Nomenclature

My best-guess opinion is that you need your script to be 100% accessible to the reader at an agency or prodco who might move it toward sale and production. That reader is unlikely to be a musician and may not understand a more technical description. Failure to comprehend could easily be off-putting, maybe even enough to cause your script to land in the reject pile.

That said, the words tempo and crescendo are not unique to music, so they could certainly be incorporated.

Maryn, still somewhat deaf from the Allman Brothers

Jargon is important to establish your bonafides and increase "the spell" on the readers, but you cant stray too far off the reservation where reader's cant go.

Richard Feynman, the physicist, had a genius for communiciating complicated information so that almost anyone would understand the idea. Feynman said you dont really know your stuff until you can do this.

An idea

Write it a couple of different ways. One with the nomenclature and one without. Read them both out loud to a few people and see which they like better.

If that's too much work, write to the lowest common demoninator (just my opinion). You may eventually get a reader who doesn't know a tom tom from a snare.

However, I agree with Maryn in that there are several musical words that are very widely understood, including tempo and crescendo. Heck, I think crescendo just sounds cool. And sometimes, using words such as this in the proper context gives you instant credit. Tells the reader (or at least gives the strong impression) you're very familiar with the subject you're writing about.

Razor

There must be simpler ways to say all these things. The drum beat picks up... a flurry of cymbals... on stage, Mick does his spastic duck walk. The audience cheers, loving it. A wailing guitar riff ends the song. Change of tempo, next song's a slow ballad, Mick croons, the chicks are hypnotized, the guys head for the bar. 'Cause it's all about the people, man!

-Derek
My Web Page - shameless vampyre fiction & other shameless writings.
This is the heart of Camelot, not these stones, not these timbers, these palaces and towers. Burn them all and Camelot lives on, because it lives in us. Camelot is a belief that we hold in our hearts.

winterchase

I love Feynman's analogy of atomic scale. "Imagine," he said, " an orange inflated to the size of the Earth. The average atom in this orange fills the space of your livingroom. And in the middle of this room there is a speck of dust...the nucleus of our atom. Almost all of what an atom is is inside the nucleus. All matter is mostly nothing."

Winterchase said:

... Jargon is important to establish your bonafides and increase "the spell" on the readers, but you cant stray too far off the reservation where reader's cant go.

That, my friend, pulled the cord that lit up the answer; yes(!), establish bonafides, however lightly/sparingly, and in doing so put the reader at ease so he or she can get on with reading the story.

Why couldn't I see that? One thing's for sure; I ain't gonna forget it!

It would also cover what Maryn mentioned - two "groups" are looking and talking to each other. One film, one music and what Mayor suggested should satisfy both, if I can do a good balancing act and apply KISS (keep it simple, stupid) thoughout.

I was so thrilled that I called the musician doing the vetting. Other than warning me to never(!) call him before 2:00PM, he said it might help the (film) reader to change "rim shot" to "rim tap." Either, he added, would/might understand "rim tap" but "rim shot" might confuse someone who doesn't know music.

Again, guys! Thank you.

Sidebar to Maryn; how'd you like the Allman Brothers? Once you lose 25% of your hearing, you start enjoying concerts.

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The balance to be sruck is between being authoritative and condescending. Readers like to see that a writer knows what he or she is talking about, but not writers who become overbearing with their knowldge ("authority"). Use of metaphor or analogy can help.

Most readers are young and sufficiently into music to know what a "rim shot" is, methinks. Most will apprehend your jargon, by contxt if nothing else, and most will appreciate your accuracy in describing something, provided you don't become overbearing with it, which you probably won't.

Readers have read a jillion scripts, they've seen it all.

Goodwriterguy said:

The balance to be sruck is between being authoritative and condescending. Readers like to see that a writer knows what he or she is talking about, but not writers who become overbearing with their knowldge ("authority"). Use of metaphor or analogy can help.

Most readers are young and sufficiently into music to know what a "rim shot" is, methinks.

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Just be careful you don't have a drummer in a porno movie. It may get confusing.

It's all about clarity. My advice would be not to use jargon if it detracts from what it is you are trying to put across. If in dialogue you are trying to put across that the character knows a whole lot more than the audience about a subject then fair game.

Clarity over cleverness in descriptions from the writer/reader point of view though.

English Dave said:

It's all about clarity. My advice would be not to use jargon if it detracts from what it is you are trying to put across. If in dialogue you are trying to put across that the character knows a whole lot more than the audience about a subject then fair game.

Clarity over cleverness in descriptions from the writer/reader point of view though.

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It is indeed all about clarity; however, that said, I'd trade one or two sentences in my script that risk being a shade less than clear for a reader reaction that goes like, "Man! This guy has a great voice! I'm in good hands with this guy!" If you know what I mean, and I'm sure you do.

In the screenplay it's the writing as much as it is the movie and the story, and by that I mean of course the actual wordsmithing of descriptive paragraphs: word choices, phrasing, intonations, pacing, tempo, energy, color, pizzazz, quirks, lyrical quality, new word associations (the meaning of which are instantly communicated) ... and how one assembles words to form meaningful expressions.

The joke is you can't overwrite either. But if that much is in hand, you've a leg up in the deal, and if you happen to have a dynamite premise going ... wolla! Somebody's gonna like it!

Goodwriterguy said:

It is indeed all about clarity; however, that said, I'd trade one or two sentences in my script that risk being a shade less than clear for a reader reaction that goes like, "Man! This guy has a great voice! I'm in good hands with this guy!"

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Absolutely agree. But perhaps not in the first 10 pages?

I know that isn't what you mean, and that 'voice' is a whole 'nuther can of worms in which knowing your 'world' can cross over into knowing 'your story' and telling it in such a way that the reader sees your fingerprints on every page and likes it.

Not a great definition of voice but the closest I've been able to come to.

English Dave said:

Absolutely agree. But perhaps not in the first 10 pages?

I know that isn't what you mean, and that 'voice' is a whole 'nuther can of worms in which knowing your 'world' can cross over into knowing 'your story' and telling it in such a way that the reader sees your fingerprints on every page and likes it.

Not a great definition of voice but the closest I've been able to come to.

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Actually, I'd prefer they were in the first ten pages, because if the person thinks they're "in good hands" with me, that impression will help bouy them through any rought spots or bumps in the road they may encounter along the way to the end. But hey, anywhere will do.

The sum of the effect of those wordsmithing things I mentioned is your voice. Simply put, your voice is how you say things, or write them. Tons of editing is a necessary part of that work. Every paragraph becomes a project. You build it and rebuild it, then tear it all down and build it again, until you are satisfied. The risk is it becomes overwritten and hard, instead of free and lyrical. I think the way to keep things in good form is to edit/revise/develop over time ... too much time on a paragraph in any given sitting can lead to ossification of the text, you beat it to death.

I like to think my paragraphs have several iterations in them and they undoubtedly do, but they have been spread out over three or four drafts and a polish in the course of four to nine months, so no sentence or paragraph got a lot of time in any one sitting, at least of course after the first draft.

I do read throughs and on-the-fly editing/revising just on captions and slugs; read throughs and edits on-the-fly for scene endings only; read throughs and edits on-the-fly for scene openings only; a read through for theatricality only, and so on ... and, of course, dialogue is the biggie in a polish.

Now, this is a style of writing. I never wanna have earlier pages significantly more developed than later ones. I won't work on a scene for days to get it up to a polish when the next scene is still more than a draft earlier. I'll work it up, make it better, and then move on. I know I'm gonna be back to it before all is said and done. I like to bring the whole script along at about the same pace of development. Mind you at this stage this is all pretty much intuitive. I've always done it this way, probably always will. Works for me.

But we all have a voice. Like it or not, know it or not, if one writes, they have a voice. If someone gave you an unattributed piece of writing and Hunter S. Thompson had written it, you'd know immediately it was his work ... because you would recognize his voice. Same with Kerouc or Hemingway or Shane Black or David Mamet.

Developing one's voice is writer's work.

And speaking of writer's work, I have some to get back to ...