Writing About Music and Writing Well

MUSIC 298R Subject & Catalog Number

Description

This is a practical course about writing lucidly, creatively, and well. Whether you are a composer, historian, performer, ethnographer, or music theorist, your professional responsibilities will include writing: articles, essays, program notes, artist statements, books, but also applications for grants and jobs (in academic settings, or in the outside world). We’ll reflect on methods and strategies for writing as well as the ethics of writing in the age of Generative AI. Readings include how-to books that offer tricks of the trade, fiction about writing, examples of superlative writing that you bring in. We consider how to weigh the veracity of testimony, why writing about music is hard, using Google translate, acknowledging machine aid, writer’s block, ghostwriting and anonymity as philosophical conundrum, finding a voice, working with an editor. There will be seminars that are led by outside visitors: the Ghostwriter, the Philosopher, and the Historian who abandoned Chronos (Roger Parker, Fumi Okiji, and Martha Feldman), with other visits in the works. ]

You will do some technical exercises, as well as submitting your own writing (essay, seminar paper, dissertation abstract or chapter, program notes) for discussion and critique. We will all practice translating, detecting slop, and being an editor.

I care about writing. Writing well requires hard work and an antipathy towards keywording and academic clichés, a good ear, a sense for rhythm, and above all loving words.