Sarah Joy Polante Sy

Professor Hayes

ENGL20

April 24, 2017

Assignment 4: Musical Discourse Communities

Throughout the second half of this semester, our class has collectively made the effort to

individually pursue a discourse community within our field of study and to essentially research

the characteristics within this discourse community. Luckily for me, I have a plethora of

resources around me to explain my field, which is music. Through this time, I was fortunate

enough to interview a few people within my field, and continued with my research. Surprisingly,

I recently found that through my efforts, I have actually discovered two discourse communities

that are relevant to each other: musical performance and audio engineering. Its as almost as if

they can be intertwined with each other in my professional career path, but they can also be

standalone to each other. In this paper, I hope to be able to define the characteristics of these two

discourse communities while being able to simultaneously compare each other.

Among the first the first characteristics that I found within the communities was the

Threshold for Membership for each of the two. While both being in music, this seems to have the

most difference amongst the two. What is similar for both is that when it comes down to it, you

do not necessarily need to have an extensive educational background in order to enter the

industry. For example, Brad Hughes, my professor and Director of the Music Production and

Sound Design for Visual Media department in Academy of Art University, had told me in an

interview that one could just go up to a studio with little to no experience and keep advocating
themselves to the workers until the employer would offer some sort of job or training when the

film industry was still growing. (Hughes) To follow with that notion, another professor of mine

who has had over a decade of audio engineering experience, Lincoln Andrews, had addressed

that one can take internships and land a job through networking. You learn as you go. You learn

constantly, and its just a matter of time of doing and learning it that you can improve yourself.

(Andrews) Even my vocal professor in California State University, Sacramento, Claudia Kitka,

has told me that you can be able to make a living through performance without necessarily

having a formal education in it. (Kitka) However, all three of my interviewees agreed that

despite not having rigid requirements to enter into the discourse communities, it can be

extremely hard to get into it. For example, if you do not understand the terminology and concepts

that are specialized within each discourse community, you would not be able to network.

Networking is crucial, whether it be as a performer or as an audio engineer. (Andrews)

Sometimes its also a matter of who you know, especially when theres an even ground in

abilities amongst performers. (Kitka) What I found was the most important part was that the

growing need for education has pulled its way through the career field. For example, for

classically-trained performers, the need for the comprehension and deep understanding of

performance practice, various methods in which a performer can practice historical pieces, has

become something that can only be learned through guidance and meticulous teachings from

experienced performers and through musical history. What would take a whole lifetime has been

put into concentrated bursts of courses in order for the upcoming performers to even be ready to

handle incoming pieces. (Kitka) As for audio engineers, the [entertainment] industry is

moving too fast...with technology and the higher standard with film and music. No one can really
afford to take time to teach someone with no experience while on the job. This is why the need

for education specifically aimed at audio engineering is increasingly important to obtain.

(Hughes)

Works Cited

Andrews, Lincoln. Personal interview. 29 March 2017.

California ACDA: A Chapter of the American Choral Directors

Association. ACDA California, 2013, http://www.acdacal.org. Accessed 23 March 2017.

Gingras, Bruno and Stephen McAdams. "Improved Score-Performance Matching Using

Both Structural and Temporal Information from MIDI Recordings." Journal of New

Music Research, vol. 40, no. 1, Mar. 2011, pp. 43-57. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1080/09298215.2010.545422.

Hughes, Brad. Personal interview. 05 April 2017.

IMSLP: Nuit dEtoiles by Claude Debussy Digital Copy. IMSLP.

http://ks.petruccimusiclibrary.org/files/imglnks/usimg/d/da/IMSLP47826-SIBLEY1802.8

641.5a99-39087009506256score.pdf. Accessed 29 March 2017.

Kitka, Claudia. Personal interview. 13 April 2017.

Wicklund, Karen. "The Future of Singing Voice Rehabilitation as a Profession: A

Suggested Curriculum of Study for the Training of Singing Voice Specialists." Journal of

Singing, vol. 68, no. 4, Mar/Apr2012, pp. 411-414. EBSCOhost,

proxy.lib.csus.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eft

&AN=73786491.