Speaking of Sound: Language and the Professionalization of Sound-Recording Engineers

Author(s): Thomas Porcello

Source: Social Studies of Science , Oct., 2004, Vol. 34, No. 5, Special Issue on Sound
Studies: New Technologies and Music (Oct., 2004), pp. 733-758
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4144359

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 SSS
ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of speech-about-sound in sound-recording
practice and the training of prospective sound engineers. The shift from
apprenticeship to institutional learning in the mid-1980s is described as an effect of
the digitization of the recording process, and provides a background to discussing
how recording degree programs teach 'professional audition' to students via
processes of instruction and internships. Two conversations recorded during a studio
session are then analyzed to uncover the range of linguistic resources that novices
and professionals use to talk about sound and to illustrate how talk about work is
fundamental to the process of work. The paper concludes by suggesting that the
institutional instructional model reconfigures the profession's tacit knowledge by
making explicit discussion of sound more ingrained in professional training.

Keywords conversation, professionalization, recording technology, sound

Speaking of Sound:
Language and the Professionalization of Sound-
Recording Engineers
Thomas Porcello

In imagining even a partial list of the tasks that face someone learning to
become a sound engineer,1 one might envision the complexities of learning
how to operate the control room equipment (in a visual field of knobs,
switches, and lighted displays that resembles, at first glance, the complexity
of an airplane cockpit): of knowing music theory and performance practice
sufficiently to understand performers', arrangers', and producers' discus-
sions; of being familiar enough with electrical flow to trouble-shoot the
inevitable broken signal path or feedback loop; of possessing at least a
rudimentary knowledge of acoustics in order to make informed judgments
about how sounds will translate from one listening environment to the
next; and of mastering the intricate processes of audio recording ranging
from microphone (mic) selection and placement to 'building a mix' step-
by-step from performances captured on tape or disk.
Missing from this partial list, and arguably less evident at first glance,
is the ability to know how to talk about sound in ways understandable to
other sound engineers and musicians. With the development throughout
the 20th century of increasingly sophisticated means for isolating, record-
ing, and reproducing sound, making music in a recording studio presently

Social Studies of Science 34/5(October 2004) 733-758

? SSS and SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks CA, New Delhi)
ISSN 0306-3127 DOI: 10.1177/0306312704047328
www.sagepublications.com

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734 Social Studies of Science 34/5

centers on the crafting not only of

of complex sonic timbres and textur
sake has become deeply embedded in
engineering professionals to be able
this sense, sound poses a problem fo
acoustic phenomena concretely in la
sensorial phenomena through langua
Wine tasting, for example, raises the problem of how to make taste
accessible to others in language, and attempting to describe perfume does
much the same for rendering the sense of smell. One is met with phrases
such as 'notes of currants' and 'essence of glove-leather' for the former;
'musky', 'floral', or 'refreshing' for the latter. In making available to others
through language what our ears hear, one might be left with the impression
that there is very little alternative other than to use similarly vague meta-
phorical descriptions (for example, 'warm', 'bright', 'boomy'). But 'vague
metaphorical descriptions' would of course prove insufficient as linguistic
tools in a workplace defined by sound-creating and -manipulating techno-
logies, and where the goal of work is to control and craft sounds with great
precision. Indeed, in sound-engineering practice, far more complex lin-
guistic resources are regularly utilized to talk about sound.
This paper describes a range of resources that professional sound
engineers regularly employ when talking about sound, indicates how these
resources are embedded in the technologies of music production, and
illustrates processes by which talk is constitutive of sound-engineering
work. This constitutive relationship between talk and work has been
examined by Charles Goodwin (1994) under the rubric of professional
vision. Goodwin's practice-based theory, linking knowledge and action to
discursive practices, applies equally well to what I will term in this paper
'professional audition'. To paraphrase Goodwin, this means that a relevant
object of auditory knowledge emerges through interplay between a domain
of targeted listening and a set of discursive practices played out in the
context of specific sound-engineering activities. A strong parallel also exists
with Lucy Suchman's ethnomethodological insights on situated action.
She argues that one consequence of the indexicality of language is that
'mutual intelligibility of language is achieved on each occasion of inter-
action with reference to situation particulars, rather than being discharged
once and for all by a stable body of shared meanings' (Suchman, 1987:
50-51). For long-time sound engineers, a great deal of intelligibility of
talk-about-sound holds across recording sessions, from recording artist to
recording artist, and from studio to studio. But for sound engineering
novices, mutual intelligibility of talk-about-sound does appear to be, as
Suchman suggests, far more negotiated from situation to situation.
Further, the process of learning to be a sound engineer must be
thought of in great part as a process in learning to speak like one; an
important part of becoming a professionalized 'expert' is gaining the ability
(and the sanction) to speak authoritatively as an expert. Learning how to

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 Porcello: Speaking of Sound 735

speak about sound positions one a

mentally implicated in the matrix
constitute the profession. The ins
sociolinguistics are particularly ap
professions form 'discourse comm
resources as the basis for membership, perpetuation, and internal
stratification.2
As the process of learning to be a sound engineer has changed
significantly since the mid-1980s, the paper begins with a brief overview of
the movement of professionalization into post-secondary education, before
proceeding to linguistic analyses of two conversations about drum sounds
recorded during ethnographic research I conducted while working at a
recording studio in Texas in the mid-1990s. These conversations demon-
strate the complexities of speech about sound, how the process of sound
recording unfolds in part through such conversations, and how one's status
as a professional is deeply tied to one's competence with multiple linguistic
resources. This paves the way for a brief consideration of how post-
secondary degree programs alter the relationship between language use
and knowledge of the profession.

The Institutionalization of Post-Secondary Training in Sound-

Recording Engineering

The 1980s saw a proliferation of college- and university-based degree-

granting programs in sound recording in the USA and Canada. A recent
examination of the Audio Engineering Society's Directory of Educational
Programs lists 20 programs granting 2-year Associate degrees and 35
awarding 4-year Bachelor degrees; an online directory compiled by in-
dustry trade journal Mix Magazine lists 108 institutions in the USA and
Canada that award everything from 'certificates' (usually earned for studies
ranging from 3 months to 1 year) to Associate and Bachelor degrees.3
These numbers more than double what existed in 1980, with the most
noticeable growth occurring among 4-year institutions. Programs awarding
'certificates' and Associate degrees usually train students to become knowl-
edgeable in the tools and techniques of sound mixing, music-industry
business practices, or both. Four-year programs are substantially more
variable: some offer concentrations in mixing, business, multimedia pro-
duction, or acoustics; some are housed in music departments where
traditional music performance and composition skills share classroom time
with recording technology courses; some are based in physics or engineer-
ing programs where students are trained to design audio hardware or
develop their knowledge of the physics of sound in order to work in
architectural acoustics or sound studio design and construction; and many
are deeply linked, at least at the curricular level, to computer science
departments and require students to complete several courses in computer
programming.

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736 Social Studies of Science 34/5

Shared by virtually all these program

proliferation in this 20-year time pe
students to integrate digital audio e
professional practice. These program
reactive to the major technological c
early 1980s: widespread use of Musical Instrument Digital Interface
(MIDI); the shift from analog to digital tape-recorders; ADAT (the trade
name of a widely used modular digital audio recording device marketed by
the Alesis Corporation); digital audio workstations (DAW); computer and
software-driven nonlinear recording and editing equipment; and so forth.
In another sense, they are more broadly reflective of the deep integration of
computers into the white-collar workplace (and the home) over the same
time period. What is important to note in this context, however, is that the
skills necessary to succeed as a sound engineer in the music (and film)
industry partially overlap with those necessary for success in computer
science; that post-secondary programs in sound engineering have ex-
panded in ways parallel to those in computer science is therefore not, I
would argue, coincidental.
The rise of these degree-granting programs has also coincided with
industry changes that have resulted in the closure of many independently
owned recording studios in the USA. In particular, small local studios
(those that specialized in 8- or 16-track recording) have largely dis-
appeared. With a modestly priced computer and software package, musi-
cians can easily produce multi-track recordings without needing to pay for
studio time, largely eliminating the local financial base of the small studios.
Since the mid-1990s such systems have been available for less than
US$5000. Mid-level studios (those that are able to record up to 48 tracks,
form contracts with local session musicians and producers, and produce a
compact disk [CD] for US$10,000 or less, for example) can continue to
survive in more active local music markets. However, many now contract
their own staff on a per-project basis rather than employ them as salaried
workers. Even 'major' studios with reputations sufficient to draw promin-
ent recording artists increasingly look to film-sound projects to remain
financially stable. The trend toward relatively low-cost computer-based
recording options is partially responsible for these trends; other industry
forces (such as the recent shift of major labels to serving primarily as music
distributors rather than producers) are equally at work.
This partial demise of the independently owned studio has reinforced
the trend toward institutionalizing the training of sound engineers. That
computer skills are required in the day-to-day work of sound engineering is
not the sole factor drawing young people to attend post-secondary educa-
tional programs; additionally, alternate (and, historically, more conven-
tional) routes to professionalization are being eliminated. Specifically, the
possibility of learning to be a sound engineer entirely through an appren-
ticeship model is disappearing along with the small and mid-range studios.
Sound-recording degree programs (particularly the four-year Bachelor
degree programs) are thus positioned at the confluence of changes in

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 Porcello: Speaking of Sound 737

access to the means of production

transformations, and evolving pra
tion. At stake in such programs i
engineers with access to knowledg
ships once offered. The displaceme
the institutional learning of a 'pr
nificant modal shift4 in the music in
created in which, with regard to j
that such programs provide their
to accumulate labor experience.
As a result of these changes, a no
USA between 'older' sound engine
late 1980s), whose professionalizat
ment in a menial position in a stu
workplace and industry hierarchies
job', and a younger generation wh
in degree programs and program-
the brevity of these internships
amount of learning that these stu
workplace often is less than what
ing. One often encounters suspici
from older engineers about how m
apart from experience in recordin
to me in an interview, 'If you wan
pool. [As] long as it's shallow, he'll
lesson's gonna teach him'.5

Discursive Practices: Teaching and Learning Language and

Interaction

In 1993 and 1994, I spent 14 months doing ethnographic research in a

four-year sound-recording technology (SRT) program at a public uni-
versity in Texas. Possessing nearly 10 years of previous professional sound
and broadcast recording experience, I worked regularly in the program's
commercial studio as a sound engineer and attended classes as a student.
The program was in its second year of existence, and had yet to produce a
graduating class. It was housed just off the university's main campus in a
recording studio complex that the university had purchased from a private
owner three years earlier. Administratively, SRT was a sub-program within
the university's music department; to be admitted, applicants had to be
accepted as regular students in the music school, which required perform-
ance auditions and demonstration of at least a minimal knowledge of
music theory.
At the time of my research, the program curriculum consisted of five
major components: general liberal arts courses necessary to fulfill uni-
versity requirements; music performance, history, and theory courses; a

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738 Social Studies of Science 34/5

series of courses in electronics, mathe

puter science; SRT lecture courses in
and design, recording processes, soun
and SRT laboratory courses including
technique, editing practice, and mixi
ducted in the studio's control and cuttin
the facility operated as a commercial s
Most bookings came from musicians living within an approximately
200-mile radius of the studio. Projects ranged from self-financed 'vanity
sessions' (ones not intended for distribution), to the production of inde-
pendent releases, and then to major-label financed sessions; music styles
during the 14 months ranged from blues to country to rock to steel bands,
jazz bands, reggae, punk, and two small classical music ensembles. Ad-
vanced students were required to rotate as assistant engineers (AEs) on
these sessions in order to earn 'practicum' credit in the program; if they did
enough work on a given project, they might, at the client's discretion,
receive album credits. While the SRT lecture and laboratory classes were
designed to familiarize students with equipment and techniques of music
production, the AE work on studio sessions aimed to provide both hands-
on work experience and an exposure to session dynamics. The engineer
who supervised the advanced students during the commercial sessions
repeatedly claimed that the most important function of this aspect of the
curriculum was to teach students 'how to interact with the client'.
In addition to socializing students into ways of working, and familiariz-
ing them with production technology and technique, SRT and other
similar programs succeed or fail in large part on the basis of how well or
poorly they train students to reproduce technical discourses relevant to the
profession. In an aural perception class, students do not only learn how to
hear sound; in studying the electrical and acoustic principles underlying
limiters, compressors, equalizers and so forth, not only do they learn how
sound waves are modified and their effects on achieving a balanced musical
mix; when studying circuits, they do not simply memorize information
about electrical current flow. In each case, they simultaneously learn a
complex technical discourse - a way of talking about and hence con-
ceptualizing the relevant phenomena - then translating them into sig-
nificant communicative resources to be deployed in situated sessions of
studio work. Both learning environments - classes and studio session work
- are crucial for socializing novices into the discursive practices of engin-
eering professionals, and thus for modeling professional audition.
Such socialization matters so intensely because it is crucial to both
professional identity (marking oneself as an engineer with rights to speak
authoritatively in the profession) and competence (getting the engineering
work done), a point deeply linked to the discussion of finitism by Barnes et
al. (1996: 46-80). The discursive conventions attendant to the work of
sound engineering are, in large part, precisely the kinds of classification
systems pointed to by finitism: actions based on experiential classifications
of like and unlike objects (in this case, sounds); and, more importantly,

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 Porcello: Speaking of Sound 739

classificatory actions taken by lea

made by others. In fact, socialization in an SRT program is especially
complex because talking about music, indispensable to the functioning of
any recording session, is heavily reliant on competence in managing a wide
range of metaphoric discursive conventions. While all five central tenets
outlined by Barnes et al. (1996: 55-58) apply to talking about sound, the
metaphoric nature of much of this talk (discussed more fully later) re-
inforces the salience of two particular claims: that no act of classification is
absolutely correct (as individuals must make such judgments on the basis
of analogies that are ultimately judged collectively); and that successive
applications of a term of classification are not independent of previous
applications of that term (that discursive conventions build on cumulative
use and judgment). As metaphors map one domain of experience onto
another, there is much room for negotiation of collective judgments about
classificatory terms and actions for sound, and these negotiations can have
important residual traces in subsequent classifications.
At one level, the SRT curriculum can be seen as an intensive program
for teaching students to link together two principal discourses about music:
the technical discourse of the engineering professional, and the (generally)
nontechnical discourse of the musician. If, for example, a guitarist tells an
engineer that her sound is too 'thin', the engineer must be able to translate
that spatial metaphor for sound into a corresponding spatio-temporal
concept, also expressed via metaphor: timbre, or, the complex map of
simultaneously sounding vibrations per second. This spatio-temporal
metaphor translates sound into assignable numbers: frequency, or Hz (a
metaphor directly encoding only the temporal parameter). Inside the world
of this second metaphor, the engineer can turn to an equalizer and increase
or diminish specific frequencies to alter the sound. Take away some
800-1100s (Hz), add some 150-300s, and retranslate into a spatial meta-
phor: the guitar now sounds more 'full'. To be an effective engineer, one
must be able to move comfortably among all these metaphors (and across
their levels of technicality) and be able to relate them proficiently to the
acoustic phenomena in question.
In linguistic terminology, an individual's ability to make such moves is
often referred to as 'register shift': a pedagogical imperative for any degree-
granting program in sound engineering is that it teach students all the
terminology specific to the professional register, and then teach them to
deploy and interpret that linguistic knowledge correctly. In the absence of
accomplishing the latter, the technical and hands-on training that a pro-
gram provides will prove an insufficient foundation for professional suc-
cess. Learning a register is, technically, a matter of language acquisition,
similar to how a child learns to put words and meanings together in his or
her native language, or to how a second-language learner must memorize
vocabulary from the 'target' language. Someone learning a register may be
thought of as essentially memorizing a linguistic code. But knowing a
register is not the same as possessing the ability to deploy it correctly,

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740 Social Studies of Science 3415

particularly when it comes to the s

round its use. Therein lies the crucia
tion and language socialization, a dis
I invoke the concept of linguistic
among sound engineering profession
ring to various acoustic phenomena pertinent to the work of sound
recording, and that a crucial part of professional competence is knowing
and gaining fluency with these linguistic resources. At the same time, and
despite my suggestion earlier that one can fairly predictably interpret
certain metaphors in terms of electroacoustic solutions, I do not mean to
imply that registers work like a list of vocabulary items that unproblemat-
ically or transparently represent set acoustic realities. There is clearly a
process of co-creation between linguistic resources and the situated activity
of work that yields specific, context-dependent representations of sound.
These processes are perhaps most evident in problematic situations - such
as the elusive search for 'the right sound' during a recording session - when
professional audition must become an overt subject of discourse. Suchman
points out that when action is proceeding smoothly, it is 'essentially
transparent' (1987: 53), and that when it fails to do so, it becomes an overt
object of focus. When this occurs, language takes on a particular sig-
nificance, for it 'transforms the world into something that can be thought
of and talked about' (1987: 58). Writing specifically about instructions,
Suchman notes that their significance for action inheres not only in the
instructions themselves, but crucially in the relationship between the
instruction and the follower who acts in the situation. The same is true for
diagnostic procedures, as many of the conversations in recording studios
that concern 'good' and 'bad' sound might be best characterized; such
diagnostic language, itself generally a prelude to an instruction for how to
'fix' the problematic sound, is not 'merely anchored in, but in large
measure constitutes, the situation of use' (Suchman, 1987: 62)." Yet to
participate fully, knowledgeably, and authoritatively in such conversations
- as one who both produces and interprets situated language as a pro-
fessional - requires competence both in knowing the linguistic resources
and in being aware of what constitutes their appropriate and inappropriate
use within both the professional community and the particular situated
context.

From a curricular standpoint, classroom instruction in an SRT pr

gram is the location of language acquisition; internships (or, in the ca
the SRT program I studied, the evenings spent as an assistant enginee
advanced students at studio sessions) are the principal sites of langu
socialization. The importance of internships, then, is not simply locat
the number of hours of experience logged, or in album credits receive
assistant engineering; it lies in the ability to observe and practice wa
speaking about the relationships among sound, technology, and mus
along with modes of interaction appropriate to the occupational slot
sound engineer (as opposed, say, to producer).

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 Porcello: Speaking of Sound 741

Interaction I: A Conversation Between a Producer and a

Sound-Recording Technology First-Year Student
To illustrate the linguistic and interpretive complexities that sound engin-
eering involves, consider the following segments of a conversation that I
taped at the beginning of a recording session with a rock/funk/jazz fusion
band conducted at the SRT studio in March 1994.7 The transcript comes
from a conversation between the session's producer and a first-year SRT
student who, by virtue of being an accomplished drummer (his perform-
ance instrument for the music major) was hired to tune the drum kit. This
conversation occurred at the beginning of the first day of the session; the
kit had been loaded into the studio and set up, but the drummer himself
was not present and the kit had not yet been played. In the studio's control
room, where I had positioned my mic and tape recorder, the SRT student/
drum tuner (JM) asked the producer (DE) to describe 'the drum sound'
DE wanted. Also present in the control room during this discussion was
the studio's veteran chief engineer (BA) and two of his student assistant
engineers.
The first segment of the conversation begins with the producer dis-
cussing the sound he wants for the kit's 'toms', the two drums usually
mounted on a rack above the kick drum, and one that stands on the floor.
Unlike the snare drum, with its beady high-frequency white-noise rattle,
and the kick drum, with its low-frequency intensive percussive punch -
both of which provide essentially non-pitch-distinguishable sounds - the
three toms are tuned to different pitches, and thus add a melodic compon-
ent to the drum sound.

1. DE: But yeah it's like the main thing I look for is, is, you know just to
make sure that they're gonna be singing out, that they have a lot of sustain
to them. 'Cause what happens I find is um if they're, if you don't get, if
you don't get a lot of sustain to them then what, they, the hit quickly
comes and goes and doesn't really get heard in the track, so it's like that
after-ring that'll make you sound powerful
2. JM: OK, yeah, yeah, alright
3. JM: So no pitch-bend?
4. DE: No

5. JM: Alright, cool, wide open sound

6. DE: Yeah

7. JM: No ... muffling

8. DE: Nah

9. JM: You want that?

10. DE: Nah

11. JM: No muffling, OK, good

12. DE: Lots of, lots of ring
13. JM: Lots of ring, no muffling, uh
14. DE: Yeah

Linguistically notable in this exchange is the extent to which both inter-

locutors utilize metaphors to talk about sound: 'singing out', 'powerful',

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742 Social Studies of Science 34/5

'pitch-bend', 'wide open', and 'muffl

of musical sound into non-acoustic t
these terms foreground a spatializat
the concept of projection through
straint within) physical space. Soun
ceptual framework of geometrical
point, both DE and JM seem confid
metaphors; they easily construct an
between 'muffled' and 'wide open',
and the latter as a goal to strive for.8
The tom sound agreed on, JM and DE now proceed to discuss the
desired sound for the snare drum. As a central element in rock music -
providing the 'off-beat' rhythmic anchor around which rock songs are
usually built - snare sounds receive copious attention in recording sessions.
Often recorded with more than one mic in order to enhance their timbral
complexity, snare drums are both acoustically and symbolically central to
the rock drum kit. In their conversation, the producer and drum tuner
discuss its desired sound for several minutes. Their conversation about the
snare begins with a significant shift in strategies for talking about sound:

15. JM: What else ...

16. DE: And the snare

17. JM: ... do I have to ask?

18. DE: and the snare, let's have the snare be a pretty tight sound
19. JM: Can you describe the sound, in terms of other players?
20. DE: Nnnnnnn ...

21. JM: Primus ...?

22. DE: Hmmmmmm...

23. JM: That ... hollow? That ... deep? Or ...

24. DE: See, I don't know the Primus stuff that well
25. JM: Oh, uh, well, name that ... name ... I mean, you obviously have
a sound in mind

26. DE: Yeah, but I don't know ...

27. JM: If you could, if you could say who it's by, I could have an idea of
who it is

28. DE: Usually what I like to do is

29. JM: and how to get it

In initiating this new topic DE and JM resort to different strategies; DE

names it, while JM poses a broadly metacommunicative question, before
attempting to direct DE to talk about sound via references to other
musicians (19), as opposed to through the use of metaphor. In seeking to
accomplish this strategic shift, he seizes on DE's metaphoric 'tight' in (18)
and directly requests that DE demonstrate his knowledge of rock music by
linking that metaphor to a band whose sound he is familiar with. JM's
approach, however, puts DE in the position of having to deny his compet-
ence in this area (24). More generally, DE's unfamiliarity with the specific

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 Porcello: Speaking of Sound 743

band demonstrates the difficulty

success of such non-metaphoric re
shared musical knowledge, which DE and JM - separated in age by
approximately 20 years - do not possess. JM's directives in (27) and (29)
suggest that he views this conversation revolving around metaphor as less
useful for coming to conceptualize the sound DE is after than a conversa-
tion focused on finding a band they both know whose sound DE wishes to
imitate. This view is quite likely situational as much as it is a reflection of
JM's view of the overall utility of metaphors for describing sound; were JM
to have a greater familiarity with the band, the producer's other recordings,
his musical preferences, and the language of sound engineering, DE's
invocation of a 'pretty tight sound' would likely suffice.
But DE refuses to pursue JM's suggestion as the conversation
continues:

30. DE: I just like to have the ... I like to use as little muffling as possible
on the snare

31. JM: Yeah, OK, on the snare

32. DE: but just enough to take out the ring
33. JM: Alright, yeah
34. DE: 'Cause in other words usually when you get it cranked up you get
hmmmmm, nggggg [sings nasal, loudly], some kind of a, you know
usually it's not that bad, it's tsing, tsing [sings, softly]. So what I find is a
lot of times that just puttin' one little piece of tape on the snare
35. JM: Yeah, Ok
36. DE: in a key spot will make it to where it's bop, bop, bop, instead of
bahpmmmm, bahpmmmm, bahpmmmm ...
37. JM: [laughs]

In (30), DE quickly reverts to the metaphoric descriptions used in talking

about the toms, and when JM signals his understanding via the back-
channels ('yeah', 'OK', 'alright') in (31) and (33), DE moves from meta-
phor into an effort at direct mimicry (singing) of a bad ('hmmmmm,
nggggg') and a better ('tsing, tsing') drum sound, and the description of a
'technical' means of achieving it (putting tape on the snare). Rhetorically,
DE has ignored JM's request to talk about sound by reference to other
music, and turned his description of sound back to metaphor, and further,
to mimicry.
JM's laugh seems to respond to the sonic caricatures provided by DE's
sung performances of bad snare sounds and serves to cover his persisting
uncertainty about how to translate these metaphors and sung imitations
into a specific sound.' At a loss, he continues:

38. JM: So uh ...

39. DE: But I notice that his, the brass snare that he was playing last night
was pretty kind of 'kunk, kunk', hollow sounding, so it was like 'dung, gu
kung (k) du duku kung' [sings in syncopated imitation of funk rhythm
played on a full drum kit] you know, almost like a timbale'0 or
something

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 744 Social Studies of Science 34/5

40 JM: And you don't want that

41. DE: No, I want something that's a l
smack, lots of snares
42. JM: Alright
43. DE: but not 'dzzzzzz' afterwards, ju
snare, it's like 'pts' [clipped]. So it's pre
44. JM: So do you want it ... not ... so ... tight that it sounds like a
keyboard snare
45. DE: Right
46. JM: Like a triggered snare
47. DE: Right, we want it to sound like a real ...
48. BA: No Wendell!"

After returning to his imitative singing in (39), DE adds one more imitative
resource in (41) when he mobilizes the onomatopoeic word 'smack'. DE is
intently constructing a discussion of sound that keeps the description
conveyable via metaphor ('tight', 'hollow') and imitation ('dzzzzzz', 'pts',
'smack'), while JM again seeks to contextualize this in terms of other
musical sounds he knows. In (44) and (46) he wrestles DE's performances
into a reference to a particular music technology: digitally sampled snare
drum sounds, roundly criticized by many musicians for their sonic
sterility. 12
It bears repeating that an analysis of this conversation suggests that DE
and JM use systematically different approaches to discussing sound in spite
of their joint effort to diagnose the problem of arriving at the drum sound
that DE, as producer, envisions for the drum kit." There is equal refusal
by both to shift strategies: the more JM expresses - quite openly - a desire
for DE to 'name' other musicians, the more DE persists in describing
sound in its own terms (via acoustic imitation) or via purely linguistic
terms (metaphor); the more DE moves into the realm of sound and
language, the more JM tries to pull him back to citing other music. The
potential exists for this conversation (at best) to lead nowhere, or (at worst)
to engender open conflict between the two, especially if DE, as a respected
producer, were to decide to assert his authority, which could result in JM
being dismissed from the session.14
But the intervention of the studio engineer, BA, has the effect of
derailing the momentum of DE and JM's conflicted discussion of the snare
sound, as the two find a shared disdain for the Wendell synthesized snare
drum:

51. BA: He hates Wendell.

52. DE: I don't HATE Wendell ...

53. BA: No, [JM] hates Wendell

54. [JM & DE laugh]
55. JM: He [BA] was just showin' us that, I don't know, that thing down
there

56. DE: Yeah, I mean there ...

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 Porcello: Speaking of Sound 745

57. JM: and I was just like, No, man

58. [Chuckles]
59. DE: It's a great snare, and great
everything, but we can ... do ... bett
60. JM: Yeah I mean, uh, that's what
61. DE: not even from a, we can't even necessarily make a better
sounding snare than that, but ... just the fact that it's really played ...
sounds ... better

62. JM: Yeah, exactly

63. DE: More dynamic, and ...
64. JM: You can get all the little stuff in there
65. DE: Yeah

BA's introduction of a sound-making technology (combined with DE's

mistaken interpretation of 'he' as referring to himself) briefly gets DE to
respond in a brief exchange about sound that is neither metaphorical nor
imitative. In so doing, DE and JM establish the fact that they share at least
one understanding about sound; that actual playing leads to better sound-
ing drums than what can be achieved electronically.'5 With common
ground established, DE gives JM permission to begin working on the kit,
which then results in one final exchange that confirms the differences
between DE and JM's approaches to talking about sound.

Analysis of Conversation I: Strategies and Professional

Audition

On the surface, this conversation may seem laborious and mundane, yet I
argue that it is a remarkable - though, in my research and professional
experience, not in several respects unusual - conversation. Its most atypical
feature, in fact, is simply its extended length (nearly five minutes),'6 which
I believe results largely from the drum tuner's relative lack of experience in
the studio (as I will suggest more fully later by contrasting it to another
conversation from the same recording session). A close reading of this
conversation will unravel the complexity of the register and interactional
dynamics that SRT students must master in seeking to become fully
competent at professional audition.
The conversation consists of three topical episodes. Lines 1-14 are a
discussion of the desired resonance characteristics of the tom-toms; lines
15-47 comprise a discussion of the characteristics of the snare drum; the
reference in line 44 to the keyboard snare shifts the discussion to the third
episode, that concerning the synthesized Wendell snare drum (lines
48-65). Note that DE and JM are engaging in this highly interpretive
discursive work over verbal references to drum sounds - they play neither the
drum kit nor any recordings at any point in this process. The sound of this
drum is verbally negotiated, but individually imagined by these inter-
locutors, even as it comes to be constituted through public discussion
between them. Throughout the conversation, the snare 'sound' is actively
moved into a technologically mediated, relational space in which sonic

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746 Social Studies of Science 34/5

wave forms become meaningful ina

linguistic metaphors, verbal perform
the imagined sounds of other drums
ings of drums, and with technologi
drums.
This discursive work between JM and DE is a dialogic instance of what
anthropologist Steven Feld (1994) refers to as interpretive moves: pro-
cesses of listener engagement during encounters with music. Listeners use
these moves to make sense of music 'through interpretive procedures
deeply linked to, but not synonymous with, the structure of concatenated
sound events' (Feld, 1994: 86-89). Feld defines the moves as follows:
locational (linking the object to like or unlike items); categorical (placing
the object into a class of things); associational (relating or analogizing the
object to other sensory stimuli); reflective (relating the item to a larger
social or personal context); and evaluative (assigning a worth or value to
the item). These moves may overlap, or be foregrounded and back-
grounded fluidly during specific encounters with musical works; they do
not all occur equally within one encounter or across several. But, Feld
argues, these fundamentally social processes enable music to make sense,
so that we can render it socially and individually meaningful. These moves
are also crucial to the discursive practices of professional audition, particu-
larly in their articulation of acoustic representations.
Part of the reason that the conversation between DE and JM lasts as
long as it does owes to the fact that JM is heavily invested in describing
sound in terms of such interpretive moves, while DE largely avoids their
use, preferring instead, as has already been highlighted, to mimic vocally
the timbral characteristics of the drums in question or to provide meta-
phoric descriptions of drum timbre. This conflict can in part be under-
stood as one of register: the two are using different linguistic resources to
talk about musical sound. To systematize the observations accompanying
the earlier transcript, one can point to five distinct strategies used by DE
and JM:17

1. Singing/vocables. DE uses elaborate phonetic and phonological (vocal

sound) work in an attempt to mimic directly with his voice the timbral
and resonance characteristics of the musical sounds he is discussing.
These sounds include DE's articulations of 'hm', 'pts', 'dz', and so
forth. Most are virtually sung as musical performances by DE. In
semiotic terms, they function as iconic linguistic signs in which DE's
voice quality is intended to comprise the same timbral qualities as the
musical sounds it ostensibly replicates.
2. Lexical onomatopoesis, or words that bear at least a partial acoustic
resemblance to the sounds they describe, but which are simultaneously
metaphors that more abstractly describe the sounds. Words such as
'hollow' (23), 'ring' (12), and 'muffling' (7) have vowel and consonant
shapes that bear a certain acoustic resemblance to the resonance
characteristics of the sounds that they are being used to describe. But

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 Porcello: Speaking of Sound 747

as existing words, they are differen

in that they adhere to the norma
also carry semantic information
meanings), which the vocables do
3. 'Pure' metaphor. Words such as 'pitch-bend' (3), 'tight' (18) and
'deep' (23) are used to describe timbral characteristics, but do not bear
any acoustic similarity to the sound in question (which distinguishes
them from lexical onomatopoetic words). Because they lack acoustic
similarity to the musical sound object, they rely exclusively on denota-
tive or connotative meaning - as opposed to the evocation of sound
similarity - in order to 'make sense' as representations of the timbres
they describe. Many of these are professional terms, codified among
musicians and sound engineers (for example, 'boxy' referring quite
specifically to an overabundance of sounds around 250-500 Hz), and
thereby simultaneously draw upon and construct a common base of
technical knowledge and professional identification.
4. Association. Association involves citing other musicians, recordings,
sounds, time periods and so forth, in a search for a common frame of
reference from which to describe the timbres in question, and, implic-
itly, where this band will fit into the larger world of musical styles and
commodities. These associations function 'indexically', invoking other
musical styles, musicians, or production technologies.'8
5. Evaluation. This strategy occurs only briefly here, in the Wendell
discussion, but is quite common in the sessions I observed. Evocation
or elucidation of sound frequently is only a secondary function of
evaluation. Rather - especially in the Wendell discussion between DE
and JM - it is used to establish a mutual sense of solidarity between the
two interlocutors, to mark a territory of shared musical aesthetics. Its
function is therefore largely social, signifying an agreement on sonic
goals, on attitudes toward musical technologies (here, drum samples),
and therein, a common ability to work cooperatively toward the
sounds desired for the drums on this session.

Marking and Learning Professionalism

Each of these five strategies is an important resource in the overall set of
linguistic practices that, taken together, comprise the register of sound
recording as used by sound-engineering professionals. In examining the
conversation transcribed earlier, it is evident that DE consistently conducts
the conversation with the use of the first three strategies - singing/vocables,
lexical onomatopoesis, and pure metaphor (the lone exception is his brief
discussion of the Wendell sound and the mention of a timbale sound); JM,
in marked contrast, almost exclusively uses association alone, or in com-
bination with metaphor.
This conversation, between an experienced producer and a first-year
SRT student, follows a general pattern that emerges in an extensive
analysis of my field recordings; that veteran sound engineers and producers

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748 Social Studies of Science 34/5

use these codes in patterns that are

novices. Briefly - and in line with the earlier observation about DE's
preference for using the first three strategies - the greater one's knowledge
of and experience with sound engineering, the less explicit and extended is
the use of association (and evaluation)."1 For fully socialized professionals,
two strategies are far more common. As already suggested, metaphors
(both lexical onomatopoetic and pure) develop codified meanings that are
easily translated into specific actions taken in the realm of signal processing
or recording techniques. If an engineer is told that the drums are too 'dry'
or too 'tight', he or she knows that nine times out of ten the solution will
simply be to run them through a reverb machine or to put up some room
mics to capture more reflected sound; there is no need for a seasoned
engineer to ask - as JM might well have done -'Describe that too-tightness
in terms of other players'. Over time, engineers learn that there are rather
predictable acoustic correlates to what - on the surface - seem perhaps like
rather imprecise metaphoric descriptions of sound.
The other strategy that professionals utilize heavily (although it was
almost completely missing from the conversation between DE and JM -
likely because of JM's lack of recording experience) is a discussion of
sounds, not in terms that are descriptive of their acoustic features (as
vocables and metaphors both are), but by naming the technologies that
generate them (linguistically, a variation of metonymy). Product names, for
example, become shorthand descriptors of the acoustic features that result
from their performance or use. Musicians regularly talk about sound in
terms such as a 'Telecaster sound' versus a 'Stratocaster sound', an 'Ampeg
SVT [bass] sound', a 'Hammond B3 [organ]', for instance. Sound engin-
eers also use this shorthand with reference to product names (note that
BA's reference to the Wendell is in fact a reference to its sound), particu-
larly mics (AKG 414s, Neumann U-47s) and consoles (an 'SSL sound' as
compared to a 'Neve sound'), More commonly, the shorthand is based on
naming the type of signal processing involved (for example, 'too gated',
'too compressed', 'too flanged') or its electro-acoustic effects ('clipped',
'distorted', 'phase-shifted').
The proper or improper use of such metonyms marks one's status as a
professional insider or outsider, an important function that all registers
serve. Knowledge of a register might be thought of as a kind of linguistic-
ally based 'proof' of professional training and practice - one that is more
portable (and subtle) than carrying a copy of one's resume or diploma in
one's back pocket. And that proof points back to the distinction drawn
earlier between linguistic knowledge and performance: to fully mark one-
self linguistically as a professional, one must have exposure to learning
relevant metonyms (and codified metaphors) - acquisition - and one must
further be confident about their appropriate and accurate use in conversa-
tional interaction - socialization. JM's concerted efforts to switch his
conversation with DE into the realm of association and his persistent
failure to understand the sounds evoked by the metaphors are, in a sense, a
betrayal of his lack of familiarity with the deployment of the engineering

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Porcello: Speaking of Sound 749

register. Conversely, DE's reliance on m

face of their obvious and complete opacity
a parallel difficulty seeing the need - a
speak outside of his usual professional r
terms of both register acquisition an
speak or understand DE's engineering
realize that seasoned engineers and p
rarely talk about music in associative t
consumer of music (one whose knowled
not like a producer or engineer (whose
the technology behind the commodity)

Interaction II: A Conversation between Two Studio Veterans

A second transcription from the same recording session illustrates the

difference between JM and DE's almost schizophrenically in-and-out-of-
register conversation, and what one might expect from a similar conversa-
tion between two studio veterans who adhere to the preferred way to
deploy professional linguistic resources, as described earlier. This conversa-
tion between DE and the session's chief engineer, BA, occurred approx-
imately an hour after the first. As in the case of DE's earlier conversation
with JM, the topic of this conversation is the drum kit's 'sound'. This
conversation, however, is more tightly tied to the situated action of
producing sound as it is embedded in the process of assigning tracks (that
is, determining where each instrument will be recorded on the multi-track
tape) and selecting appropriate mics for each instrument.

1. BA: Kick [drum]?

2. DE: OK. He's got the one kick, uses the double pedal, and I usually use
a 47 on it

3. BA: A FET? Don't have it

4. DE: Or an RE-20?

5. BA: Got it. FETs are good, especially those two pads, those dB
pads ...
6. DE: Yeah, put them just outside the drum, just on the outside rim?
7. BA: Next?

Because DE has a substantial engineering background, the technical

discourse is transparent for the two. In an exchange of seven short turns,
they have discussed two mics, the strengths of one of them, the drummer's
kick drum configuration, and where to place the mic. In seven short
utterances, they have used a shared knowledge and language of technology
to more or less determine what the kick will sound like on tape, without
once overtly referencing sound quality. The shared knowledge of the
terminology (and the technology) is precisely the sharing of a register, in
marked contrast to the 'struggle' that DE and JM engaged in to find a
shared way to describe the drum sound.

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750 Social Studies of Science 3415

After a brief discussion of how th

configured for recording the drum ki
snare drum:20

40. BA: Umm hmm. OK, snare

41. DE: I usually use a top and a bottom mic. On the top, ummm, most
commonly I start out with like a 57, then sometimes I'll exchange that for
a 451

42. BA: And I also have an SM-7

43. DE: Oh! That could sound good too ...

44. BA: Um hmm, very good
45. DE: Yeah

46. BA: Bottom?

47. DE: Bottom, I'll either use a 57, or I'll use a um Sennheiser 441
48. BA: Don't have it

The reference to the SM-7 in (42) is not technically an instance of

metonymy (since it is not used as the name of a specific sound by BA), but
suggests again the conversational economy that accrues to linking sounds
to pieces of recording technology. With the snare quickly addressed, they
move around the kit, discussing hi-hat cymbals and toms, before turning to
a discussion of the 'room mics', mics that are placed at a distance from the
kit to record room reverberation.

66. BA: All right, rooms ...

67. DE: Um

68. BA: I assume you're using 'em

69. DE: yeah, like some, either some 87s ...
70. BA: Yeah, I got a pair
71. DE: Umkay
72. BA: Or? 414s ...

73. DE: Yeah, 414s will work but they tend to be a little bright
74. BA: [almost in unison with DE] bright, yeah
75. DE: So my option as opposed to 87s
76. BA: A dynamic ...
77. DE: a lot of times, is the funny thing is I'll use um
78. BA: 57s are good! [joking]
79. DE: [sarcastically] Yeah, 57s can be real good. [seriously] Or else try
451s, you know?

BA and DE laugh together. This is a purely sarcastic suggestion on BA's

part. The Shure SM 57 is, as BA described it to first-year SRT students, a
'blue-collar' mic. Place it in front of a loud electric guitar amp, and it
captures a decent version of the sound without damaging the mic's
diaphragm. It is a favorite touring mic because of its ruggedness; it can be
dropped repeatedly and probably won't get hurt. But room mics are placed
at a distance, usually about 8 feet, from the drum kit. At such a distance,

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Porcello: Speaking of Sound 751

the sound may be loud, but a much mo

ably a condenser, is needed. The emb
professional audition, and the situated
'sound' emerge clearly in this series of
'57s are good', would make no sense in t
the absence of knowledge of mic desig
sonic conventions for recording rock d
play into the work of mic placement.
After a brief discussion of other suitable room mics, BA addresses
where in the room they should best be placed.

88. BA: OK, uh ... one pair [of] room mics today?
89. DE: Yeah
90. BA: I would think so?
91. DE: I think so

92. BA: I have on occasion put a pair up, up on the stairway ...

For a blues session a few weeks earlier, in addition to standard room miking,
BA had mounted a stereo mic pair on the ledge above the control room,
about 12 feet directly over the drummer's head, and mixed this into the
recording. For a band wanting big, roomy, open drums, the result was
spectacular. The combination of the close mics (inches away from the drum
heads), the room mics 8 feet away, and this last set 12 feet away, had given a
subtle texture to the kit due to the delay in sound waves reaching the mics at
these three different distances from where the drums were struck.

93. DE: Really?

94. BA: and taped that boom mic to the stairway, and gone out way up
above it like that?

95. DE: Really?

96. BA: On occasion

97. DE: yeah ... [DE hesitates, trying to imagine the sound.]
98. BA: But that might be a little excessive for this
99. DE: Yeah

100. BA: And I also do that with only drums in the room
101. DE: Yeah, and we might have a little bit of a mix-up as far as other
people in the room too? What's the layout?

The basic decisions about miking the kit have now been made, and BA and
DE move on to discuss the physical layout of the performers in the cutting
room.

Analysis of Conversation II and Implications of Both

Conversations

Compared with the conversation between DE and JM, this exchange is

notable in part for its almost telegraphic quality; without going into too

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752 Social Studies of Science 34/5

many linguistic details, I would simply

each speaker's utterance (the fact tha
taking their turn in the conversatio
of hesitations or overlapping speech
sequence relate their mic choices an
recordings - that is, they never mak
there are places in the conversation
possible (especially in relation to line
for instance, discussed the sound of
chosen to use an SM-7 as the mic fo
a great deal of shared knowledge bet
sounds they capture/create, which
kinds of associations that were so ce
Without knowing a great deal about
and without an intimate familiarity
kinds of coloration they will impart to
be at best opaque - and exclusionary
is a way of talking about musical sou
consumers to participate fully in su
experience could participate authorit
this second conversation.
In fact, if one is an engineer, a producer with a technical background, or
a more advanced student in an SRT program, it is fairly easy to create a
mental auditory image of the drum kit's eventual sound given this choice of
mics and the miking techniques that they will lead to. To phrase it as a sound
engineer might: the kit will sound 'crisp' because the frequency response
characteristics of the chosen mics generally favor mid- and upper-mid
frequency ranges. But that crispness won't stray into suffocating 'tightness'
because the room mics will provide ample reflected sound. The crispness
will result in a kit that sounds cleanly articulated, sharply rhythmic, like the
staccato horn riffs the band will be laying up on top of the songs. The kit's
crisp articulations will provide a counterpoint to the band's jazziness to an
extent, because crisp drums are the sound of rock and pop.
The technical discourse between BA and DE thus positions the band in
the interstices of a professional proscription and the eventual public ascrip-
tion of musical style. Proscription arises from how the technical discourse
encodes a recording aesthetic, created out of a particular recording practice,
and mobilized through specific recording technologies that will leave sonic
traces on the band's musical recording: for example, selection of mics;
choices to use analog or digital recording mediums; using 'live' mics on the
drum kit; and recording the band performing together instead of sequen-
tially via overdubbing. Further, the way this conversation structures part of
the work process itself (for example, the action of assigning tracks and
selecting mics), makes it evident that merely equating talking about sound
with a referential function ignores how verbal descriptions of sound in the
situated practice of making studio recordings also serve in part as injunc-
tions for how to do the work of creating those sounds with available

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Porcello: Speaking of Sound 753

technologies and their customary de

fact that those sounds will then be use
relation to other bands, other record
JM did in his repeated efforts to get
or much as consumers and critics d
Spector's 'wall of sound', or the 'S
metonyms that collapse producers,
logies, musicians, musical styles, part
ing studios into densely meaningful
It is important to keep in mind, t
words, registers, conversational norm
that individuals can use in any numb
principle, publicly accessible; with e
degree program, a studio apprentice
ure, anyone theoretically has access
practices. But like all of language, t
further politics behind language use
discursive strategies analyzed from
those from the exchange between D
part of the discursive repertoire of
repeatable descriptions of sound tha
sessions in a relatively predictable fa
predictable responses. But it is equall
used or withheld, understood, or su
speakers. They can be offered up in
parade one's own knowledge while p
can be used to include or exclude, to
social positioning in the productio
inflammatory or tempering to the
stubbornness with which DE fails to
level of association in the first conv
JM in the studio before the conv
transcript) suggests that DE well kno
social position in the studio provid
communicating this asymmetry to J

Conclusion

Thus far I have traced the importance of language in the processes by

which musical technologies and the social relations of music production
meet in recording studios; the two conversations that I have analyzed point
to the enormous subtlety of the multiple ways in which music is talked
about in studios, and the importance of both acquiring a knowledge of this
range and of being socialized into the proper use of a sound engineer's
discursive practices. Central to my argument has been the claim that
acquisition - learning the discursive practices - is a necessary, but not
sufficient, condition for professional success. Without knowing the rules

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754 Social Studies of Science 34/5

that govern the proper use of the lingui

one will remain marked as an outsider. A
changes in technology (a shift to compu
recording along with the proliferation o
tions) and industry structure (the decline
well as the shift of record labels into fi
distribution function) have been at lea
increasing numbers of degree-grantin
which has implications how professionali
Post-secondary programs such as SRT r
how professional competence (linguist
aspiring sound engineers. Before the mi
of entry to the profession was either b
group and positioning oneself to do work
ment of engineering skills, or by finding a
an apprenticeship with the studio's engi
one learned engineering techniques lar
participating in ongoing projects. In such
the opportunity to ask for explicit instr
provide it spontaneously. Some instructio
of job training, but this is generally pra
focused on the technologies of sound
development hinges upon building skills
working on projects, not through dedic
different modes of learning are being m
what might be called 'embodied learning
the most common locus of exposure t
involves the directed presentation of info
The shift to training in a post-seconda
four-year institutions - thus significant
professional audition by foregrounding d
of embodied learning. While students
observation (in laboratory classes, in the
internships), the bulk of their learning is n
SRT, BA, the studio's chief engineer, him
ticeship training, was positioned as the l
such as ear training and studio mixin
programs that seek to market themselves
industry-experienced teachers. In the ear
would consist of an instrumentalist com
Different mics, miking techniques, and
would be created while the individual pl
mitted to tape. BA and the students wou
recordings and discuss sound quality diff
for the course consisted of students liste
made throughout the semester in order t
been used in the sections they were liste

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 Porcello: Speaking of Sound 755

exam involved intensive listening an

differences.
Comparing the differences between learning to talk about sound in
directed classroom instruction as opposed to in an internship setting, the
shift from apprenticeship to the institutionalization of sound-engineer
training might be seen to involve a significant reconfiguration of explicit
and tacit knowledge.23 In seeking to assess the relative importance of
learning-in-practice, Wagner and Sternberg have argued that 'much of the
learning that matters to success in real-world pursuits happens in the
absence of formal instruction' (1986: 51). The apprenticeship structure is
one in which such learning is extensive, if not exclusive, and the incorpora-
tion of internships into SRT programs can be seen in part as a continued
recognition of the importance of such 'real-world' learning. Wagner and
Sternberg additionally raise the question of whether it is possible - through
strategies ranging from mentoring to direct teaching - to accelerate the
acquisition of tacit knowledge (Wagner & Sternberg, 1986: 78). One might
add to this the question of how those who possess tacit knowledge can best
learn to communicate it in formal instruction.
The shift from apprenticeship to institutionalization of sound engin-
eering training provides a useful site for examining both questions. For BA
- and for any similarly trained instructor - the classroom setting demands
that any unstated knowledge about sound must be readily accessible for
overt discussion; to teach how to hear is to be forced to talk explicitly about
one's own knowledge of sound. For students, class exercises often focus
explicitly on developing linguistic facility with the sounds they hear. For
students, then, perhaps less steeped in implicit knowledge of the work of
sound engineering since they are at the beginning of their careers, the
challenge to link sound to language may in fact be less problematic than for
older engineers who trained more by doing sound work than by talking
about it.
It would be premature, from my research, to make definitive claims,
but focusing on linguistic practices may prove particularly insightful. One
way of interpreting the communicative breakdown of the conversation
between DE and JM is to suggest that what appears to be a greater
linguistic facility in describing sound on DE's part is in fact better seen as
the result of an unfamiliarity with how students have been taught to think
and talk about sound in their classroom instruction; cut from the older
sound-engineering model, he verbalizes his knowledge gained in practice
through linguistic devices potentially at odds with the way a student who
has completed a year-long course of formal ear-training has been trained.
Here, then, the effects of shifts in technology and industry structure make
their way into locally situated discursive practices in the technological
workplace. As technological changes have helped to reconfigure routes of
entry to the profession, and as the means by which the acquisition of
practical knowledge necessary for professionals has changed, the ways that
knowledge is communicated and transmitted in instructional and work-
place settings is likely to shift as well. To the extent that language is deeply

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 756 Social Studies of Science 3415

and complexly implicated in sound-record

professionals, further attention to speec
understanding of links among technolog
tices of professional audition, and the pro

Notes

Portions of the research informing this paper were funded by a Vassar College research
grant and a dissertation grant from the University of Texas at Austin. A preliminary draft
was prepared for the 'Sound Matters: New Technology in Music' conference sponsored by
the Faculteit der Cultuurwetenschappen, Universiteit Maastricht, 15-17 November 2002. I
wish to express my appreciation for comments and critique to all conference participants,
but especially to Karin Bijsterveld and Trevor Pinch, whose input has been particularly
insightful. Valuable suggestions for integrating this work more directly into a science and
technology studies framework came from Michael Lynch, Stephen Turner, and four
anonymous reviewers, for which I wish to express my gratitude. All remaining shortcomings
are purely the author's.

1. In this paper I use 'sound engineer' to refer to the persons responsible for the process
of recording sound to tape or disk as well as for mixing sound/music in studios or in
live settings. For purposes of euphony, I use 'sound engineering' and 'sound mixing'
interchangeably. All three terms should, however, be kept conceptually separate from
'audio engineer' and 'audio engineering', which refer to the more electrical
engineering-based and computer programming-based work behind audio equipment
research, design, and construction.
2. For a general introduction to the concerns of linguistic anthropology, see Duranti
(1997). Studies of the relationship between the temporal unfolding of talk and work
practices within a science and technology studies framework can be found specifically
in Goodwin (1995: 272), who includes a useful list of work in conversation analysis in
note 31.

3. The Audio Engineering Society's Directory of Educational Programs is available at

< www.aes.org/educatin/directory/cfm >. The Mix Magazine Audio Education
Directory is available at < http://mixonline.com/ar/audio_mixaudioeducation/
index.htm > . Both were updated in 2001.
4. I borrow the term from Kealy's (1979) occupational sociology account of the sound
engineering profession.
5. Interview by author with P. Stevens, Tucson, AZ, USA, on 28 September 1994.
6. Julian Orr's (1996: 114-24) work on diagnosis of copy-machine problems provides a
useful analysis of the linguistic dimensions of diagnosis.
7. This transcript is intended to highlight the propositional content of the conversation,
rather than the specific dynamics of the speakers' interactions. In this sense, it differs
from conventional conversation analysis transcription in not detailing pause length,
overlaps, interruptions, and so forth. Nor does it systematically represent various
features of verbal performance such as pitch, intonation, or rhythm, which the
producer, in particular, uses as important communicative resources. Words in square
brackets are my insertions for clarification.
8. Semantically, this is not an obviously antonymic pair. 'Muffled' can take the meaning
'bundled up', to which 'wide open' may seem an obvious inverse. But 'muffled' may
equally mean 'deadened', to which 'wide open' is not clearly an opposite. In describing
musical sound, the second meaning of 'muffled' is more common, and it is clear that
DE and JM share knowledge of this referential convention.
9. The characterization of JM's laugh as covering his uncertainty is necessarily an
interpretation on my part, one based on prosodic features not easily revealed in a
written transcript of the conversation. This interpretation was informed by a later
discussion I had with JM about his conversation with DE.

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 Porcello: Speaking of Sound 757

10. A single-headed drum, similar in design to

higher pitch; often used in 'Latin' music.
11. Wendell is the brand name of a synthesize
Fagen (best known for his work with the ban
from dozens of digital samples of snares play
distinct sound that does not attempt to sound
only certain sonic features of a snare drum, no
themselves.

12. 'Sterility' is the term most often used by those who criticize the sound of electronic
snares as inauthentic. The term refers both to the tendency for electronic snares to have
a high proportion of upper-frequency white noise in their acoustic signal, and to the
lack of timbral variance that one would expect from human performance on a drum.
For a more extended discussion of drum sounds, technology, and authenticity, see
Porcello (2004).
13. DE clearly viewed the drum sound as problematic, in Suchman's (1987) sense. He
talked extensively before the session about the need to hire a drum tuner to solve the
problem of poor drum sounds - originating from the drums, not the way they were
played or recorded - in an earlier recording done by this band.
14. An important aspect of the 'situatedness' of this conversation and how it impacts the
particular discursive practices being utilized is precisely the unequal footing between
DE and JM. Not only is JM working for DE in this session, he is also an engineer-in-
training while DE is well respected as a record producer.
15. 'Sounding' has a broader meaning in this part of the conversation than it had at the
outset. Initially, drum 'sound' referred narrowly to acoustic features; in this segment of
the conversation, it has taken on additional meanings related to playing technique.
16. There is a final topic of discussion of this conversation - an additional attempt by JM
to get DE to name another musician whose sound he has in mind - that I have elided
from this paper.
17. A more detailed discussion of these codes can be found in Feld et al. (2004).
18. The specific references juxtaposed by DE and JM are not only aimed at getting a
particular sound from the drummer's snare: they also implicate how that sound will
situate the band musically, historically, and socially via the associations that different
drum sounds have for listeners given the sonic history of rock 'n' roll. Such
juxtapositions occur repeatedly throughout recording sessions, and suggest that in
studio work, musical consumption and production are discursively collapsed into a
mutual dependence around issues of sound and technology.
19. This is not to say that association and evaluation fail to remain deeply embedded in
production practice; one need only note the ubiquity - especially during mixing - of
having a CD or other recording playing that is used as a 'reference' or 'target' sound,
and the fact that the ability to 'a/b' between such recordings and the mix in progress is
a built-in function of recording consoles. My claim here is simply that associative and
evaluative moves become less a part of the linguistic practices that accompany the
recording process as one becomes more fully professionalized.
20. All numerical references are to various models of studio mics.
21. Though he uses different terminology, see Sudnow (2000 [1978]) for a related
discussion of embodied and experiential learning and manual performance.
22. A typical example might include a violinist being recorded via various stereo-imaging
techniques (x-y, middle-sides [MS], single-point capsule), with different mics (cardioid,
omnidirectional, dynamic, condenser) placed at different distances from the
instrument. Thus for each day of laboratory, it may be necessary to gain familiarity
with as many as 15 different recordings of a given instrument.
23. Scholarship concerning the relationship among talk, learning a trade, the performance
of work, and tacit and professional knowledge is extensive, though rarely with linguistic
anthropological concerns as the starting point. To compare the approach taken in this
paper with more ethnomethodological and sociological starting points, see Giddens
(1984) on discursive and practical consciousness; Lynch (1985) on talk in a research

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 758 Social Studies of Science 34/5

laboratory; Orr (1996) on talk about machines in

exposition on tacit knowledge (1958); Sternberg
approaches to the study of practical knowledge;
in musical rehearsals.

References

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Duranti, Alessandro (1997) Linguistic Anthropology (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge
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Feld (eds), Music Grooves (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press): 77-95.
Feld, Steven, Aaron A. Fox, Thomas Porcello & David W. Samuels (2004) 'Vocal
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Research on Language and Social Interaction 29: 247-90.

Thomas Porcello is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Vassar College

and co-director of the Vassar College Media Studies Development Project.
His research centers on linguistic and discursive resources for talking about
music, the anthropology of sound, and the history of sound recording
technology in the social sciences. He is the co-editor of Wired for Sound:
Engineering and Technologies in Sonic Cultures (Wesleyan University Press,
2004), an anthology on global sound engineering practices, and is finishing
a monograph on the relationships among technology, music, and speech-
about-music in studio sessions.

Address: Department of Anthropology, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie,

New York, NY 12604-0701, USA; fax +1 845 437 7287; email:
thporcello@vassar.edu

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