Writing About Music | dawndaviesDawndaviesbooks.com

Writing & Thinking
About Music

When I write about music, I write about how music connects to memories, and about how music makes me feel. I don't talk about what works and what doesn't within a piece of music, because I'm not a critic. I'm a fan.

Music critics write to depict enthusiasm for a piece of music...either a passionate like or dislike.

It's an odd thing, using words to describe sound--something that is essentially wordless--but my focus is on using words to describe what music does within us. I'm concerned with describing how music moves the heart, stirs the mind, and anchors our memories, allowing long-buried feelings to surface within the echos of an old song.

I have sound synesthesia, which isn't that uncommon. I have read that between 5-15% of people have it. I believe it has helped me to enjoy music, because the visual input I receive from music, as well as from other sounds (a garbage can lid smashing on the ground, hydraulic brakes, a telephone ringing, the sound of a crowd, or of waves at the beach), adds a dimension that makes the experience a little deeper.

I think that my synesthesia created an early and deep love of music, and much of my childhood activities were structured around music, either listening to it, or making it. I got my first record player at age five. Started teaching myself to read music at seven, on a plastic, one-octave organ, then started school music lessons in fourth grade. I played clarinet, eventually developing enough competence to compete in solo and ensemble competitions with the Florida Bandmasters Association. Then I moved to alto sax and flugabone (yes! It's a real instrument, but seems to have fallen out of favor) in jazz and marching band, and electric bass in jazz band and beyond. I believe music has saved my life several times over, and certainly helped me to make it through my teen years.

I have written a series of poems about what I perceive when I listen to music. I wrote a time travel fantasy essay about the time I met Jaco Pastorius when I was a teenager. I also wrote an essay about dying written with a symbolic soundtrack of music I have loved. All are published and can be found on my Publications page.

My latest essay is an essay about discovering that my dad was not my biological father, but it's told through the prog-rock lens of the band Yes.

Here are a few resources if you are interested in writing about music yourself.

How-Tos:

https://writingproject.fas.harvard.edu/files/hwp/files/ai_24_guide_to_print.pdf

How to Write About Music: Excerpts from 33 1/3 by Marc Woodworth and Ally-Jane Grossan

Music/Lit Web Resources:

The Quietus

Doom & Gloom from the Tomb

Aquarium Drunkard

This Song Is Sick

Print Journals:

Sound American