Dancing about Architecture is a Reasonable Thing to Do

“This book is very engaging! Joel Heng Hartse gives a heartfelt apologia for writing about music. He suggests that the writer is not merely a commentator but an artist himself crafting and responding to the art with something new and creative. . . . An inspiring book. I strongly recommend it for music fans and musicologists alike.”


—Christopher Foley, Bass Player, Luxury





“I enjoy Joel’s thoughtful perspective and casual profundities, of which there are plenty. But to me, what makes Joel a great music writer is the fact that he spent an entire semester abroad hunting down a single used CD from an obscure indie band. It’s what any reasonable person would do.”


—Drew Dernavich, Cartoonist, The New Yorker





“This book is about the love of music. At times, it is a love poem to music. . . . At other times, it is an exploration of our humanity, why and how we seek meaning through music. Above all, at a time when we are overwhelmed with musical content and noise, Heng Hartse’s book grounds the reader with a tangible sense of the richness and wonder that is music.”


—Alan Noble, Oklahoma Baptist University





“In this wide-ranging book, the relation between criticism and composition . . . is set aside for something emergent and difficult. Something verging on ineffable. The lack of aesthetical pretension, the presence of real examples and first-person experience—all of this and more make reading this book, as a scholar and musician, exciting and, dare I say, joyful. The meaning of the word finds itself ‘worlded’ within its own being, told to us in witty, warm prose.”


—Sam Rocha, University of British Columbia