Silly Little Country

Forms of Criticism

Many years ago I had the privilege to attend a 'music criticism' session run by Hans Keller, and got exposed to his 'FA' approach. The session turned out to be a wonderful elucidation of Haydn's Lark Quartet. The process was a complete surprise to me - basically he re-wrote the quartet to emphasize key underlying themes and their connections more explicitly; this was like no criticism I had experienced. A book critic would have to re-write 'Pride and Prejudice' to match this bravura performance.

So what can one do to elucidate 'American Pie', surely one of the wildest and most undisciplined successful works of art of my time on Earth? Larry Moran has done me the great kindness of finding a lovely approach this, not by rewriting the song, but by attaching it to images explicating much of it.

Go over to Larry's post and watch the video there! For someone of my age, this is a great walk through some special times (not necessarily good times).

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:59 AM