You’ve likely noticed that the SoundStage! Network websites adhere to a semi-monthly publishing schedule. SoundStage! Hi‑Fi, Ultra, Access, Simplifi, Xperience, and Solo are all refreshed on the first of the month and again on the 15th. Behind the scenes, there’s a flurry of activity that begins about five days before each update. Founder and publisher Doug Schneider kicks it off by sending links to each of the upcoming reviews and editorials to the authors, copy editors, senior editors, and our proofreading crew.
At this point, there’s already been substantial work done. All articles are first submitted to managing editor Gordon Brockhouse, who makes the first pass at copy editing. Once he’s satisfied, he passes the baton to one of our dedicated copy editors. For my stuff, it’s often Graham Browning, as we’ve proven that we can work well together, despite Graham removing a few more expletives and colorful metaphors than I’d like.
The edited text then goes to Doug, who formats it as HTML and adds the images. As I write this piece, that’s where we are now, at the five-days-before-publication point, which is where it gets interesting. I thought I was toilet-trained too early, but Doug takes consistency and detail to another level. When he emails the proofing links, he often includes at least one pointed query about an arcane detail that nobody has yet noticed. About half the time, Doug’s questions are about grammatical issues that have been missed or ignored. Some might consider such details to be overkill, but we fix them anyway. Of the other 50%, half of those are actual mistakes in content or presentation that really do need correction. The remaining items tend to spawn side quests in which we discuss the etymology and appropriate application of idioms and metaphors. And then there’s S. Andrea Sundaram, our proofreading supergenius. Andrea writes product reviews for SoundStage! Hi‑Fi, but he’s the last word in our proofing and editing chain. Andrea finds errors that have slipped through three previous editing stages—grammatical slips and, just as important, technical ambiguities. He’s vital to our publications.
A recent grammatical rabbit hole involved a navel-gazing discussion of the idiom fit the bill, which appeared in Dennis Burger’s article about building an audiophile PC over on SoundStage! Access. Should it have been fill the bill? If not, why not? Both phrases are in popular usage, but which one should we use? It took about six or so exchanges before we settled on fit the bill. This process was an intense irritation for Gordon, as he just wanted to get the damn article ready for publication.
That was just this past month. Close on the heels of the fit the bill debacle was what kicked off during the proofing process for Phil Gold’s review of the Clarus Concerto MKII power conditioner. Now, Phil often uses classical music to ascertain a component’s sonic attributes. And the formatting of classical music albums and specific tracks is a copy-editing minefield, which often drives Doug mad. “Ban classical!” was the title of Doug’s proofing email for this article. While he didn’t actually mean that, he was expressing his frustration at the lack of consistency in the naming of classical works on recordings, in reference guides, and in publications that write about music and audio. This subject has driven previous SoundStage! copy editors to arguments of such ferocity that, had they been in the same room, might have come to blows.
My frequent-listen stack
Turns out that Phil and Gordon definitely don’t want to ban classical, as they both find this genre extremely valuable in the review process. So, Gordon decided to build a list of rules and guidelines for citations of classical works to add to our internal style guide. The list is too long to reproduce fully here, and, from this barbarian’s standpoint, so fussy that I find it hard to focus on the details. I’ll grab a few bullet points from the middle of the list:
- Named classical compositions in a foreign language are italicized, but caps usage follows the composer’s language: e.g., Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune by Claude Debussy.
- Numbered classical compositions in a specific genre are in roman type, but with caps; e.g., Symphony No. 2 by Jean Sibelius, Piano Concerto No. 1 by Johannes Brahms. Similarly, genre-related compositions that don’t have numbers are in roman type; e.g., Mass in B Minor by J.S. Bach.
- Nicknames of numbered classical compositions are in quotes, and separated by commas; e.g., Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter,” or Piano Sonata No. 14, “Moonlight,” by Ludwig van Beethoven.
- Subsequent, abbreviated citations of nicknamed compositions are in italics and caps as appropriate; e.g., Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.
There’s more. Plenty more—about another nine bullet points, but you get the idea. I’m extremely impressed by Gordon’s list of rules, and it adds to the pride I feel when I see just how thorough the editing and proofing process is here at the SoundStage! Network. For reference, I wrote for a motorcycle print magazine for 20 years, and the editing was quite loose there. It wasn’t unexpected for me to find errors injected into my writing when it finally went to print. Just because it still pisses me off to this day, here’s how a conclusion to one of my reviews (for the Ducati GT1000 Sport Classic) was changed by a new copy editor and almost went to print:
My text:
Here we have a motorcycle that is rolling art, which stirs the soul, feeds the spirit, and just screams out to be parked in the loft right next to the retro beer fridge. If that isn’t the definition of a classic, we don’t know what is.
How a highly unqualified copy editor tried to do me ugly:
This [sic] a motorcycle that is rolling art which stirs the soul, feeds the spirit and just screams out to be parked in the loft next to the retro beer fridge-cum-wine chiller of downtown moto-enophiles. Or parked in the garage between soul-fixing, weekend romps by we [sic] less urbane connoisseurs.
I caught those changes before the review was published, and I learned a lesson about the value of a good copy editor, as there were many more egregious errors and insertions in that article. Whenever I get a touch miffed because Graham has snipped a scatological pun from my writing, I go back and reread the horror show that was my edited Ducati review. That settles me down. So I’m thrilled by the level of professionalism at SoundStage! that goes into making my writing look better than it actually is.
Back to the classical thing and Gordon’s list. When I use a musical example in one of my reviews, I check the catalog number on the actual LP if I’m using vinyl as a source. So it’s this format: Album Name (Label Name, Catalog Number) by Artist Name, “Track Name.” Easy, right? Contrast that with a track from a classical album—I’d have to use Gordon’s Enigma machine to encode it correctly, and I do want to do things correctly to save time on the editing side.
While I rarely use examples of classical music in my reviews, I do listen to it casually. Maybe 10% of my listening is classical music, but it’s often the same few albums—I don’t stray too far from my favorites. Some piano or cello sonatas, and the occasional blockbuster symphony. So I enjoy classical music, but I don’t find it very useful for my reviews unless I’m actively listening to that piece at the time. An example of where I do get some value out of it is Franz Schubert’s Sonata in G Major, Op. 78 (LP, London CS6820). This is a massive, almost ponderous solo-piano recording, and its deep, resonant tone makes my hair stand on end.
Take note of that musical citation. I copied it from an old editorial of mine, and—without looking at Gordon’s classical music style guide—I’m thinking that it’s probably no longer correct on a go-forward basis. [Gordon notes: Jason’s right. It’s close, but not quite there. The citation should read as follows: Franz Schubert’s Piano Sonata in G Major, op. 78.] Since I use many of the same albums for my equipment reviews, I no longer bother to squint at the LP spines for the citation; I’ll run a web search on my name and the title, which will return at least one review where I’ve previously used this record. A quick cut-and-paste and it’s done. I suppose I’ll have to pay more attention now and double-check this detail.
Or, I could just not use classical music in my reviews. I guess that’s the lazy part of my brain speaking, because building the correct parameters per Gordon’s directive isn’t really that arduous, right? That said, something about this whole process rubs me the wrong way.
Music is something that I approach with whimsy. I listen based on my mood, on the requirements of my inner monologue, and on the environment in which I’m listening. Beethoven’s piano sonatas get much play time on the upstairs system, as they mesh well with the afternoon light as it filters through the trees. John O’Conor’s careful, restrained playing suits the mood of our living room. If I had to deconstruct the music through a set of rules for an equipment review, it could ruin that feeling for me.
If I specifically want to reference the reproduction of real, acoustic instruments in a tangible space, I have tons of choices: some of the John Zorn klezmer albums; Astor Piazzolla’s Tango: Zero Hour; The Trinity Session by the Cowboy Junkies. In my opinion, these pieces are just as valid for deconstructing a component’s sound as a classical symphony recorded in a concert hall. That symphony has probably been captured by multiple mikes, forced through a sound board, and manually mixed anyway.
I feel the same way about jazz, but from a more oblique angle. I gravitate toward jazz that’s widely spaced, languid, more emotional than dexterous. If the musicians sound like they’re getting paid by the note, I quickly lose interest. The Blues and the Abstract Truth. Out of the Cool. Chet. These albums engage my soul. Where I get lost is with hard bop and the fascination with obscure live recordings. I don’t care to think about the circumstances behind the recording sessions, or who stood in for whom on a particular night’s performance. A performance, so goes my intuition-based thinking, should stand on its own. Historical context should, for the most part, be a distant second in importance. I categorize jazz minutiae in the same odd little container as myriad Grateful Dead live performances captured on cassette. I guess everyone needs a hobby, but it’s not my cuppa.
Out of the 30 or so cubes in my Kallax record rack, maybe three of them are devoted to classical music. I recently gave my friend Malene about three linear feet of classical records after she had gotten a turntable. About half of these records were opera box sets I’d picked up at garage sales over the years. The others were assorted Deutsche Grammophon and Harmonia Mundi discs that I knew I’d never listen to. There are still around two cubes I’ve not explored—I always figured I’d save that stuff for when I’m old, but here I am so what the hell happened?
This style-guide update has had me thinking about my relationship with classical music ever since. In part, I wrote this editorial to process how I feel about my musical reviewing choices, and as of right now, I’m still not sure where I stand. But as I’ve worked my way through vomiting out this editorial, I’m getting more and more curious about what’s in those two cubes. At minimum, I think I should take a look and see if there are any gems that I should move over to my frequent-listen pile.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
