Art & Creativity Quote by Kin Hubbard

Hubbard’s line lands like a polite jab at middlebrow impatience: the listener sits through a symphony the way some people sit through a long anecdote, waiting for the “point” to arrive in the familiar shape of a catchy refrain. “The kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune” isn’t really a complaint about classical music’s quality; it’s a portrait of the habits we drag into the concert hall. We’re trained by popular song forms to expect a hook, a tidy loop, a melody you can whistle on the way home. Classical music, especially in its longer, more developmental forms, often makes meaning by refusing that quick payoff.

The intent is comic, but the subtext is sharper: this is about cultural confidence. The joke flatters the reader who’s felt vaguely inadequate in front of a sonata, and it quietly punctures the aura of prestige around “serious” music. Hubbard, a newspaper humorist in an era when mass entertainment and Tin Pan Alley were reshaping American taste, is capturing a transitional moment: older European high culture still carries status, but the public’s ear is being rewired for immediacy.

The wording “keep thinking” does the real work. It suggests a recurring misread, an almost stubborn hope that the music will eventually behave. That’s why the line holds up now, in a playlist economy: the expectation that art should declare itself fast, resolve cleanly, and reward attention with instant melody. Hubbard isn’t just teasing classical music; he’s teasing the listener’s bargain with time.