Article Response: Expertise

I'm not persuaded by your downside of expertise, Tom. There's a line in a book (Vonnegut?) where one character asks how a critic knows they're talking sense (context: fine art) and the response is "Look at a million paintings and you'll never be wrong."

X starts telling me that A is the best emcee and can explain why citing the quality of his flow against that of lots of others. Y starts telling me B is the best, and then says "Wu-what?" I'm going to take more notice of what X says.

It's why I don't argue much with my pal Andrew L about jazz - he's heard loads more than me and can recognise Ayler in a moment. But I'll argue with him about comics, say, because I think I have plenty of expertise.

It's not just consuming, obv, it's thinking and understanding, and we can develop expertise easily in some areas than others. Anyway, none of this is about agreeing with some established consensus - but I'll be more convinced if you at least sound as if you know of that canon and at least understand what the reputation is about.

Skidmore theory = Robert Frost theory:

"A poem is best read in the light of all the other poems ever written. We read A the better to read B (we have to start somewhere; we may get very little out of A). We read B the better to read C, C the better to read D, D the better to go back and get something more out of A. Progress is not the aim, but circulation. The thing is to get among the poems where they hold each other apart in their places as the stars do."

"I'll be more convinced if you at least sound as if you know of that canon and at least understand what the reputation is about." = you can parrot bad journalist cliches

Reputation is just accepted conventional wisdom, which is not something that I think critics need to be aware of to do their job. It's fine for a reviewer to engage with the c.w., but it would also be fine to ignore it entirely and write a review as though hearing a new work that didn't have an established reputation. In fact, having that sort of fresh ear is more advantageous than being cognizant of the reputation, because it helps to avoid cliches. That said, having a fresh ear also means having a sensitive and perceptive ear - and that kind of sensitivity seems to be most often acquired from experience. So it's kind of a paradox: you want to hear something as though hearing it for the first time while simultaneously being an expert on it.

Music itself is not created by totally independent, isolated artists (or small groups). Genre conventions are not (normally) invented by individuals but emerge from social activity. Why is it so important for evaluation to come from this extreme individualist stance some of you seem to be recommending? Why not become familiar with a tradition and then make your evaluations of what occurs within it (and of the tradition, overall)? Why can't values be communal?

I can't unhypocritically argue for simply embracing inherited values, but at the same time I don't think of my thinking as occuring in some sort of void. To take a nonmusical example: if I'm going to think about philosophy, I don't see why I shouldn't take advantage of hundreds of years of writings by people who have put a considerable amount of time into these questions. That doesn't mean I have to accept any of it, but if someone is less willing to listen to my metatethical doubts because I haven't read enough Kant, I'm actually sympathetic with that.

Yes, the innocent eye/ear, etc. will sometimes notice things that the more experienced one will miss, but I am optimistic (and that's about it) that overall experience is advantageous.

*LONG BORING POST ALERT*

the first time i read this piece i thought it was eloquent and deft. after reading these responses and rereading the article, i still think it is eloquent and deft, but a serious problem has arisen for me.

'"Ja Rule is a greater MC than Rakim"; "Senegal will beat France". Two statements that might be met with expert mockery - one can never be tested, one was. '

But not a fair comparison. "Ja Rule is a greater MC than Rakim" = "Senegal is a better team than France". The latter is maybe not as subjective, since the worth of a team is usually measured by the number of championships won and lost, but it certainly opens up the question. Senegal is better today? Historically? In terms of 'finesse players'? There are sports fans who have endless debates about how certain victories don't mean anything because of bad ref calls, about how certain teams don't deserve to win the games they win because they play ugly (hello Shaq), etc. So if you accept my rephrasing of the statement, you see that they are both equally subjective and can be argued over at length, without any hope of resolution. does this make music criticism and sports commentary equally worthless? i'll get to that.

'to understand why Rakim is the best, to become an expert and then to be recognised as such, your opinions and judgements have to fall mostly within the boundaries drawn by the existing experts. '

but to understand why Rakim is the best, you've already accepted that Rakim is the best. to be an expert about rap, one does not have to think that Rakim is the best MC. you could think that biz markie is the best MC, and if you knew all of Rakim's records back to front and could explain why you dislike them, you'd still be an expert.

the fundamental problem with the idea that 'expertise is listening with other people's ears' is that your argument assumes that in trying to understand where the critic who loves Rakim is coming from, that you abandon some or all critical faculties of your own. if Critic A describes an Aphex Twin song as sounding like 'being trapped in the landing gear of a 747', and after reading this description i hear what he's talking about, that won't suddenly make me like a song i once hated. as a listener and as a critic, the final judgement lies with you, and you choose whether to accept or reject the readings (or hearings) of others.

personally, i think using the 'ears of others' to discover new ways of hearing records is the only reason to bother with pop criticism at all - there's no point in these 'my favorite band is better than yours' discussions if the people involved are just pointlessly snapping at each other. but i know that there's value in listening to other peoples' readings because thanks to ILM, i now genuinely enjoy 'Loveless' where i used to think it was awful. is that my acquiescence to the pressure of all the MBV lovers on this board? not at all - a discussion of 'Loveless' in an old thread referred to the sound as being a 'Beach Boys cassette' that had been lying in the sun, and when i read that and listened to Loveless again, something in me clicked. does liking 'Loveless' take me any closer to appreciating the ILM canon? not at all, because i still hate Britney and try as i might to see what you-all are on about, i can't. to sum up: a great music critic has both the ability to both appreciate a fresh perspective on a record and the self-confidence to reject that persepective if they still don't agree with it. if you have both of those, expertise is neither something to be coveted nor to be shunned: it is simply irrelevant.

oh christ i need to start editing these things before i post them

Dave- haven't read tom's article (but will tomorrow) but that's a nice post. No need to edit them.

Expertise doesn't exist.

I would rather be the kid seeing the great goal for the first time, than the father who has waited to see the great goal.

before looking at any of the repsonses, I'm a huge fan of this piece. I honestly do question needing expertise to write good musical criticism. comparing musical expierence to the goom of football made the point very clear as well. Very well written!! One of my favorite FT articles to date.

We're coming up on the two-purposes-of-reviewing problem again, though. It could very easily be argued that the very point of a critic is to "listen with other people's ears" -- that way he or she can tell me what my ears are likely to get out of listening to the music in question.

I mean, I think both models of reviewing are perfectly valid: it's the difference between (to bend both of these words) criticism and journalism. The "critic" in this sense has his uniquely- developed reactions and responses; the "journalist" in this sense gives you a dispassionate guide to where precisely in the whole constellation of records this particular record could be said to fall. Travelogue versus road map: both help.

Tom - the piece was a fantastic read.

Disagreed with this bit though: "the critic - meaning, anyone who takes part in a public conversation about something" thats the exact opposite of my definition. Its something I keep banging on about and so I know my view of this is very much a minority, but I do not think critisism is (or can be) a dialogue of peers, the critic claims inherently 'I am more of an expert than you the reader'. In my definition the critic always produces a public monologue. Conversely a dialogue of peers cannot be critisism.

By my definition not all writing about music is 'critic' style writing.

There does seem a contradiction in my definition, because I must consider that critics are always (self-proclaimed) experts. But what of a critical piece that starts "I don't know much about Rap, being more of a prog rock fan, but I do know this is rubbish".

Erm, I'm not actually sure of the answer to my own question... even worse, the same words uttered by the same person can in some contexts be critisism and in others this 'something else' I mention.

OK OK I am contradicting myself again - but I do think the comment you made about 'conversations' is a very specific mindset.