10 rules for music journalists

After her third media workshop as part of the Leipzig Jazz Days, our lecturer Sophie Emilie Beha dares to formulate her own principles based on those of Sister Corita Kent (not John Cage!) and Max Frisch.

1. listen first.
Only write when the listening has stopped - but not too long afterwards. Music doesn't need witnesses, it needs ears.

2. don't confuse your opinion with the echo .
Enthusiasm is allowed, cynicism is comfortable, curiosity is mandatory.

3. talk to musicians, not about them.
Ask less about the why, more about the how. The what comes naturally - or never.

4. trust the language, but not too much.
Music is not proof, but an attempt. Your words can be that too.

5. write as if someone who loves you but knows nothing about music is reading along.
And someone who understands everything but doesn't love you.

6. do not quote to show that you have read.
Quote because you have heard what the sentence means.

7. take yourself seriously, but not more important than what you write about.
Criticism is not a stage, not a tribunal, but a resonance chamber. 

8. respect the work, even if you don't love it.
Arrogance is not an attitude, it is a reflex. Seek what is strange, not what confirms you.

9. don't confuse passion with judgment.
Write because something moves you - not because you want to be right.

10. research as if it were about politics.
Music is never just music. It tells us what we live for. Avoid rumor. Seek resonance.