The Beagle Factor
Secrecy and pretense have been a part of music education since at least the Middle Ages. Cliques have had their own notation. Masters have been reluctant to share their techniques for fear that they would lose their competitive edge. Textbooks were written in an overwrought, highfalutin academic style, perhaps to create a sense of awe and mystique around the author. But that doesn’t do the reader/student much good. I hope that we’re growing out of that now, in this age of sharing information.
You’ll see this if you compare several works discussing the same subject matter. At NEC, we had a seminar devoted to this. We looked a counterpoint and harmony books by Schoenberg, Piston, and some others, and compared their styles. Some were clear and helpful. Others were as dense as mortgage documents. But the ideas were the same. A fugue is a fugue. Why then, not compete for the clearest explanation? The reality of what’s published is far from that.
In my editing, I find that some authors put a lot of effort into putting on such airs and trappings of academia. This is especially common in two groups: highly educated musicians born before about 1950 and people who grew up very poor, in rough or highly rural neighborhoods with poor schools. The result is long rambling sentences, awkward and esoteric words, and a condescending affect.
Yuck. Clarity is so much more helpful to the reader.
So, the laborious process goes, of profound, deep editing. When editing gets severe, an unfortunate consequence can be that the writer’s personality can get lost. This is a danger with all writing that is very far from the mark of what’s appropriate or helpful for the reader. The life gets edited out of it. The baby goes out with the bath water, and it can be tough work getting it back in.
Which brings me to the Westminster dog show. Congratulations to Uno the beagle and all those who played a part in awarding him his Best in Show victory on February 11, 2008. As I am part of a two-beagle household, with my beagle in-law making three, this is big news around here, and I will confess to probably spending too much time reading about this grand event. A beagle hasn’t won Best in Show before.
Particularly of note are some of the details regarding Uno’s performance. Not only was he considered the noisiest in show, but he also reportedly nibbled on a brand new sign and nipped a microphone during an interview. This is important news: it means that he is a proper beagle, not some over-groomed robot dog, bred for chasing ribbons rather than rabbits. Uno is a dog’s dog. I will tell you from experience: real beagles destroy furniture and toys, bark and howl, and lick even clean dishes in the dishwasher. They are like Uno.
Uno had a good bath, and likely a pedicure, and was on his best behavior for the show. But he was still Uno the beagle. The result was that the crowd gave him an uncharacteristically enthusiastic standing ovation. Despite being on his best behavior, he was still himself. That’s what won the day. He was the perfect dog. And he was still a beagle.
As writers and editors, let’s take note. There are many ways to present concepts. Truth and clarity are our ideals. But the human element—in Uno’s case, the “beagle factor”—that makes it unique and fosters an emotional tie with the reader.
I am reminded of a project by a highly beloved educator, who was just a terrible writer. In his first draft, he came across as condescending and rambling, and inclined towards useless information, redundancy, and digressions. It was such an obnoxious first proof.
After four years editing his project, which included two different editors who eventually gave up in disgust, the project landed on my desk, and I had the directive to either save it or kill it. I had seen the first draft and knew how it started. Then, I read the latest edited version, and saw that it had become a lifeless lump. It was utterly without any beagle factor left. Mostly inoffensive, but b-o-r-i-n-g. And it was about two hundred pages too long.
I met with the author and found him to be extremely charismatic and engaging, in person. He was also really, really smart, and kind, and seemed to care that I understood the concepts he was explaining to me. And he was sooooo funny! If he was a dog, he’d be a beagle, and his overly edited manuscript was a pale reflection of himself. Who knows why his writing was so off, but the editing mostly moved it sideways, rather than up. The grammar was cleaned up, and the offensive bits were removed. But, well, yuck again.
Here’s how we saved it.
I went through the book, chapter by chapter, and came up with lists of questions about the content. When there was a concept missing, I formed a question to generate the right answer about it. When something was boring, I’d ask for an example. When something was condescending, I’d ask him to explain it again. He was so fed up with the project at that point that he didn’t really remember much about what was in the manuscript and what was not.
Rather than asking him to write again, I interviewed him, doing a one-hour session per chapter, based on my lists of questions.
In these interviews, he was his usual charming self. He told jokes and stories, he used time-tested teaching strategies to explain difficult theoretical concepts. He swore like a sailor, as was his wont. He’d go off on tangents, but then the questions would bring him back. They were delightful sessions because he was such a fun person. To him, it was really a process of chatting about a subject that he loved, rather than writing a book.
I transcribed these interviews, and used what he said there to fill in or replace what was in the original chapters. Some of his stories were really not appropriate for print, but others became useful metaphors/examples, especially after some gentle modifications. Some of them wound up exemplifying points that were besides what originally prompted them, but they were still his stories. In other words, we captured his “schtick.” I gave him the chapters, which he felt were in his own voice in a way that his own actual writing never was, and he made small technical adjustments, but overall was very happy with how it turned out.
The result was a clear, concise book that is now getting glowing reviews. People comment how they like his warm style, and feel like he’s right in the room with them. His past students commented that they were so happy to have his teaching in book form. He went back into his book, and it became alive again. The book is clear and informative, but it’s also got that beagle factor.
There are many ways that writing can be good. If publishing is your goal, remember the importance of the beagle factor. On this eve of Valentine’s Day, let’s remember that it’s the beagle factor that makes the difference between like and love.
