by focusing on brief examples from four writers – journalists anthony decurtis and lester bangs, academics sheila whiteley and susan mcclary – this piece is designed to inspire and/or shame readers into paying closer attention to how they use language when they describe or analyse music. an effort was made to keep the tone of the critiques informal and conversational, thus approximating the mood of the kind of session the author has found effective in more than thirty years of editing at the village voice, and many years of teaching writing to ambitious undergraduates as well as a class full of journalism grad students. in such sessions, the intention is always to better enable the writer to say what he or she wants to say as convincingly as possible. if ideas are called into question, that is because the editor believes them to be overly familiar, inconsistent, or already discarded by the writer's audience. what is at issue is the writing, not the writer. this is not to deny, unfortunately, that sometimes hurt feelings ensue.

it should be added that the references to magic initially addressed the conference theme ‘this magic moment’. given the essay's nuts-and-bolts attitude, however, they retain a more general relevance.