Offenberger 1 Language of Production: The Genres of the Recording Industry The conversations we have daily are countless.

Whether you are at work standing around the water cooler, in a group meeting, or even having lunch, it is phenomenal how one topic/genre can easily change into another. Each conversation we have, or paper that we read, heavily depends on the actions we make socially. Newspapers, magazines, letters and infinite more samples depend on the type of community, environment and atmosphere you are in. When you think about it, there are so many ways to control our everyday lives and how we perceive them. Some of those ways include the language we use, the level of knowledge we have on specific subjects, and how quickly we can adapt to each genre. As each day passes, our ways of understanding one another and our knowledge changes rapidly. In order to keep up, we must maintain the dexterities that are used in various social instances whether it is at or outside of the workplace. Keep in mind that there are large dynamics between each person in a specific field. Throughout the recording industry, there have been many changes including types of mechanics used, the language, and other technologies that no one would have thought could have been reached when recording first started. In this day and age, audio engineers talk about the latest DAW (digital audio workstation) upgrade that has come out. They talk about DIY projects where you can use only things in your garage where in 1877, Edison was trying to figure out how to first record sound on a tinfoil cylinder! This is one type of dynamism, which can relate to Carol Berkenkotter and Thomas Huckins article Rethinking Genre From a Sociocognitive Perspective. In this article, they refer to Bitzers rhetorical situation discussion in

Offenberger 2 1968 that explains, year to year, comparable situations occurs, prompting comparable responses [] and, because we experience situations and the rhetorical responses to them, a form of discourse is not only established but comes to have a power of its own (479). The types of recording techniques have changed expeditiously throughout the years and because of this, there is such a large difference between the old language and new in the industry. This difference is why there are experts in every field of audio from creation to restoration. In magazines such as Recording: the magazine for the recording musician, there are articles for audiences from beginner to expert audio engineer. This is one of the reasons it is so popular and why Ohio University carries it and supplies it for free to their audio students. Whether you are a freshman to senior, graduate student, or even professor, this magazine can be very useful because it relates to all levels. This writing technique used by reviewers and interviewers is another fine example of dynamism especially in form of a magazine. Also, by supplying it in a college is a great way to advertise. For example, there are a few articles in this specific edition where they explain the differences between types of DAW and another article on microphones. When an audience is given positive information on a specific product, they are more willing to purchase it. Due to of the content that is included within these articles users now know have the information they need in order to choose or build equipment wisely. Another obstacle however, would be how to make an article easy to understand by all levels and still include the content that is imperative to make the point. For example, there is one article in Recording magazine where they have

Offenberger 3 gotten an email from an avid reader about not being able to understand some of the content. This is something that is always happening no matter what genre you are writing for. In most cases, there is someone that is not able to understand what you are trying to explain to them. One of the solutions that Recording magazine shows us is where an individual did not understand the concept of frequencies and so one of the writers from the magazine explained it to him. The writer was able to bring his language dictionary down a notch to laymans terms in order to connect with the writer and help him to understand what exactly frequencies were. This ability takes a lot of time and skill to conquer. For most, it is imperative for an expert in audio engineering to be able to explain to fundamentals to the lease knowledgeable of people. One can relate this to a teacher or professor where the same instances come up. Vast majorities of people are always in need of further explanation and when you can get down the form and content of a genre, it can then be easier explained to a population. Beaufort is able to analyze that there are multiple way to viewing social situations that can provide the type of content for an article. Anne Beaufort suggests in her article Classrooms sensitive to the New Workplace, that the most comprehensive way to understand social context [is through] the way written texts function within discourse communities that share common purposes (185). This means that every discourse community (profession/workplace) has a specific form of writing that they use in their everyday lives. Truthfully, I have never dealt with any type of writing in my profession other than a sonic portrait, which is where an artist goes on a walk and records everything that they hear sonically. Of course there are other types of

Offenberger 4 writing in my field but those are mainly reviews and informative pieces on products. What Beaufort is trying to demonstrate is how those articles affect the people who are reading them. Are they informative? How do individuals use the information given to function inside their field? As long as they include information like that, they are sure to be on the right track for the consumer. Discourse communities often give writers the most ideas on what categories they should further interpret. For example, say you are an audio engineer and you are in the studio with the talent and some other mixing engineers. In some instances, the talent has no idea what methods it takes to record a piece properly and so the engineers have to be able to explain it to them. When restrictions on language come up, there arrives a perfect opportunity to create an article on how a mixing engineer can relate to the talent and define the dynamism between the two. Basically that is what the workplace is about in the recording industry. Finding out what can someone improve on and how to relate and communicate with one another. As for form, there really is none. The content of a piece is really what matters most because without the correct content and language in music or an article on recording, you have nothing. Without the right content, you have Dirks example of a ransom note gone wrong. In this community, there are constant competitions between each provider of services or products and this is where content comes in handy. When an audience is trying to look for the right product, they know what they want and what theyre looking for. If an article or review does not contain the right information then that

Offenberger 5 product will not be chosen. Also, when companies know what their clients are looking for, then it is easier to put out a product that has exactly what they need. Overall, this magazine is able to relate to different levels of the audio engineers/ mixers including specific information on types of software to use, mechanics, and technologies. This way, the audience would have the option to be as dynamic as they want because there is such a large difference in the language that is used throughout Recordings entire magazine yet every article can still relate to each level of engineer. Also, by using feedback from faithful writers, they can understand the subjects in the discourse community that some individuals need further instruction on. By giving more instruction, their audience can continue to grow and so can the subjects they talk about which include reviews, DIY projects, and the history of the recording industry and where it might go next. Even if there is no form included in these articles, the main concept to grasp is that it is the content that matters. As long as each article can focus on its audience and provide information that is reliable to them, that is what matters the most. Thanks to Beaufort, Dirks, Berkenkotter and Huckin, there is now a better understanding of how dynamism, social actions, form, and content can change the genre of a discourse community drastically.

Offenberger 6 Appendix Recording: The Magazine for the Recording Musician. August 2013.

Offenberger 7 Works Cited Beaufort, A. (1999). Learning new genres: The convergence of knowledge and action. In Beauforts Writing in the Real World (pp. 103-137). New York: Teachers College Press. Berkenkotter, C. and Huckin, T. (1993). Rethinking genre from a sociocognitive perspective. Written Communication, 10(4), 475-509. Dirk, K. (2010). Navigating genres. In Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1. Retrieved from http://www.writingspaces.org/essays.