Wednesday, October 25, 2000

In Online Musicology Journal, UCLA Graduate Students Add (Drum Roll!) Sound Clips By JESSICA LUDWIG A techno beat throbs in the background. A quotation from Ovid materializes slowly as white letters against a dark city streetscape: "Echo repeats the last words spoken and gives back the sounds she has heard." This is the opening page of Echo, a journal created in the musicology department at the University of California at Los Angeles. "We liked the fact that an echo is a sonic event, because that's so appropriate for a journal about music, especially one that actually includes sound," says Jacqueline Warwick, a third-year doctoral student in musicology who is editor of Echo. Its contents include interviews, book and film reviews, and articles on classical and popular music. The journal's editors want to appeal to scholars outside of musicology who write about music, and Ms. Warwick points out that the journal is "music-centered" rather than "musicological." The Internet allows the editors to add aural components that can make articles about music more accessible. "It is very difficult to write about what music sounds like without using very technical language," says Ms. Warwick. She is among the 12 graduate students who sit on Echo's editorial board and run the peer-reviewed journal. An advisory board of faculty members from various disciplines also oversees the journal, which publishes twice yearly. Two or three people on the editorial board read each submission and then send it to two external referees. The reviewers also determine where hypertext links or audio clips would elucidate descriptions of musical pieces or add dramatic flair. For example, an article called "Orchestral Corporate" in the latest issue opens with a score that gives the reader a taste of corporate music. The university's Center for Digital Arts provides the necessary computer resources to produce the multimedia journal. "Echo is an interdisciplinary space that broadens what music is and who can play with it," says Robert Fink, an assistant professor of musicology at the University of California at Los Angeles who is a contributor and served as a technical adviser to the journal. Mr. Fink has been told by editors of print journals that "music notation kills readership by 90 percent." He compares the reaction to opening a book and seeing a complex equation that one is unable to solve, but he adds that in such a book "there's no way to perform an equation in a way that people can understand." In an online music journal, however, sound clips can help the reader tremendously. Ms. Warwick is excited at the "interactivity" that Echo offers, and she says she hopes that negative attitudes toward online journals will change with time. Mr. Fink acknowledges that writing for Echo probably won't get someone tenured, but "you will get noticed," he says. He adds that the journal "is aiming to have discursive power, which is slightly different from having institutional power." Each week, individual articles in the issue garner 20 to 80 hits. The journal's editors plan to increase reader engagement by expanding Echo's interactive features. Ms. Warwick says the spring issue will include a bulletin-board discussion of the Napster debate from a historical perspective. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

The decline of the male college student is greatly exaggerated, report contends N.C.A.A. levies minor punishments against U. of Minnesota for major scandal Bush appointees to university boards gave heavily to his campaigns, group reports Israeli universities, fearful of violence, ban political demonstrations 37 people at Sicilian university are charged with Mafia involvement In a reversal, ethnic Fijian economist wins top job at U. of South Pacific Clinton names 59 recipients of Early Awards for scientists and engineers In online musicology journal, U.C.L.A. graduate students add (drum roll!) sound clips A new institution named for Norman Borlaug will offer agriculture courses online