does anyone write about classical music without using musical theory?

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is there anyone who writes about classical music from,for want of a better expression,a "naive" point of view?
as in,rather than analysing it using technical knowledge of music (which i don't have) or whatever,just writing about it the way you would any other instrumental music (except for jazz,which has a similar standard way of writing about it)
i don't quite know what i'm asking here,or if this is possible at all...
i suppose i want to know if anyone writes about classical music without having any knowledge of musical theory,or at least without using it?
if not,why not?
would it be possible?

― robin (robin), Monday, 20 January 2003 11:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Depends whether you're talking about reviews (of concerts, recordings) or about articles and books.

The former don't tend to concentrate on 'theory', although you do get a distinction between reviews of the repertoire (where the reviewer will often apply existing knowledge of the music to talk about the way it's being "interpreted" by the performer(s)) and 'new' music, reviews of which tend to concentrate on whether the composition 'works' in the reviewer's opinion.

I suppose writing with a more academic aim does rely on theory a lot, but I'm sure there are examples of the more "naïve" (to use your word) style out there.

― Jeff W, Monday, 20 January 2003 11:26 (twenty-three years ago)

well yeah another thing i wanted to avoid was writing about specific interpretations of pieces,since these presume you are familiar with the existing interpretations....

― robin (robin), Monday, 20 January 2003 11:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I would like to learn some theory so i can 'appreciate' the classical recs i enjoy but i don't know how to go abt this.

the wire is a mag that writes abt classical in a non academic way, i think.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 20 January 2003 12:06 (twenty-three years ago)

It also depends on whether you are writing primarily about the composition or the performance.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 20 January 2003 12:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I would personally love to see a website / publication where good writers on pop but with little or no knowledge of classical / contemporary composed music reviewed only the latter (and I mean the composition, not the preformance here).

― Jeff W, Monday, 20 January 2003 12:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Jeff that's an intriguing idea.
I'd like to see the opposite of it too.....though for some reason (perhaps prejudice?) I'd expect mainly derisory dismissals.
Business as usual then haha

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Monday, 20 January 2003 12:40 (twenty-three years ago)

well jeff's idea is vaguely what i was getting at...

― robin (robin), Monday, 20 January 2003 12:47 (twenty-three years ago)

haha when I get my own computer perhaps I'll start one. Any offers to write for it?

― Jeff W, Monday, 20 January 2003 12:54 (twenty-three years ago)

you can explain that music using charts and metaphors and analogies as to what's going on, replacing the technical terms with a language built up and shared with the explainee

writing about it's hard -- saying listen to this and listen for this is much easier in non-technical terms -- once you do begin to get it though the vocabulary spins off out of control, as just like with pop music, you create a musical appetite for more, and more and more technical terms which are often really merely means of sub-classification of the genre becomes commonplace -- but the music remains abstract -- you're not listening to it so you can talk in high art or technical terms to anyone about -- rather you wish people would shut up so you could listen to it uninterrupted

i think it still ends with enjoying the music, not talking about it

― george gosset (gegoss), Monday, 20 January 2003 13:06 (twenty-three years ago)

haha when I get my own computer perhaps I'll start one. Any offers to write for it?

I'd be interesting in writing about Mendellsohn's Violin Concerto in E-minor. I know a bit about theory but not much and I don't think it's relevant.
I'd like to explore the idea that I like it so much because:

a) I have no film/occasion/event associated with it in my head, it's just pure music

AND

b) A lot of heavy metal is effectively in E-minor too. Perhaps this point is too much to do with theory though.

― mei (mei), Monday, 20 January 2003 13:25 (twenty-three years ago)

don't let jess see this thread....

after all his majesty has declaired "classical music- why bother ?"

― woland, Tuesday, 21 January 2003 20:45 (twenty-three years ago)

b) A lot of heavy metal is effectively in E-minor too. Perhaps this point is too much to do with theory though.

Actually, it mostly has to do with how the guitar is tuned.

― Curtis Stephens, Wednesday, 22 January 2003 00:39 (twenty-three years ago)

But Jeff, they'd have to fire their writers and rehire new, freshly 'naive' writers on a regular basis.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 05:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Staying ignorant is really easy sundar, and I ought to know (boom-TISH!)

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 11:49 (twenty-three years ago)

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