Quote: writing (talking) about music is like dancing about architecture (1983) (singing about football 1982) (singing about economics 1918)

[Victor Steinbok]

I am a relative novice with short-URL use and because of the quantity of
conversions I might have miscopied some of them. I will check the quotes
later today and will correct the links. For the moment, unfortunately, I
am preoccupied with a potential virus despite three layers of protection
on my computer. Anti-virus and Windows updates are not working, which is
often a sign of an infection. Once I clean it up, I'll post a full reply.

     VS-)

On 1/24/2010 11:46 AM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
> Fred Shapiro wrote
>
>> Thanks, Garson, for this wonderfully thorough and surprising
>> posting!  At a time when it has become clear that there is some
>> real wackiness being posted on this list, it is gratifying to see a
>> new participant contributing material of such quality.
>>
> Thanks to Fred Shapiro for his very kind remark. Reading the
> remarkable landmark reference work, the Yale Book of Quotations,
> provided a key impetus for my interest in tracing quotations.
> Appreciation also for sharing your knowledge at the New York Times
> Freakonomics blog.
>
> Victor Steinbok wrote
>
>> I missed Garson's original post, but was intrigued by the idea from the
>> original quotes. One thought that crossed my mind was that the
>> music/architecture quote might have originated with a French
>> postmodernist rather than with an English-speaking musician or writer
>> (at least the architecture version--not the football and economics ones).
>>
>> I clearly had too much time on my hands today, so I spent some of it
>> expanding the search. I tried to avoid overlap with Garson's findings
>> and with those of Alan Scott (with some minor exceptions).
>>
> Thanks to Victor Steinbok for finding a marvelous collection of
> citations. I particularly like the variants "writing about music is
> like fishing about architecture" and "writing about art is like
> knitting about music". Gratitude for the time, effort, and skill that
> went into your compilation.
>
> Is it possible that some of the links to citations are misdirected?
> The link in the following text about Thelonius Monk seems to point to
> a Frank Zappa attribution.
>
>
>> Attribution to Thelonius Monk can be traced (with some direct citations)
>> to Krin Gabbard's Introduction to 1995 Representing Jazz
>> (http://bit.ly/7vtyc9), but even Gabbard is cautious about this
>> attribution--unlike those who followed who were far less cautious.
>>
> The following link goes to a Martin Mull attribution and not a Robert
> Palmer attribution I think.
>
>
>> http://bit.ly/5z29Ij
>> The Book of Bob: Choice Words, Memorable Men; By Tom Crisp (2007, p. 38)
>>
>>> Trying to describe something musical is like dancing to architecture.
>>> --Robert Palmer, 1949-2003
>>>
> During my initial investigation I also found some quotes about the
> difficulty of verbal communication in the domain of music that did not
> follow the mutational template: "like X-ing about Y". One set uses a
> simile involving the dissection of a flower.
>
> Citation: 1876 April, Macmillan's Magazine, Volume 33, Madcap Violet
> by William Black, Page 501, Macmillan and Co.
>
> But talking about songs is like scraping a rose-leaf to see where the color is.
> http://books.google.com/books?id=349HAAAAYAAJ&q=rose-leaf#v=snippet&q=rose-leaf&f=false
>
> Citation: 1903, Zeitschrift der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft,
> Heft 5 (Issue 5), Vierter Jahrgang (Year 4), Page 298, Breitkopf&
> Härtel.
>
> To analyse music is like dissecting a flower; nevertheless by national
> music we divine national character.
> http://books.google.com/books?id=X1w5AAAAIAAJ&q=dissecting#v=snippet&q=dissecting&f=false
>
> Citation: 1972, And God Gave the Increase, Page 176, First Baptist
> Church. (Google Books snippet view)
>
> To write about music is like dissecting a rose to discover the secret
> of its beauty and fragrance.
> http://books.google.com/books?id=mkzkAAAAMAAJ&q=dissecting#search_anchor
>
> Garson
>
>

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