"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture". As far as quotes go, it's a cracker. Incidentally, no one seems to know who coined it, with many theories as to who originally came up with it. But it succinctly sums up an issue that media students have when discussing music production. You are possibly going to have to discuss the production of the music of the artists you are writing about. It's a lot easier than you think. You just need to know a few new key terms.
Terminology
There are certain words that we can use to discuss the way in which music sounds. As Media students, we don't want to go in to too much detail with technical terms, but mentioning a few in your exam can really push you towards a sophisticated response.
Here are some words that we can use to describe the way music sounds:
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| There are many terms we can use for describing music, and this is not a definitive list. Check out music reviews in magazines such as NME, Q, Mojo, Kerrang! and The Wire for more information and examples of how to discuss music |
Examples
Below are some examples of tracks from a wide variety of genres, and some very brief notes on how the production can be described. You might want to review these for commenting on your own chosen artist
Heavily processed, lots of reverb, analogue, classic, a little fuzzy, moderate tempo
Orange Caramel
Catalena
Dense, LOTS of instruments, clean, perfect, synthetic, digital, equal voices and music in the mix
Darkthrone
Transylvanian Hunger
Analogue, lo-fi, instruments high in the mix, distorted and dirty, dense production, ‘warm’ production
Nirvana
Scentless Apprentice
Rough, lo-fi production. Recorded in few takes; mistakes left in. Noisy.
Digital, retro, clean, dense instrumentation, heavily processed, videogamey
Sigur Rós
Glósóli
Dense production, lots of lush sounds, warm production, soft, slow, heavily processed, reverb, delay, clean
Making brief reference to music production can be especially helpful in questions on digital technologies, global appeal, targeting audiences, marketing and promotion, audience response and similar.
What questions can you refer to music production in?
Making brief reference to music production can be especially helpful in questions on digital technologies, global appeal, targeting audiences, marketing and promotion, audience response and similar.