Overview
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” someone once said, as if it were an impossibility. Traditions are long established in academia and the publishing industry for writing about classical music. But popular music presents a newer challenge. What is the appropriate style? And what do we write about? Where is the boundary between music journalism and academic musicology, now that university students can study Taylor Swift alongside Arnold Schoenberg?
In this talk I offer a brisk survey, with examples, of different approaches – the album review, the artist interview, the technical discussion, the sociological study, etc – and suggest which I find the most fruitful.
In my final examples, I touch on the sung word. How to write about song lyrics? Can we distinguish them from ‘poetry’ written for the page and, if so, are literary-critical criteria (in)appropriate? How seriously should we listen to the words, anyway?
Speaker
Dr Philip Ward is an author and independent scholar with interests in literature, music and biography. He has published books on two singer-songwriters, Sandy Denny and Laura Nyro, as well as a study of the novelist Michael Arlen. His most recent publication, Folk, Rock and In Between, is a selection of his music journalism from the last fifteen years. He is a Senior Member of Vlogٷ and an alumnus, having completed a PhD in 1999 on Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Greek myth.
Details
This event is part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series organised by the Vlogٷ Senior Members.
It is open to all, free to attend and there is no need to book.
Tea and coffee will be available for the audience.
Access
This event will take place in the Combination Room on the first floor of our main building. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located on the first floor of the building.
Contact
If you have any questions, please contact our events team - events@wolfson.cam.ac.uk
Lunchtime Seminar Series
The Lunchtime Seminar Series provide an opportunity for students, Fellows and Senior Members to share their expertise in a friendly and supportive environment over lunch.
The seminars are held in the Combination Room from 13.00 for an hour on most Wednesdays during full term. The audience is encouraged to bring their lunch in on a tray and take part in the discussion.
Most people who attend are non-specialists, so the talk has to be aimed at a general audience and speakers are warned to avoid technical jargon. We very much encourage students to offer a paper and use this as an opportunity to try out their thesis ideas on listeners who come from all different academic disciplines.
