MusicWeb International Home page is here
Would you like to help MusicWeb
International?
Donations
Webmasters needed
Reviewers needed
Donations
Disc sales and advertising do not bring in sufficient income to maintain
MusicWeb so we rely on donations to keep us going. These can be one-off
or annual payments by cheque or PayPal or a monthly standing order. Sterling
cheques may be posted to Len Mullenger at the address below. Dollar cheques
are expensive to convert to sterling so unless you are thinking of a large
payment it is better to pay by PayPal. PayPal
donations page here Please do not use PayPal to e-mail me. If you
ask, I will set up a special page for you with a PayPal button to the
value you specify (in British Pounds)
Standing orders should be made to the following
Bank: NatWest, Coventry City Branch, Broadgate,
Coventry, CV1 1ZZ, UK
Sort Code 56-00-45
Account MusicWeb
Acc. No. 96678321
Use the IBAN number if you are outside the
UK
GB73NWBK56004596678321
If required the BIC number is NWBKGB2L
Reviewers
needed.
Concert reviewers
These are urgently needed in Scotland: Glasgow
and Edinburgh - Birmingham, Liverpool, Northern
Ireland and Dublin but anyone else may apply.
We would attempt to get your concert ticket/s
but there would be no expenses or other remuneration.
If you think this might interest you please
contact Bill Kenny regional.editor@zen.co.uk
Classical (or Jazz)
CD, DVD and Download reviewers
Contact
Len Mullenger using the link above
You would receive a list
of discs available for review every two to four
weeks. You would select the discs that interest
you and tell me the maximum number you would
like to receive. I will then allocate discs
as fairly as possible among the team. You may
live in any part of the world although we would
particularly like to hear from interested UK
parties. You are expected to complete your reviews
within a month. You may keep the disc but there
is no other remuneration.
We have had such a good
response for CD reviewers that I would ask you
to wait until January 2009 before applying.
However, we would be interested in recieving
copmoser biographies or other general articles.
Web Pages
We need anyone who can help to convert Word
files into HTML files and add them to the index
files on the site. It takes about 30 minutes
to convert each review. We use the simplest
form of stand-alone hard-coded pages. MusicWeb
is not a database driven site.We can train you
how to do this if necessary. It would be helpful
if you use broadband at home. If you are interested
please contact Len Mullenger using the link
above.
CD Reviewing
To get some idea of whether you would like
to work with us here are some details and
how you have to present a review:-
1. We do not pay a fee to our reviewers;
neither do we pay expenses. You do, however,
keep the CD/DVD/Book provided you review it.
You are not usually allocated discs to review
but you receive a list of available discs
from Len Mullenger from which you make a selection.
Rob Barnett may send you additional surprise
discs that he has received. We expect the
review inside three weeks.
2. Reviews should be AT LEAST 300 words long.
We do not accept brief, capsule
reviews.
3. Layout for the heading is detailed and
must follow the accepted format (take a look
at a few reviews on the site).This can be
very irksome to some people who have to list
in great detail the contents of each anthology
CD they review. In many cases the text can
be captured from company websites but it MUST
be formatted to follow our specific heading
pattern and style.
4. Len Mullenger scans all the covers of
disc he sends out but Rob Barnett does not.
Reviews are to be sent to Rob Barnett in Word
format and scans of the cover of any discs
received from him must be sent to Len Mullenger.
Reviews are submitted
to 
and at the same time to 
Please remember to send to the backup address
as well as we do sometimes lose reviews in
the process of editing and preparing for the
web.
5. The subject line of your covering email
must identify the CD by surname of composer,
title of one piece, one artist and label.
That helps us choose discs for the daily presentation
6. One review per email - helps us keep track.
Similarly each scan should come separately.
7. We happily carry multiple reviews of the
same disc. The fact that you see a review
(even several) onsite of a disc we have given
you does not mean that you do not need to
write a review - we still need YOUR review.
Multiple reviews usually appear in separate
months.
8. Reviews should wherever possible include
comparison (usually in broad terms) with other
recordings whether deleted or not and in the
case of music that may be unfamiliar some
description of style and who else it sounds
like (can make for crass comparisons but it
gives some guideline and encouragement to
explore).
9. Reviews should avoid high technical levels
of musical analysis - be literate, accurate,
lively but always accessible. We can amend
reviews without further reference to you -
substance is rarely changed but layout, spelling,
grammar, errors, endless sentences, clarification,
cliches and hordes of brackets are often adjusted/culled.
We have no time to engage in getting drafts
of reviews approved by the writers.
10. Reviews are to be submitted to Rob Barnett
as Word attachments - He is prepared to consider
alternatives but please discuss and agree
with him first.
11. Initially you may have to review the
discs we want you to review rather than ones
you might necessarily have wanted to review,
although we will, as time goes by, try to
accommodate your expertise and music preferences.
Reviewers need to be willing general practitioners
prepared to take on the less popular discs.
Very soon after you start you will begin receiving
lists of discs available for review. You email
Len Mullenger with a request for the discs
you would like to review. Bear in mind that
the lists go out to some 50-60 volunteer reviewers
(about 30 are writing at any one time). Len
strikes the best compromise possible but older
hands and those who are especially productive
and reliable are given preference. New reviewers
need to work an apprenticeship with less desirable
discs before they can stand much of a chance
of reviewing the more 'popular' discs.
Bear in mind that we are not full-timers
and yet we place some 10 reviews on site every
working day. There is a break over Christmas
and New Year.
In general reviews appear on-site within
a couple of weeks of being submitted. Occasionally
they will take longer.
We need willing reviewers who are prepared
to work to help us keep up with the growing
influx of CDs. All CDs sent out to reviewers
must be either reviewed or returned to Len.
Reviewers can drop us at any time although
must return to us any discs unreviewed that
have been allocated to them. We can at any
time drop reviewers and unreviewed discs must
be returned to us.
If any questions please feel free to ask
Rob Barnett.
Do let Rob Barnett or Len Mullenger know
whether you are interested and if so please
send your postal address. It's probably more
enjoyable than the above might suggest. When
you reply please indicate your musical preferences
and background .
All best wishes
Rob Barnett Classical Editor
Len Mullenger Founder MusicWeb International
Plagiarism
As anyone who moves in academic circles will
be aware, plagiarism has become a major problem
particularly with the ease of cut-and-paste
from anything on the Internet. We must avoid
any such criticism of the material posted
by MusicWeb. We have had a couple of instances
which I hope were dealt with sensitively.
I also occasionally receive notification from
reviewers where they feel other sites have
plagiarised their work. You may not be aware
that we do have a number of franchising arrangements
where other sites such as Arkiv Music and
Classicsonline are entitled to reproduce our
reviews and the labels themselves are free
to use our reviews on their own websites.
But that is not plagiarism, which is the passing
off of someone else's work as your own.
CD booklets, concert programmes, books and
newspaper articles are valuable sources of
information to reviewers.
Where such sources
are used it is best to make it absolutely
clear by quoting exactly what was in the original
and then giving an attribution. The use of
quotation marks or italics is also useful.
Such quotations should also not be a major
part of the review. You might also use phrases
such as 'I am indebted to Joe Bloggs for his
informative programme notes'
Avoid re-phrasing any 'borrowed' material
as it then looks as if you are trying to pass
off what is copyright material as your own.
Record labels put out press releases with
the direct intention that the material may
be used by reviewers. This is what you see
if you look up a disc on a site such as MDT
that I often provide links to when offering
discs for review. Other people can see this
as well and would soon detect if it had been
used in a review in a non-attributed way.
Some reviewers do tend to quote from other
reviews such as Gramophone as if that legitimised
their own review. I think we should do this
as little as possible. Our readers want to
know what we think not what Gramophone thinks.
You may, however, use the disc details you
find on MDT and other sites to produce headers.
This has been produced by the record label
specifically for this purpose.
Be assured I am just covering our backs here
so don't take this general reminder as criticism.
I just feel it's timely to bring this to everyone's
attention.
Meantime do keep up the good work. I appreciate
the effort and creativity that goes into your
reviews. Keep them coming.
Len Mullenger
