The Power Of Words

Among the many sober reflections following the suicide of tenor Jerry Hadley earlier this week, Lee Rosenbaum, in a post (shockingly) called Did Reviews Kill Jerry Hadley on her blog CultureGrrl, suggests that journalists/critics might want to reconsider the spirit in which they offer their reviews.

Good point. As a sometime-critic myself, I know that there is a lot of potential power in them there words. The power to steer someone towards or away from someone's music, from someone's creative soul.

Same time, honesty is a must if the role of a critic is to have any validity at all. But I like that Rosenbaum emphasizes that it is the spirit in which the criticism is offered that matters. This is a delicate notion, but I know what she means. It's easy to be cruel, much harder to critique thoughtfully -- and perhaps even in such a way that someone might actually benefit from hearing the criticism.