Music and Arts Schools Editing and Proofreading Services

Arts teaching runs on feedback delivered to someone who has just made something in front of other people. A student finishing a performance is at their least defended, and what they hear in the next thirty seconds shapes both what they practise and whether they continue at all. Teachers in this field are usually excellent practitioners with no training in how to say the difficult thing, working one to one, with a written record consisting of whatever they scribbled in a notebook.

We edit what music schools, conservatoires, dance and arts schools produce — lesson records and practice notes for students, assessment and adjudication comments, examination and audition preparation material, programme and syllabus documentation, practice guidance and technique notes, recital and performance programme copy, prospectus and audition requirement information, teacher guidance on feedback and standardisation, safeguarding and one-to-one teaching policies, physical and vocal health guidance for students, parent communications for younger students, competition and festival material, ensemble and rehearsal documentation, and funding and bursary material. Our editors work on the written feedback that outlives the lesson.

The written feedback comment is where a student's practice is either directed or wasted, and the failure is generality. A comment saying that intonation was inconsistent, the interpretation lacked conviction, and the piece needs more work identifies nothing the student can go and do. We write these so the observation is located precisely — bars 34 to 41, the descending passage in the left hand, the entry after the second rest — since a student cannot fix a problem they cannot find; so the diagnosis is separated from the symptom, because flat intonation on a run is usually a technical cause rather than a listening failure and telling a student to listen harder is useless; so exactly one thing is named as the priority for the next fortnight, with what to do and roughly how long it should take; and so what worked is stated as specifically as what did not, because a student who cannot tell what they are already doing well will change it. The same discipline applies to adjudication, where a comment sheet is the only thing a candidate takes away from a competition they may have prepared six months for.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including student records and material about identifiable young people. We are editors rather than musicians, teachers or adjudicators, and we offer no view on technique, interpretation, assessment or any grading decision. What we can do is make feedback specific enough to act on and student material clear.