretty good, so it's not exactly what you were talking about, but still... they did it.

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The first time I saw Engine Down live, I flicked off the band as they were performing. I WAS IN THE FRONT ROW. And, as you could tell by my raised middle finger, I hated what they were doing. Again, I'M NOT PROUD OF THIS.

I was waiting for Ted Leo to come on because he's actually, you know, talented. The bassist of Engine Down came up to me and we had words. I'm not kidding about this. I wish I were. It didn't get belligerent, but it was confrontational, and I could tell he kind of wanted to buck up. Ironically, I really liked his rig set-up and wanted to ask him about it, but I figured it was a bad time. Frankly, I was so stunned I couldn't get many words out. Most musicians won't confront critics like that... which, by the way, is something I think should change. (I'm a total sucker for musician/critic beefs.)

As as side note, thank God that band isn't making music anymore, because the really talented member(s) in that band was/were being muzzled.

So you saw Engine Down more than once though you hated them? Who is this talented member? A friend? I think Engine Down rules. I could understand why people would hate them but I think they're great. So subdued but also so powerful.

Warning: I'm a John Cage nut. This isn't relevant to the thread topic, and will probably bore or irritate most people (or worse). This discussion would really be better placed in the Avant Garde thread, but seeing as how that thread is located in the Indie Rock forum, here might not be so crazy after all.

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Originally posted by Yay!:
I had in mind was Cage's idea that a lack of ordered sound, and hell a lack of ANY sound, can also be music. Rests can be music. Non-sound can be music.

Cage also posits in his essay on silence, and correct me if I'm wrong, music student, because I read it some time ago, that there is never any such thing as 100 percent lack of sound, that the temples and heart pulsing create sound in our body. Our body processes and the sound of a room we are in (a faucet dripping, wooden boards expanding and contracting with temperatures, etc.) always makes sound, and therefore a kind of tonal/melodic or atonal/amelodic music.

Yes - the second paragraph is right. But combined with the first paragraph it seems to suggest that something which doesn't exist can be music! Like saying, "Unicorns can be music...btw, there are no unicorns."

Cage went into an anechoic chamber at Harvard. This chamber is designed to cut off any contact between a person and the outside world. This includes dampening of sound as much as humanly possible. While Cage was in the chamber, he could still hear his heart beating, the blood running through his veins, etc. I think it's similar to an experience I have occasionally when I'm trying to get to sleep. When I close my eyes, I can still see little flashes of light (I assume this is probably neurons firing in my optic nerve or something like that). Or I'm insane. or drugged. who knows?

And about that piece "Hey, You, That Dog Over There! Yeah, You!" It seems likely that anybody making such "music" will languish in severe obscurity. I would be tempted to throw that out of the musical arena (or at least the arena of music written for people). How can it be music if I can't recognize it as such? I couldn't even recognize 'it' as music if somebody told me it was playing because I can't tell what is 'it' and what is not. I'm not trying to insult anyone in this; I'm just trying to keep my ducks in some semblance of a row.

Cos even in the case of 4'33", while the piece is playing there is something to listen to. The deception lies simply in the source of the music. It's not coming from the piano but the concert hall and the people in it.

Cage didn't write (or anyway I doubt that he did) 4'33" simply in order to piss people off. From what I've read, he was trying to awaken people to the realization that what is going on all around can be seen to be beautiful. And if there is so much beauty going on all around, why pay any special, hyper-focused attention to the guy in front of the piano on stage?

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Originally posted by DFelon204409:
So you saw Engine Down more than once though you hated them? Who is this talented member? A friend? I think Engine Down rules. I could understand why people would hate them but I think they're great. So subdued but also so powerful.

I've only seen them once, that one time. I staked out a place up front to see Ted.

To me, Engine Down does little with a lot (live, anyway). The band before them (Just A Fire) did a lot with a little.

The band member who was in Denali. I like that guy. Can't remember his name. Might've been the bassist, in fact.

Hey, sorry to veer from the Cage discussion, but I think there are some important issues still to flesh out in the notion of the critic's role (if I may barge in).

You guys have probably all heard that quote about how "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Well, I think that is true; I also think that one indeed can dance about architecture. Music, I would argue, is the most free-form art. The language it uses is the farthest from the semiotic system of the verbal. It seems that you have more art-critics educated in art because the visual sign system is much more relatable to verbal language than music is. Music has always posed an aesthetic problem because of its relative formlessness with regard to meaning. Thus, you have philosophers like Kant arguing that it is the lowest art form because it relies almost entirely on sensation, and thinkers like Shopenhauer who argue that it is the highest art form because, and my memory is fuzzy, it transcends those limiting structures of meaning inherent to painting and, to a greater extent, prose (though he loved Tragedy for its more musical qualities, etc.).

I think, for music particularly, the best one can do is to react and, for a critic, to record that reaction. The review can be no more than the mere artifact of the listening project. What I think abstract review strive to do is to simply recreate the feeling of the music in the reader. After all, the language of music is formless. Thus, the best way to describe it is in a relatively formless way, an abstract semiotics.

Another way to describe music is simply to take it up as a cultural form or artifact, to draw a big outline around it and talk about it in historical or anthropological terms. While that approach is valid for a reviewer (i.e. talking about the scene, influences, etc.) it's not so much a review as it is a piece of academic writing. It shouldn't pretend to relate to any sort of formal quality inherent in the music itself.

What I do have beef with is any attempt to assert a specific semiotics of music, to claim that verbal language can touch upon the primordial and subconscious language of music--indeed, despite any intentionality in musical creation, the effect of music itself operates on that preverbal, pre-semiotic level. What a lot of publications try to do nowadays is convince the readers their their language works for understanding music by creating standards and cliches of journalistic writing. Thus, there is a very specific "feel" to musical writing and reviewing that one immediately recognizes as legitimate, though only because it has been codified and institutionalized. This is dangerous! That sort of clever lingo is nice to read, but turns music into something material, capitalistic, objectified.

Music reviewing should be about writing, first and foremost. Nothing can really be about music, however much it pretends to. Music writing should be a reaction, and if your reaction is to judge the quality or a "good/bad" effect, so be it. That is just a record, not an objective statement. Be fresh, be interesting. Share your internality. The critic should not be the subject in the middle of objects, the ringmaster of a world that exists within his mind. Writing is a social medium, as is, indeed, all language.

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Music writing should be a reaction

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The review can be no more than the mere artifact of the listening project.

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Nothing can really be about music

I totally disagree with all of these statements. I agree that music is an abstract art, and I think that the best way to critique a piece of music is to compose your own piece of music, but that doesn't mean that one can't write about it. A good writer can at least try to explain "why" they feel a certain way, rather than just saying "what" they feel. Music only seems "formless" to people, like Kant, who don't fully understand it. For example, what if there was a piece that was 5 minutes long and consisted of repeating middle C's, played on a piano, at one second intervals? I think it would be quite easy to write a review of this piece. You could explain how it made you feel (bored, calm, etc.) but you could also explain

 why 

it made you feel that way (the piece only contains one note and it is repeated many times.) The trouble is- most music is more complex than this piece and so it's harder, but not impossible, to explain why it made you feel a certain way.

You make a valid point, but it seems like that kind of music writing (i.e. talking about the one note) is the kind that is most vulnerable to shortsightedness and conservatism. Look at the criticisms of punk rock that harp on the three chords structures until they make it seem like that structure itself is simply "wrong." It is true that it is impossible to create an entirely new language of criticism, and that people are looking for a certain type of writing when they read reviews, but attempts to explain feelings and reactions technically cannot use more than a sort of institutionalized language, a set of cliches formed from the last generation of music criticism.

I certainly agree that one can break down music into chord progressions and component parts. I am just not sure that writing about chords is writing about music; it pigeon-holes the musical piece socially and denies it room to talk about anything pre-symbolically, pre-structurally. I would argue that music itself takes its most profound effect on a level beyond or before its compositional organization. Meanwhile, the critic himself often forgets that his own piece is a social artifact, and they he is not at all transparent.

Sure, critics should still be able to talk about compositional organization, as it does affect how he receives the piece, but it is almost impossible to do that without losing site of oneself in the institutional haze. One is only able to write in this manner because a historical tradition has deemed it, the same tradition that, say, held back jazz in its early years until whitey took it away and transformed it into something that reenforced bourgeois sensibilities.

Complaining about the one C note, in effect, turns the piece into that one C note. It puts a curtain over the heartbeat, the light of the room, the imagined look of the pianist as he strikes. Talking about this note turns the piece of music into language, and a rigid one at that. This is a language in which psychology can explain everything "human"--in which literary, analytical thought can break down the world into its component pieces. I simply propose another approach.