Grateful Dead Tape Sharing Discourse Community

Grateful Dead Tape Sharing

Grant Thomas
University of Texas at El Paso
Grateful Dead Tape Sharing Discourse Community

Grateful Dead Tape Sharing Discourse Community

Introduction

The World Wide Web has enabled us to come into contact with people from all over the

world. These people we encounter often share a common belief or hobby with us. Upon finding

like-minded people we might decide to join an online community. Just about any interest,

ideology, or belief is sure to have a community dedicated to it online. These communities that we

join are often discourse communities. John Swales, professor of linguistics at the University of

Michigan defines a discourse community as a group of people who share an interest or goal and

use a common language to achieve this goal(Swales, 1990). Swales gives six characteristics that

help identify a discourse community. These characteristics are how the community achieve its

goal.

The Grateful Dead, a band that is more known for their live performances than their

studio albums. Between the years of 1965 to 1995 the Grateful Dead played more than 2,300 live

shows. The community that I have chosen to focus on is the dedicated fans who have made it

their mission to provide live recordings of as many of these shows as possible. Originally

grateful dead fans, deadheads, would record the shows on cassette tapes while attending a

concert. Nowadays, this is done via various file sharing sites online. Through their own means

of communication this community is only improving the quality and quantity of recordings of the

dead for fellow fans. The original tapers, the fans that collected all the recordings they could get

their hands on, and the people who converted the tapes to digital format are all vital to the

sharing of these live recordings. One could not work without the other and the communication

between fans is the only reason deadheads, like myself, are able to enjoy the music today. In the
Grateful Dead Tape Sharing Discourse Community

following pages I will analyze this community against Swales’ and Kain/Wardle’s’ theories to

determine if it is, in fact, a discourse community.

Literature Review

In his article, “The Concept of Discourse Community” John Swales attempts to

determine what a discourse community is. Swales assigns six characteristics that a community

must have in order to be classified as a discourse community. These communities must: have a

broadly agreed set of common public goals, mechanism of intercommunicating between its

members, use its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback,

utilize and hence possess one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, have

acquired some specific lexis, and have a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of

relevant content and discoursal expertise Swales, J. (1990).

Much of the article is Swales first defining a speech community and then explaining how

a discourse community is different from a speech community. A speech community is a group of

people who share linguistic forms, regulative rules and cultural concepts. Swales states that

although a discourse community does in fact include a speech community, it is more than that.

There are some considerable differences between the two communities. Firstly, members of a

speech community usually communicate with people in the same local area, while a discourse

community contains members from several different locations. Second, a speech community

focuses on the needs of the group while a discourse community focuses on what is necessary to

achieve their goal. Thirdly, not like a speech community which obtains its members by birth,
Grateful Dead Tape Sharing Discourse Community

adoption or accident, a discourse community enlists by training, persuasion, or relevant

qualifications (Swales,1990)

In “Activity Theory: An Introduction for the Writing Classroom” Donna Kain and

Elizabeth Wardle explain how people in different communities complete various tasks and the

tools they use to do so. Kain and Wardle define an activity system as “a group of people who

share a common object and motive over time, as well as the wide range of tools they use together

to act on that object and realize that motive” (275). Kain and Wardle also provide six elements

that are all intertwined and reliant on each other. These are: tools, motives, community, division

of labor, rules and a subject of study.

Methods

In order to analyze the Grateful Dead taping community, I joined a couple of websites

that host file sharing between grateful dead fans. First, I created an account and read the rules of

each website. I then read the forums and or message boards. This is the main mode of

communication within these communities. I also did some research on how the sharing of

Grateful Dead recordings transitioned from old cassette tapes to high quality FLAC files.

Discussion

As stated previously the Grateful Dead were active for 30 years and played over 2,300

live shows during that time. Thankfully fans have been recording their shows for most of this

time and have swapped various recordings with other fans to increase the available library of

recordings. This was all done by a large group of people with a common goal, to make the music

of the Grateful Dead available to those who seek it. By cross examining this community and the
Grateful Dead Tape Sharing Discourse Community

articles of Swales and Kain/Wardle I will decide weather or not it can be classified as a discourse

community.

The first criteria a discourse community must meet is that it must have a set of common

goals Swales, J. (1990). In the taper community the goal is simple, to provide the public with as

many digital recordings as they can. However, not just any audio file will do. The tapers go

through every recording of a particular show and find the highest quality sounds. Sometimes

even combining several different recordings to make a master file. Once converted, these files

are put on various websites such as archive.org, nugz.net, and etree.org and offered to the public

free of charge. These websites, recordings, and conversion programs are all tools that the group

uses like an activity system. “The subject(s) use tools to accomplish their object(ives) and

achieve their intended outcomes. (Kain, D., Wardle, E. 2005).

Tapers reside all over the world and thanks to the internet can communicate with each

other in various forms. “A discourse community has mechanism of intercommunicating between

its members” (Swales, 1990, 221). The majority of communication between members occurs on

message boards on these websites. Users can ask questions, make requests for certain shows, or

just chat with other deadheads. Many of these websites also offer the option to directly message

a specific member. I have also come across members who have known each other for quite a

while and exchange numbers and sometimes even meet up in person at concerts or events.

Swales’ third criterion is that this community must use their communication to provide

feedback and information Swales, J. (1990).. Upon exploration of the message boards I found

that members did not hesitate to tell the uploader if there was room for improvement. They might

say something like “the audio get’s really fuzzy when Box of Rain hits the two-minute

mark”(etree.org) Another member might state that they have a different copy of that song and
Grateful Dead Tape Sharing Discourse Community

offer to send the uploader the file so that an adjustment can be made. On many occasions I was

amazed at how kind this community was to each other and how open they were to receiving

feedback from other members.

Just as in any discourse community the taper community has guidelines that help one

respond to a particular situation. Swales calls these genres, and they are yet another criteria for

would be discourse communities. For example, it is a known fact among the community that

upon uploading a show you must include as much information about the show as possible. The

uploader includes the date the show was played, the venue which it was performed in and any

posters, art, or other advertisements that correspond with the show. In addition, the type of

recording weather it be a soundboard or audience recording is to be listed along with song titles

and the minute markers in which they change to the next song. In fact, if there are any hiccups

which were unable to be fixed in the recording the uploader usually makes note of these as well.

“In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis”

(Swales, 1990, 222). Simply put the community has its own lingo. A major hurdle I first faced

when exploring this community was trying to understand what was being said online.

Soundboards, for instance are a type of recording where the taper was actually connected to the

soundboard during recording. These are preferred among fans because the sound quality is

usually superior to any other type of recording. FLAC, free lossless audio codec, is like MP3 but

none of the sound quality is lost during the conversion from tape to digital file. All of the

particular vocabulary in this community helps to clarify which kind of file a potential

downloader is viewing.
Grateful Dead Tape Sharing Discourse Community

The last criteria that is mandatory for a discourse community is that it’s members “have a

threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise”

Swales, J. (1990). Although all members are vital to the taper community there are definitely

various levels of knowledge within this circle of dedicated fans. For instance, some members

predate the internet age. One user I corresponded with via a subreddit told me that he had began

trading tapes in the 80’s and eventually started patching those tapes to a website called etree.org.

(Groovecon1, personal communication, 9-19-2018) Members like groovecon1 are a very

valuable asset to the taping community. I want to make it clear that even new members are made

to feel welcome and older members do not hesitate to offer help or tips to anyone who asks.

These new members also help the community if by nothing else, boosting morale. Some of these

members have been doing this for a long time and expressed that the new members absorption of

the culture is what keeps them going.

Conclusion

After much research and analyzing the theories of Kain/Wardle and Swales I can

conclude that the Grateful Dead Taping Community fits the criteria of a discourse community.

These loyal fans use tools such as communication, their own lingo, and various levels of

expertise to reach their common goal, to provide the highest quality recordings possible. This

network of fans all over the world has used the internet to their benefit. They are thriving more

than ever. I have a new respect for these deadheads as well as a sense of gratitude that they cared

enough about this music to want to share it with the world.

Grateful Dead Tape Sharing Discourse Community

References:

Kain, D., Wardle, E. (2005). Activity Theory: An Introduction for the Writing Classroom. In E.

Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.), Writing about writing: A college reader (p.277). Boston, MA:

Bedford/St. Martin’s

Swales, J. (1990). The concept of discourse community. In E. Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.),

Writing about writing: A college reader (p212-227). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s

Groovecon1 (2018, 9-19-2018). Gratefuldead [Online forum]. Retrieved from Reddit.com