Northwestern University to accredit music critics

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read all about it: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/chi-0206160189jun16.sto ry

― M Matos, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

new accredited answers.

by the way, what a BAD IDEA

― M Matos, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's not that bad an idea. I'm always toying with the idea of taking some kind of music-listening course.

― Tom, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think it's fine. Harmless, at worst. But it doesn't solve any long- standing problem in rock criticism, does it?

― Michael Daddino, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

if they give me a job and a grant to finish my book it will solve THE long-standing problem in rock criticism

― mark s, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think it would be a not bad idea for someone like me, because I'm really interested in the theory, and the formal journalism training would look better on the resume. But I'm not exactly sure how much this will help critics, per se, and it really seems like an odd combination to keep a program alive. Hm.

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sinkah'z long-awaited opus (cough, cough) aside, what exactly is this rockcrit "crisis" everybody keeps blatting on about? That there's no new Bangs or Meltzer? Gimme a break! It's in no better or worse shape now than it ever has been

― M Matos, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Let's hope they at last teach how to quote lyrics extensively and describe a band's haircuts.

― Curt, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ok, call me stupid here, but I still don't understand the connection between knowing more music theory and writing better rock music criticism. I took a bunch of theory and composition classes in college, and I'm not sure that being able to read music and identify all the inverted chords and all helps me to write better about rock - in fact, I think it's constrained me more than it's helped. Music theory can teach you a lot, but it can't explain why rock music that's totally boring and cliched (I-IV-V, say) still makes you dance and believe in love again and all that shit.

Then again, I could be wrong.

― geeta, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think it's aimed at ROCK critics at all.

Skeptics might argue that music training isn't really necessary, that anyone writing for the general readership of a newspaper should stay away from specialized language and esoteric discussions. Yet if the writer doesn't understand the tools of the musician he's reviewing -- from chord structure to details of instrumentation -- how can he possibly hope to explain the music to anyone else?
And though it's true that a detailed understanding of music may not be necessary in some pop genres, there's no question that jazz, classical, Afro-Cuban and many other folkloric idioms are enormously sophisticated and require critics who can decode these sounds.

I'm reading the article as stating that it's for people who write reviews that are technically more demanding, for forms of music where knowledge of the theory is not just nice, but essential. In fact they as much as state that it's not about rock/pop music in the quote above.

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"some pop genres" = not excluding all rock, surely? How many column inches do jazz and classical and afro-cuban get in the mainstream press these days?

― geeta, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Surely this is just the equivalent of a Berklee or GIT grad thinking they can 'make it' when all they'll do now is be a session grunt. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dude, don't slag GIT! I'll cry! And then my mascara will run!

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

no, I know it's not a rockcrit thing at all. I just don't see the point of it beyond a handful of classical and maybe jazzcrits, most of the latter of whom don't get all that into pentatonical (for inst) detail anyway.

― M Matos, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The link doesn't work, and I'd really like to see this article.

― Kerry, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

holy shit, ned! you're equating Berklee with GIT?! i know some Berklee kids here in boston who would kick yr ass over that one

[carved on the wall in a practice room at berklee: 'BERKLONE']

― geeta, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The link doesn't work, and I'd really like to see this article.

Remove the space from "sto ry" and it should work fine.

― o. nate, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Providing courses that teach some of the finer points of music for listening and comprehending purposes is a great idea. Starting a program that, good intentions aside, will serve as a "degree in music criticism" is such a bad idea that I cannot find words adequate to express my displeasure.

― Lee G, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

will they sign their reviews and have a little trail of small letters after their name?

― keith, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Steven Wells, Dip. shit

― electric sound of jim, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What's your book about, Mark?

― Mark, Wednesday, 19 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

music and technology

― mark s, Wednesday, 19 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In the air for you and me?

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 19 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Here's the link. Rock criticism has become dog doo. I've never been able to get paid to write in the way I want to about what I want to, but 15 years ago I at least could bend the "record review" so as to do some pretty interesting things. The editor who would print me writing like that today would probably get fired. I'm barely hanging on by my fingernails, though that's something of my own fault, since I can't emotionally get myself to write straight up reviews for the likes of Spin and Rolling Stone. People like Mark S have basically fallen out of the business. Almost all of Rob Sheffield's and Jane Dark's best work was in fanzines. Rob's now been consigned to the News & Notes section at Stone (which he's made into a great thing, but he could be doing so much more). If Bangs and Meltzer and Laughner were coming up today they couldn't get printed anywhere, I don't think, unless they strangled their own styles. They couldn't get printed in the Voice. I could go on and on. As for "rigorous training in music and journalism": I'm not plumping for ignorance, and I wouldn't mind knowing more music theory than I do, but I don't even use what I do know, and "journalism" is one of the reasons that rock criticism has turned to dog doo. It's not a crisis, it's a disgrace. Even Marcus and Frith should have been better, if there'd been a better discourse, people pushing them to follow through on their ideas, regularly, in magazines where you could read them. Aaaarggghhh!

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 20 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is the main concern that good new writers aren't writing for the obvious folks like Spin et al and therefore not creating a joint consensus to thrive in or that they're not writing at all? I don't think you're arguing the latter, mind you, I'm just a touch surprised that your portrait leaves out web publications -- FT, etc.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You're right, Ned, in that I was being thoughtless and I'd left out fanzines and nonpay chatrooms, etc. In fact, some of my favorite music writing ever has come out in the last decade in such places. Obviously, Mark S still is in music criticism, maybe more now than ever. But nonetheless, the overall discourse is crippled, and this fact cripples FT/ILM, which aren't nearly what they could be (yet), though the format of FT/ILM is far better than that of the Village Voice, for instance, and is a Webzine/board that has great promise. But I'm just so frustrated now: I think that I'm wasting away intellectually, and that I'm being wasted, and I don't know what to do. Too late at night to elaborate, though.

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

b-but kogan, do you feel strangled when you write for the V-Voice?

― sv, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But I'm just so frustrated now: I think that I'm wasting away intellectually, and that I'm being wasted, and I don't know what to do.

Eh, just think of this as the Symposium with a Plato or Socrates to gum things up. You can eat and listen to music while discussing art = yay!

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Is the main concern that good new writers aren't writing for the obvious folks like Spin et al and therefore not creating a joint consensus to thrive in or that they're not writing at all?"

But it seems a shame that even with the existence of FT/ILM, music writing is necessarily relegated to a secondary pursuit; I'm sure FT's infrequent update pattern isn't caused by a lack of ideas on the part of Tom and other contributors. Paid music writing has one really big obvious benefit: you can do more of it, more of the time. And while ILX is a route around this problem - discourse can occur on a more regular basis - its ability to sustain the sort of "discourse" that's being alluded to here is hampered by its status as a contingency, a guilty pleasure.

― Tim, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I really like the idea of NME and Spin and Mixmag and Wire and all the music mags sacking all of their current staff and only taking on writers with proper degrees in music criticism, and CVs making a big deal of getting A's in Dismissive Miniature Singles Reviews and Sharing A Tour Bus With Nu-Metal Bands. I think we need to make up a whole syllabus, personally. I'll start a new thread...

― Martin Skidmore, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This is no big deal -- Johns Hopkins University and the Peabody Conservatory have been offering a Master's in Music Crit for years, and this program sounds like it's based on that one.

― Colin Meeder, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

b-but kogan, do you feel strangled when you write for the V-Voice?

Not strangled, but unnecessarily limited. (I need to answer this question more fully, I realize.)

― Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 2 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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