Jonathan Bellman

NOTE: I am a Music Librarian and I hold an Master of Arts in Musicology.

Somehow I got through my entire Master's program without cracking the spine on this book. Now that I've read it in full, I do not regret that I didn't read it earlier. For the typical undergraduate in any collegiate Music course, much of this manual is so esoteric that its advice is rendered useless. Graduate students and academic faculty might find the guide less abstruse, but the sequencing of chapters remains puzzling. My biggest problem with this book is the ways in which topics are introduced, discussed, and then abandoned. Starting the book with a brief discussion of how to overcome some of the unique challenges of writing about music would have postured the later chapters for making a stronger persuasive impact. In regard to style, Bellman is sometimes guilty of some of the sins he flags as hallmarks of poor academic prose. Moreover, his advice about the use of gendered pronouns is now outdated. Bellman's recommendations for grammar, punctuation, and citations, though effective, are redundant given that they are duplicated in standard style manuals.

So what is left to commend this book? As far as I know, Bellman's manual remains one of the few, if not the only, work of its kind. It can serve as a starting point for understanding different kinds of written prose about music. There are some nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout the book that could serve as just-in-time strategies for getting through a pending project. I will likely refer to this book in my line of work and when mentoring students, and may even purchase a copy for my library's reference section, but it will not serve as my final authority on music criticism.… (meer)