Overkill on Terminology

Jonathan Gold’s review of Mind Over Four (“Mind Over Four Bounces Off the Walls at Hollywood Live,” Calendar, April 21) was an education for me in terms of pop musicological terminology. First, I learned how to spell the rock guitar sound produced by a whammy bar: “NNNGAOOOWWww- wee -wee-wee!” (I’d never remember the italics on that first “wee” for a spelling bee.)

And second, well, there were so many terms in such clever juxtapositions: “crunching riff,” “swirling Siouxsie drone,” “keening wail” (that sent me to the dictionary) and last, but not least, “a pan-tonal Brecht-Weill beat.” I have to confess that it all just left me feeling uninformed and intimidated, especially toward the end of the review when Gold mentioned “the low-key Steven Tyler rock-god thing.” I’m ashamed to say that I simply don’t know who Steven Tyler is. . . .

Gold’s writing makes the work of that British critic who, in prehistoric times, was ridiculed for writing of “Aeolian cadences” in the Beatles’ “Things We Said Today” seem very feeble indeed.

CHARLES GRIMES

Van Nuys