"how do you write about music?"
...steve-o from the caravan of dreams wants to know, after reading my response to his last "assignment" (see previous post). there are a lot of answers to that question, but i can only speak for myself, of course. i think the best place to start might be "_why_ do you write about music?"
back in my misspent youth, when i was still messing with psychedelics, the major lesson i gleaned from the experience was that any insight you have that can't be communicated might as well not exist. this was reinforced years later by my mentor, b.d. trail, who taught me that if your work can't stand on its own, without further explanation, you haven't done your job as a writer. between 1999 and 2002, my 'net buds craig regan at the i-94 bar (sydney, orstralia) and phil overeem at the first church of holy rock and roll (columbia, missouri) graciously granted me unlimited space on a regular and continuing basis to hone my chops and pubbed (albeit electronically) reams upon reams of the kind of stuff that got me sent to the school counselor when i wrote it in my 9th grade english journal. i remain indebted to them. this year, i've done more work that didn't make me sick than i ever have before. i'm actually keeping a list on my myspace blog thingy (the closest thing i have to an "advertisement for myself").
i write about music because i think it's one of the greatest experiences available to human beings, whether as participant or spectator, and i want to share with others the stuff that i think really has merit; why waste their / my time on the other shite? (as john lee hooker said, "nothing but the best, and later for the garbage.") the assignment is "describe what musician X's music sounds like / how it makes you feel / why it sounds and feels this way." i'm interested in the _process_ of music-making, which includes a certain amount of backstory, for the insight it provides into musician X's motivation. at the risk of sounding pretentious, what i'm shooting for is a synthesis of the personal-experential (cohn, lester bangs) and historical-analytical (early greil marcus, peter guralnick) approaches. and an entertaining read, of course.
in practical terms, what this means is that if i'm writing about a performer, i'm going to listen to their music obsessively for the duration of the time i'm working on the piece (and conversely, if there's something i'm listening to obsessively, more than likely i'm going to wind up writing about it here). while i'm doing this, i'm also researching and _thinking_ about my subject. to the untrained eye, all this listening and thinking looks a lot like "staring into space," but it's a necessary part of the process. for a typical piece, it might take a few hours or a couple of days, depending on how familiar i was with the subject at the outset. once i have _an idea_, i sit down and write. on the blog or the couple of online outlets that currently run my shit (that'd be the aforementioned i-94 bar and i love fort worth), i generally publish first drafts (sometimes tweaked after i see my stupid mistakes online, or my wife does). if i'm writing on spec, of course, the client is in the driver's seat, and the research and editorial processes can be more involved...sometimes significantly so.
i dunno, steve -- does that answer your question?
back in my misspent youth, when i was still messing with psychedelics, the major lesson i gleaned from the experience was that any insight you have that can't be communicated might as well not exist. this was reinforced years later by my mentor, b.d. trail, who taught me that if your work can't stand on its own, without further explanation, you haven't done your job as a writer. between 1999 and 2002, my 'net buds craig regan at the i-94 bar (sydney, orstralia) and phil overeem at the first church of holy rock and roll (columbia, missouri) graciously granted me unlimited space on a regular and continuing basis to hone my chops and pubbed (albeit electronically) reams upon reams of the kind of stuff that got me sent to the school counselor when i wrote it in my 9th grade english journal. i remain indebted to them. this year, i've done more work that didn't make me sick than i ever have before. i'm actually keeping a list on my myspace blog thingy (the closest thing i have to an "advertisement for myself").
i write about music because i think it's one of the greatest experiences available to human beings, whether as participant or spectator, and i want to share with others the stuff that i think really has merit; why waste their / my time on the other shite? (as john lee hooker said, "nothing but the best, and later for the garbage.") the assignment is "describe what musician X's music sounds like / how it makes you feel / why it sounds and feels this way." i'm interested in the _process_ of music-making, which includes a certain amount of backstory, for the insight it provides into musician X's motivation. at the risk of sounding pretentious, what i'm shooting for is a synthesis of the personal-experential (cohn, lester bangs) and historical-analytical (early greil marcus, peter guralnick) approaches. and an entertaining read, of course.
in practical terms, what this means is that if i'm writing about a performer, i'm going to listen to their music obsessively for the duration of the time i'm working on the piece (and conversely, if there's something i'm listening to obsessively, more than likely i'm going to wind up writing about it here). while i'm doing this, i'm also researching and _thinking_ about my subject. to the untrained eye, all this listening and thinking looks a lot like "staring into space," but it's a necessary part of the process. for a typical piece, it might take a few hours or a couple of days, depending on how familiar i was with the subject at the outset. once i have _an idea_, i sit down and write. on the blog or the couple of online outlets that currently run my shit (that'd be the aforementioned i-94 bar and i love fort worth), i generally publish first drafts (sometimes tweaked after i see my stupid mistakes online, or my wife does). if i'm writing on spec, of course, the client is in the driver's seat, and the research and editorial processes can be more involved...sometimes significantly so.
i dunno, steve -- does that answer your question?
posted by stashdauber at 9:02 PM
2 Comments:
Actually, yes. All of the writing I've ever done about music tended to be more about the artist or what revolved around the artist rather than about the music itself. Not being a musician, I have an appreciation for music but a lack of technical understanding which limits my writing about it in some ways. Like you, I am certainly interested in the process, but I'm somewhat limited by my lack of understanding. But that doesn't mean I'll stop trying.
And it's funny you mention it, a lot of my research involves sitting there staring into space. A looks like a lot of nothing, but there IS a lot going on.
none of the writers i mentioned are musos, either. anyone an answer the "how did it sound / how did it make you feel?" questions. muso tech blather is boring, anyway. your god and tom waits post is a good example of the "historical-analytical" approach.
Post a Comment
<< Home