Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Host: The night was thick with neon reflections and the low hum of a city that never slept. The rain had just stopped, leaving puddles that mirrored the streetlights like small, trembling galaxies. Inside a dim, narrow bar tucked between two buildings, a faint jazz tune spilled from an old radio — a saxophone’s lonely cry weaving through the smoke.

Jack sat by the window, his coat damp, a glass of whiskey in hand. His grey eyes followed the drops that still clung to the glass, tracing fractured lines like musical staves. Jeeny entered quietly, a notebook tucked under her arm, her black hair still wet from the rain, her expression soft but lit with the quiet fire of thought.

Jeeny: “You know, Martin Mull once said, ‘Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.’ I’ve been thinking about that all day.”

Jack: “Yeah?” He smirked faintly. “Then you’ve been thinking about nonsense.”

Host: His voice was low, rough, a kind of lazy defiance that made his words sound heavier than intended. The bartender moved silently behind them, the clink of glasses punctuating their conversation like the beat of a drum.

Jeeny: “It’s not nonsense, Jack. It’s truth. Some things can’t be captured by words — they live beyond them. Music, for instance. You can describe it, analyze it, even score it, but you can’t translate it. Not really.”

Jack: “That’s poetic, but wrong. Everything can be translated — if you understand the system. Music has structure, rhythm, intervals, logic. Words have syntax, rhythm, metaphor. Both are systems of meaning. Saying you can’t write about music is just lazy romanticism.”

Jeeny: “Then why does writing about music so often kill it? Why do reviews feel cold, even when the song burns?”

Jack: “Because most writers are bad listeners, not because the act is impossible.”

Host: Jeeny laughed softly, shaking her head, a few strands of hair falling into her eyes. The jazz in the background swelled, the saxophone bending like a human voice mid-cry.

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It’s because music speaks to something words can’t touch. You can’t measure a tremble in a note, or the way it breaks your chest open. It’s the language of the inexpressible.”

Jack: “Funny. You’re expressing it just fine now.”

Jeeny: “I’m circling it. Like a moth around a flame. I can feel the heat, but I’ll never hold the fire.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s the point. Maybe all art is translation — imperfect, but necessary. Architecture freezes motion. Dance defies gravity. Writing captures sound. They’re all mirrors, warped but honest.”

Jeeny: “Mirrors distort, Jack. They don’t reveal truth — only reflection.”

Jack: “Reflection is truth from another angle.”

Host: A moment of silence hung between them, dense as smoke. Outside, a taxi splashed through a puddle, and the sound merged with the jazz, making it impossible to tell where the city ended and the music began.

Jeeny opened her notebook, her fingers resting on a page filled with scribbles — fragments of sentences, song titles, lines crossed out and rewritten.

Jeeny: “When I write about music, I feel like I’m chasing ghosts. I listen, I feel something immense, and then when I try to capture it, it dies in ink. It’s like catching rain with your hands — you end up with nothing but damp fingers.”

Jack: “You’re chasing permanence in something built on time. Music exists because it disappears. You can’t trap it — that’s not its nature. But writing doesn’t kill it; it keeps its echo alive.”

Jeeny: “Echoes aren’t the same as the sound itself.”

Jack: “No. But sometimes the echo lasts longer.”

Host: The bar’s lights dimmed slightly, and a new song began — a slow, mournful trumpet that rose and fell like breathing. Jeeny closed her eyes, letting the notes settle inside her, as if each one touched a memory.

Jeeny: “You know Miles Davis once said, ‘It’s not the notes you play, it’s the silence between them.’ Maybe that’s why writing fails — because it fills the silence. It tries to explain what should just be felt.”

Jack: “And yet Davis talked about his music, didn’t he? He named the silence. Maybe writing doesn’t replace music; maybe it’s another kind of silence — one you can read.”

Jeeny: “You twist everything into logic, don’t you? But logic doesn’t make the heart move.”

Jack: “No, but it helps you understand why it moves. Look — music and architecture are the same, really. Structure, proportion, rhythm. One’s made of air, the other of stone. Dancing about architecture makes sense — it’s movement responding to shape. Writing about music is the same — words moving to sound.”

Jeeny: “Then where’s the emotion, Jack? Where’s the ache of a cello or the wild freedom of a drum solo?”

Jack: “It’s in the reader, Jeeny. Not the words.”

Host: The rain started again, softly this time, tapping against the window like a metronome keeping time. Jeeny leaned forward, her eyes sharp, her voice trembling between anger and passion.

Jeeny: “You can’t measure the ache, Jack! You can’t diagram a song! Writing about music is like trying to draw wind. You can show motion, but not what moves.”

Jack: “Maybe not. But you can show what it moves in you. That’s the point. Writing isn’t translation — it’s reaction. You don’t describe the music; you show what it does to your pulse.”

Jeeny: “But that’s no longer the music. That’s autobiography.”

Jack: “And art is always autobiography. Every brushstroke, every note, every line of ink is someone saying, ‘This is how I felt when the world touched me.’”

Host: Her breathing slowed. The heat in her eyes softened into something quieter — understanding, perhaps, or sorrow. The song in the bar faded, replaced by the soft crackle of static.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what he meant — not that it’s pointless, but absurd. Like an impossible dance, doomed but beautiful. Dancing about architecture, writing about music — we do it anyway, because we can’t stand the silence.”

Jack: “Exactly. It’s absurd, but it’s human. We build bridges between worlds that were never meant to meet.”

Jeeny: “So art is the bridge?”

Jack: “No — the attempt to build it.”

Host: Outside, the rain stopped once more, and a faint steam rose from the pavement, like breath leaving the earth. The city lights blurred through the window, turning the world into a living watercolor.

Jeeny closed her notebook, her fingers resting on the cover.

Jeeny: “Then maybe we should stop trying to capture music, and start writing with it. Let the rhythm of it move our words. Like a duet — not imitation, but conversation.”

Jack: “Now that… I could believe in.”

Jeeny: “So writing about music isn’t dancing about architecture after all. It’s architecture learning to dance.”

Jack: Smiling faintly. “And maybe that’s what all art is — one language trying to become another.”

Host: The bartender turned off the radio, and for the first time, the silence was full — alive, humming, heavy with unseen rhythm. Jack and Jeeny sat quietly, listening not to the absence of sound, but to its echo in their own breathing.

Outside, a neon sign flickered, its light pulsing like a muted drumbeat. And somewhere in the distance, someone played a horn, a few notes rising into the night, wordless and true.

In that moment, the music, the words, the rain, and the silence all seemed to understand one another — each a different way of saying the same unspoken thing.