HUM 223: How to write about music

Based on reading your proposals, I'd say almost all of you have good topics -- and almost all of you would greatly increase your chances of getting an A if you write more about the music. Not just a biography of the musician. But his or her music, and how you respond to it. What does it sound like? How, specifically, does it affect you emotionally as a listener? Example: Don't just say Charlie Patton, the early Delta bluesman, is cool. Does Charlie Patton's intricate, polyrhyhmic playing -- even on a cheap acoustic guitar -- put you in a happy, upbeat mood? Or some other kind of mood? Does it reflect the rhythms of Africa? Can you hear what later guitar players like Robert Johnson and Eric Clapton heard in it? Does the way he growls his lyrics give him a primeval, almost dangerous sound? In your papers, I want you to engage the music, listen to some of it and record your response to it. Remember the three questions we've been asking ourselves all semester: What stands out? Why do I like it (or dislike it)? What, specifically, in the music does that for me?

Here's a really good link ... to a Dartmouth Writing Program tip sheet on how to write about music. Some overall advice:

Analyzing music is difficult. First, because music evokes powerful emotional responses, you don't often pay attention to what it is about the music, exactly, that moves you so much. Second, even if you are able to get past your feelings to describe what you hear, simple description isn't enough. You must be willing to interpret the music and then support your interpretation with evidence from the piece.

He say what? What does that mean? Basically it means what you've heard all the way from third grade to English 111 and 112: Support your claims with evidence. But this time, you get some of your evidence from listening to the music.

Although you're writing research papers in Humanities 223, I want you to do some of the things Dartmouth recommends in "review" papers -- in other words, to comment on the performance, even if you're hearing it on sound recordings, videos or YouTube clips:

In a review, you should focus on the form of the music. What sounds make up the music? How does the composer or performer fuse together these different sound elements? How do the different movements work together to create the music's overall effect? Remember to stay away from comments beginning with "I" that reflect only how the music affected you. Instead, question the music using criteria by which we judge excellence, and provide insight into those elements of excellence.

When you're writing for my classes, at least, that doesn't mean you can't make "I statements," by the way. It just means you have to back up your "I statements," your opinion with evidence. Which is what you do in college writing anyway. Right?