Music Critic

Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, “An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in music, and can detect good from bad.”

When you’re a Music Critic, that describes your job perfectly. To “detect good from bad,” you don’t have to play music; you just have to love it and listen to it.

Employed by newspapers, magazines and websites, you’re hired as a Music Critic not only to listen, of course, but also to critique, often as a specialist in a genre, such as rock, classical or jazz.

In addition to taste, therefore, you must have knowledge when you’re a Music Critic. That doesn’t mean you have to sing or play the violin; it does, however, mean that you need to know what a good Vocalist sounds like, and what factors — tempo, acoustics and arrangement, for instance — impact an orchestral performance. In other words: Along with what you like, you must know why you like it, which requires studying music history, technique and style so your opinions hold water, both with Musicians and with audiences.

While informing and forming them is important, your primary job is communicating your opinions, typically in the form of written reviews that you compose after listening to a recording or watching a live performance.

Because your best reviews both describe and analyze the auditory experience you’ve just had, think of yourself like an aural Tour Guide: Music is a foreign language; it’s your job to translate it.