An Encyclopedia of Quotations About Music

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Music is ... Music Does ... Music Means ...

   1. Music is ... Music Does ... Music Means ...

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 1-30

3. Creators and Components

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 31-31

      PDF

   2. Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 33-40

   3. Composers and Composition

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 41-66

   4. The Avant-Garde

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 67-72

4. Exponents

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73

      PDF

   2. Conductors and Conducting

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 75-80

   3. Instruments and Instrumentalists

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 81-94

   4. Pianos and Pianists

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 95-101

   5. Violins and/or Fiddles

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 102-106

   6. Woodwinds

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 107-109

   7. Guitars

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 110-111

   8. Concerts

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 112-113

   9. The Music Trade

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 114-119

5. Proponents and Opponents

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 121-121

      PDF

   2. Critics and Criticism

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 123-127

   3. Musical Misanthropy

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 128-141

6. Lift Every Voice

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 143-143

      PDF

   2. Words and/with/for/to Music

      • Nat Shapiro

      Pages 145-153

Writing about music-about what it is and what it means-is akin to describing the act of love. Somehow, the reduction of the experience to an unblushingly detailed exposition of how, where, when, and why who does what to whom, from prelude to resolu­ tion, loses everything in the translation. The other extreme, the one wherein the writer, in desperation, resorts to metaphor (with or without benefit of meter and rhyme), most often results in im­ agery that is banal, vulgar, inane, obscure, pretentious, and almost always insufferably romantic. To achieve good and accurate writing about music is as rare an accomplishment as expert wine-tasting, lion-taming, diamond-cut­ ting, truffie-finding and (if one just happens to be an unconverted Mohican brave) deer-tracking. Only the intuitive, the pure, the sensual, and the intrepid need apply. Professional musicians often evidence a fixed tendency either to rudely ignore or else to actively despise those of us who bravely try to understand, define, and describe their art. To many composers and instrumentalists, those outsiders (nonmusicians) who have the temerity to discuss anything more abstract than the digital dexterity of a fiddler, the particular vanity of a conductor, or the wage scales for overtime recording sessions are judged worthy only of contempt or-at the most-patronizing tolerance. "Music means itself," insists one of the contributors to the collection that follows, and many practitioners of the art of organ­ ized sound would prefer to leave it at that.

• Cora Diamond
• art
• conductor
• encyclopedia
• experience
• love
• music
• organ
• recording
• reduction
• sound
• tolerance
• translation
• writing

Policies and ethics