The chap who came up with the phrase “writing about music is like dancing about painting” must have thought he was being terribly clever. Nope.
Here’s why: the phrase itself is writing about music. So there, smarty pants!
Writing about music is no different from writing about sports, travel, food, or politics. Arts commentary—literature, painting, sculpture, theater, dance, music—dates back to Aristotle if not before. Music commentary isn’t only for hoity-toity eggheads who think that music should be seen and not heard. If I tell you that Ludwig van Beethoven composed nine symphonies and you can listen to them all on records I’m writing about music. Consider: there was a time when you had never heard of Beethoven, when you had never heard a note of his music. Then there was a time when you had heard of him. That’s because somebody told you who he was and what he did. That somebody was writing (or talking) about music.
My commentator’s responsibility varies with my audience. I will do my darndest to assure neophytes that Bach isn’t going to bite. But I might sail into the vast seas of structural analysis à la Schenker with a musically sophisticated listener. Some folks will be better served if I wax gossipy; others might benefit from a colorful historical weave; others yet might prefer aesthetic philosophizing—although I’m not particularly keen about that last. I do what I can. I write as I can. I help as I can.
Sometimes speakers and writers don’t keep their audiences sufficiently in mind. Academics are prone to treat a symphony hall as just another lecture room; they drone their prepared notes from the lectern and put everybody right to sleep. I suppose inducing boredom amounts to a virtue in some quarters of academia. But symphony patrons aren’t cowed undergraduates. Not only have they paid for their tickets, but they have taken the trouble to show up early for the talk. They deserve an engaging presentation that neither insults their intelligence nor assumes that they possess doctorates in musicology.
For me, that means preparation: research, pre-planning, construction, and rehearsal. The talk is just as much a performance as the concert. My goal is to inform, engage, and entertain. I want my listeners to be glad they showed up, to get more out of their evening at the symphony. Neither boredom nor intimidation is acceptable.
Writing isn’t speaking, but the same principles hold. Writing about music is writing, and so any piece of music commentary worth its salt must be good writing first and foremost. My personal cosmology includes a blazing hot hell specifically for those miscreants who inflict their tangled academic prose on unsuspecting regular people. Or those who drag general readers into erudite tempests that are of interest only to a few scholars in ivory teapots.
Or those who rant and rave hysterically about something they don’t like. Kurt Vonnegut described them as donning a full set of armor, mounting a war steed with lance in hand, and attacking a hot fudge sundae.
Fortunately most music commentators avoid such shortcomings. Most writers and speakers are sincerely devoted to their readers and listeners, taking pains to write clearly and speak well. Nobody’s perfect. Everybody goofs sometimes. But on the whole arts commentary is a noble calling, worthwhile and useful, despite twitty quips from the occasional mouthy bozo.