“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” It’s not clear who first said this, but it reflects the difficulty of discussing music in words. It doesn’t mean either one is impossible — I can imagine a good ballet on the creation of a monumental building — but both are challenges.
The problem comes when addressing a general audience. If you’re writing for musicians or music students, there’s a whole technical language for the job. But how do you say meaningful things about a musical piece without talking about voice leading, diminished chords, tonality, and other esoteric concepts?
I like to make music and write about it, though I haven’t often been paid for either. I enjoy good writing about music and have a lot of books on the subject. Based on that, here are some of my thoughts on how to write about it, with examples that I didn’t write.
What music says
One approach is to write about a piece’s emotional content. People listen to music for the feelings it expresses. A piece may be joyful or sad, aggressive or fearful, lively or stately. The danger is that writing this way can fall into platitudes. Lots of songs share similar emotions, and saying that a song is happy doesn’t distinguish it from ten thousand other happy songs.
It’s necessary to be specific. George Grove describes the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony this way:
This phrase, as it now stands, with its sudden start, and the roar of its long holding notes, strikes like thunder. … Beethoven said of it, “So pocht das Schicksal an die Pforte” — “such is the blow of fate on the door” — but indeed no expression is too strong for the effect of this sudden attack.”
I’ve picked those sentences out of a very technical discussion of the Fifth. If I had read them without ever having heard the symphony, it would give me some idea of what to expect.
In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand describes the opening of Richard Halley’s Fifth Concerto, an imaginary work by a character in the novel, in a way that lets the reader imagine it vividly:
She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance.
In this paragraph she described the shape of a musical phrase, its progression, and the interplay of emotions which it conveyed, in words which convey the same emotions.
These examples portray notes in the abstract, without mention of either words or instrumentation. (In the example from Rand, the notes are just being whistled.) Much of the impact of music comes from the choice of instruments. Let’s look at an example from Psalm 81, keeping in mind that the Psalms were originally written to be sung:
Sing for joy to God our strength,
Shout in triumph to the God of Jacob.
Strike up the music, beat the tambourine,
Play the melodious harp and the lyre;
Blow the trumpet for the new month,
For the full moon, for our feast day!
The passage gives a vivid picture of a musical celebration, probably in the Temple of Jerusalem. Tambourines or something very like them really existed that long ago.
The lyrics
When you write about sung music, you can use its words to convey its impact. Be careful, though; quoting even a short passage from a popular song could draw the unwanted attention of copyright lawyers. Keep your quotations down to a line or so, and give credit to the publisher or copyright holder. (This is not legal advice.)
Fortunately, there are other options. Old, out-of-copyright songs are safe ground. This includes many folk songs, but be careful that what you’re quoting really is in the public domain. Classical music offers additional opportunities. Gilbert and Sullivan is safe; if you want something older and more serious, Handel wrote many works with English texts, and Shakespeare has been set to music.
If you think you can pull it off, writing your own lyrics is an option. Writing song texts, though, is a different skill from writing prose. I’m actually more comfortable tossing off song verses than writing narratives, but I’m in the minority. Do it only if you can do it well.
The performance
If you’re incorporating music into fiction, you’re probably writing about the performance. This gives you more opportunities for description: the performer’s appearance, the venue, the audience, and the impact of the sound. Here’s an example from Kay Nolte Smith’s Elegy for a Soprano:
Whatever resistance there might be was conquered by her voice. Despite its darker color it still had a unique combination of purity and sensuousness, and could still move with seamless agility over nearly three octaves or spin out in long, flowing lines that enchained the listeners and permitted them no motion except a quiet inner shattering.
Get your details right. “Nearly three octaves” is a plausible range for a professional singer. Four octaves is a cliché; some singers can stretch to that limit, but not for practical performance purposes. Research capabilities and performance practices the way you would anything else. Don’t have your musicians do the impossible unless it’s intentional.
The effect on the listener
Finally, describing how the music affects a particular listener is a valuable technique, especially if the listener is the focus character. The opening lines of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night are a well-known example:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o´er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
´Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
This passage tells us little about the music. It reveals, instead, how the music affects Duke Orsino’s emotions and how his reaction changes as it goes on.
Enough, no more? I hope you’ve found these examples as interesting as I find them, and that they’ll give you ideas on how to present music in your writing.