Behind the Editor’s Desk

Secrecy and pretense have been a part of music education since at least the Middle Ages. Cliques have had their own notation. Masters have been reluctant to share their techniques for fear that they would lose their competitive edge. Textbooks were written in an overwrought, highfalutin academic style, perhaps to create a sense of awe and mystique around the author. But that doesn’t do the reader/student much good. I hope that we’re growing out of that now, in this age of sharing information.

You’ll see this if you compare several works discussing the same subject matter. At NEC, we had a seminar devoted to this. We looked a counterpoint and harmony books by Schoenberg, Piston, and some others, and compared their styles. Some were clear and helpful. Others were as dense as mortgage documents. But the ideas were the same. A fugue is a fugue. Why then, not compete for the clearest explanation? The reality of what’s published is far from that.

In my editing, I find that some authors put a lot of effort into putting on such airs and trappings of academia. This is especially common in two groups: highly educated musicians born before about 1950 and people who grew up very poor, in rough or highly rural neighborhoods with poor schools. The result is long rambling sentences, awkward and esoteric words, and a condescending affect.

Yuck. Clarity is so much more helpful to the reader.

So, the laborious process goes, of profound, deep editing. When editing gets severe, an unfortunate consequence can be that the writer’s personality can get lost. This is a danger with all writing that is very far from the mark of what’s appropriate or helpful for the reader. The life gets edited out of it. The baby goes out with the bath water, and it can be tough work getting it back in.

Which brings me to the Westminster dog show. Congratulations to Uno the beagle and all those who played a part in awarding him his Best in Show victory on February 11, 2008. As I am part of a two-beagle household, with my beagle in-law making three, this is big news around here, and I will confess to probably spending too much time reading about this grand event. A beagle hasn’t won Best in Show before.

Particularly of note are some of the details regarding Uno’s performance. Not only was he considered the noisiest in show, but he also reportedly nibbled on a brand new sign and nipped a microphone during an interview. This is important news: it means that he is a proper beagle, not some over-groomed robot dog, bred for chasing ribbons rather than rabbits. Uno is a dog’s dog. I will tell you from experience: real beagles destroy furniture and toys, bark and howl, and lick even clean dishes in the dishwasher. They are like Uno.

Uno had a good bath, and likely a pedicure, and was on his best behavior for the show. But he was still Uno the beagle. The result was that the crowd gave him an uncharacteristically enthusiastic standing ovation. Despite being on his best behavior, he was still himself. That’s what won the day. He was the perfect dog. And he was still a beagle.

As writers and editors, let’s take note. There are many ways to present concepts. Truth and clarity are our ideals. But the human element—in Uno’s case, the “beagle factor”—that makes it unique and fosters an emotional tie with the reader.

I am reminded of a project by a highly beloved educator, who was just a terrible writer. In his first draft, he came across as condescending and rambling, and inclined towards useless information, redundancy, and digressions. It was such an obnoxious first proof.

After four years editing his project, which included two different editors who eventually gave up in disgust, the project landed on my desk, and I had the directive to either save it or kill it. I had seen the first draft and knew how it started. Then, I read the latest edited version, and saw that it had become a lifeless lump. It was utterly without any beagle factor left. Mostly inoffensive, but b-o-r-i-n-g. And it was about two hundred pages too long.

I met with the author and found him to be extremely charismatic and engaging, in person. He was also really, really smart, and kind, and seemed to care that I understood the concepts he was explaining to me. And he was sooooo funny! If he was a dog, he’d be a beagle, and his overly edited manuscript was a pale reflection of himself. Who knows why his writing was so off, but the editing mostly moved it sideways, rather than up. The grammar was cleaned up, and the offensive bits were removed. But, well, yuck again.

Here’s how we saved it.

I went through the book, chapter by chapter, and came up with lists of questions about the content. When there was a concept missing, I formed a question to generate the right answer about it. When something was boring, I’d ask for an example. When something was condescending, I’d ask him to explain it again. He was so fed up with the project at that point that he didn’t really remember much about what was in the manuscript and what was not.

Rather than asking him to write again, I interviewed him, doing a one-hour session per chapter, based on my lists of questions.

In these interviews, he was his usual charming self. He told jokes and stories, he used time-tested teaching strategies to explain difficult theoretical concepts. He swore like a sailor, as was his wont. He’d go off on tangents, but then the questions would bring him back. They were delightful sessions because he was such a fun person. To him, it was really a process of chatting about a subject that he loved, rather than writing a book.

I transcribed these interviews, and used what he said there to fill in or replace what was in the original chapters. Some of his stories were really not appropriate for print, but others became useful metaphors/examples, especially after some gentle modifications. Some of them wound up exemplifying points that were besides what originally prompted them, but they were still his stories. In other words, we captured his “schtick.” I gave him the chapters, which he felt were in his own voice in a way that his own actual writing never was, and he made small technical adjustments, but overall was very happy with how it turned out.

The result was a clear, concise book that is now getting glowing reviews. People comment how they like his warm style, and feel like he’s right in the room with them. His past students commented that they were so happy to have his teaching in book form. He went back into his book, and it became alive again. The book is clear and informative, but it’s also got that beagle factor.

There are many ways that writing can be good. If publishing is your goal, remember the importance of the beagle factor. On this eve of Valentine’s Day, let’s remember that it’s the beagle factor that makes the difference between like and love.

Enrollment is now open for the next semester of my Finale course, which begins January 7, 2008.

“Music Notation with Finale” is a 12-week course available through Berkleemusic, the continuing ed division of Berklee College. It is required for various certificate programs and also an elective. In twelve weeks, students become extremely proficient at creating professional-quality notation, using Finale. I’m proud to report that some of my former students are now working as professional engravers. In fact, one of them just contacted me yesterday, in a panic! But it’s for everyone, and teachers, performing musicians, church choir directors, composers, songwriters, and many other types of musician have found it extremely useful.

There are some new videos. I just beefed up the drum notation lesson, including adding some unique strategies for entering drum notation without a MIDI keyboard. I’m also covering drum mapping in more depth, these days, now that I’ve given up on the PAS standard taking over the world. Much of this is actually in response to a request from the online arranging department. Happy to oblige; we’re all about real-world relevance, over here! I also discuss how to do cue notation (such as “kicks over time”) in greater depth. I used to think that the Ossia tool was the way to do this, but I’ve recently changed my mind, and now teach a better method.

Here’s some more info about this course.

Here’s a marketing piece we did about it a while ago. (Gosh, it’s five years old! Have we really been teaching music online for five years?!)

There isn’t much reason to compare the works of Yoron Israel and Pablo Peña. Both are killer drummers, Pablo studied with Yoron, and they each released a Berklee Press DVD this past Fall. As the producer of both projects, which were filmed back to back on two consecutive days, I worked with both artists simultaneously, and so for me, considering them together has been natural and an interesting exploration about the drum set generally.

Yoron’s DVD is “Creative Jazz Improvisation for Drum Set.”

Pablo’s DVD is “New World Drumming.”

Pablo comes from the Dominican Republic, where he founded and still runs a music school. He came to Berklee via some passionate and active advocacy from two artists of international repute. He is the only Berklee student ever to publish with Berklee Press while still enrolled. Pablo’s project concept was initially pitched to Berklee Press by someone high enough up in the Berklee administration that I stand when speaking to him on the phone. So, we gave Pablo the benefit of a doubt, despite his not being a faculty member.

I was invited to a workshop Pablo was presenting, and was just astonished at the things he was doing with a drum set. In addition to incorporating a tambora into his kit, which would ordinarily completely occupy both of a drummer’s hands (and 100% of his concentration), Pablo was playing several different pedals with each foot—essentially playing a groove with about ten instrument sounds simultaneously. This is ridiculous. This is “disgusting,” as Victor Mendoza likes to say about particularly gifted students. This needs to be caught on film, and he needs to explain it in slow motion.

Then, asking around, one of Berklee’s top faculty drummers—who I will add is not the easiest person in the world to impress—stated emphatically, “Pablo is going to become a drum hero. Unless he falls into drugs or has some major crisis, he is going to become a drum hero.” And then, I learned that several teachers were actually taking lessons from him. He’s not the average student, so we made an exception, and signed him up.

Shooting videos is expensive and complex, partly because a lot of lighting and sound equipment must be rented and set up. For this reason, it makes economic sense to film more than one video in the same session. So, when we signed Pablo, I was asked to scout out another viable drum DVD project, which meant finding another drummer to quickly come up with a solid product concept for us to film on a day adjacent to Pablo’s filming date.

The obvious choice to help us do something as vastly complex as this in such a pinch was Yoron Israel, assistant chair of the percussion department. Yoron is, in my opinion, among the most musical and gifted drummers I’ve ever heard. Pablo’s music makes me think, “It is impossible for a human to groove like that.” Yoron’s music makes me think, “What a beautiful story.” Yoron is also known as being rock-solid reliable, and the consummate professional, teacher, and gentleman. So, he was a natural fit, and I was very pleased and honored that he accepted my request (plea?) to do a DVD with us under those circumstances.

The results were terrific. Pablo’s DVD shows how to incorporate elements of world percussion technique and language into your groove, and expands the possibilities of what the drum set can do. He methodically breaks down his impossible grooves, showing the role of the clave, etc., and somehow makes it seem within the realm of human possibility. Yoron’s DVD gives unique insight into the creative process of drum-set soloing, showing how factors such as rhythm and melody can inspire soloing ideas, and how to have a strong narrative concept in the solo. Both DVDs feature inspiring, gorgeous performance footage of some wonderful and unique musicianship. I’ve watched both drummers and non-drummers watch these DVDs, utterly captivated.

Quick story: After we were done filming, Director Bob Monagle gave us a ride to the airport. Bob’s radio was set to a jazz station.

Bob said to Yoron, “So what else are you up to?”

Yoron answered, “Actually, I just finished the recording that we’re listening to right now!”

Talk about a made for Hollywood moment! That’s like sitting next to someone a bus who is reading a book you’ve written. Or edited. That’s my fantasy! I think the recording was one of the ones he did with David Fathead Newman.

Anyhow, as a duo, these two DVDs represent an incredible breath of what drumming is and can be. Both musicians have something unique to say, each in their own individual ways, and both make such wonderful music and share such profound and practical insights into how they do it.

I’ll add that everyone at the Tanner/Monagle studio was first rate, and both fun and informative to work with, particularly director Bob Monagle. If you ever need a recording/video/post-production studio in Milwaukee, I recommend them highly.

Any musician would find these performances fascinating. Particularly drummers will find them inspiring and informative.

The same essential body of knowledge can be taught via books or online courses. At Berklee, the book-publishing arm (Berklee Press) and the online school (Berkleemusic) are organized under the same division, Berklee Media. Until recently, we even shared staff, and even now, there is much overlap between who is writing books and who is developing online courses. My office is right next to that of Debbie Cavalier, the Dean of Continuing Education, and we constantly send potential authors back and forth to each other. Many authors (Dave Kusek, Jimmy Kachulis, Dan Thompson, Eric Beall, and many, many others) have written both books and online courses on the same material, and they use their books as textbooks for their courses. And sometimes, an author will pitch a concept to one of us or the other, and we’ll say, “This would work better as a book,” or “This would be a great online course.”

From the author’s perspective, the processes of writing each are very similar. They both entail looking at the subject, organizing what topics get presented in what order, and crafting how best to articulate concepts.

But there are differences that anyone developing either one (or both) should keep in mind. By playing to the strengths of each medium, the final products can be optimized for the best user experience.

1. Online courses at Berkleemusic are highly interactive. Students post assignments for review by the instructor and other students. Students ask questions. This is perhaps the richest dimension of the online experience, and high quality courses are designed to facilitate meaningful communication. Interactivity and communication are chief benefits of online courses over books, and they exponentially magnify the learning experience.

2. Integration between media types in online courses can be deeper, more prevalent, and more seamless than in books. Many books have accompanying CDs or even DVDs, but it is relatively cumbersome to switch between reading a book and listening to a CD. Online, it is natural to read a paragraph, take a Flash quiz, and watch a video, all on the same page. The multimedia experience is the other chief educational advantage of online courses.

3. Books can vary in depth and breadth more than the standard 12-week online course format can, and different books have different types of purposes and grandiosity of ambition. A course must always be a deep, substantial hunk of education that significantly raises students’ capabilities and understanding. Books, though, can be more focused, such as Gilson Schachnik’s new Beginning Ear Training (the one with the elephant), which is essentially a set of ear training practice exercises with minimal pedagogical rumination. Or, books can be deep and comprehensive, such as Dan Thompson’s Understanding Audio, which shows how an intimate understanding of the physics of sound can transform your disappointing, lackluster plink-plank-plunk of a guitar sound into a banshee-screaming fire engine of a groove machine. As is Dan’s wont.

Courses conform to schedules, and for that reason, they must have tighter parameters regarding the amount of content they present. Books, though, can have chapters or appendixes that might potentially be relatively advanced or esoteric to some readers. A big chart with tons of detail might work nicely in a book but be awkward in a course. It’s not such a big deal for a reader to skip a chapter in a book, compared to skipping a week of a course.

Beyond the schedule, courses have to conform to other standards, particularly if they are associated with academic institutions such as Berklee. The ones here at Berkleemusic are NEASC accredited, college level courses. This means a number of things, in terms of academic rigor, substantial homework assignments, student assessments, credentials of authors and instructors, and so on. And if they are Berkleemusic courses, it goes without saying that the content must be aligned with that of Berklee College’s standards and scope. A course that’s part of a curriculum has different requirements and parameters than do most books, though certainly textbooks need to similarly be reflective and supportive of exterior factors.

4. Books are portable. You don’t need electricity, and you can read them in bed, on the beach, while seated at your piano, etc. Sure, you might do the same with your laptop, but it’s not as easy. You can give a book to someone else.

5. Reading a computer screen is more taxing than reading a book, and so varying media types are ideally interspersed, in writing online courses. Rather than just screens and screens of endless text, like an online book (which is what lesser online courses do than those we have at Berkleemusic), we enliven the readers’ experience by changing teaching/learning approach often. Good classroom teachers do this too. They lecture for a bit, then write something on the board, then ask a question. So online, text is interspersed with graphics, movies, audio clips, discussions, animations, and so on. This is how we keep students awake. It requires more collaboration between the author and courseware developers, graphics designer, and so on, than books.

In a book, it is fine to have just text or just music notation, though of course, graphics and accompanying recordings are often helpful. It’s generally subtler, though, more along the lines of presenting a concept, then exemplifying it, then perhaps practicing it, and so on, as a means of varying the reader’s perception mechanism. It might all happen in text.

6. The experience of reading and holding a book is more organic than the experience of viewing a computer screen. Readers can read a book at their own paces, without worrying about deadlines and project due dates. They can skip a chapter, read chapters out of order, or practice the same exercises every day for twenty years.

From a user perspective, the online experience is both more intense and more directed than the book-reading experience. The element of timing in a course adds structure to learning, which can inspire a greater flurry of effort from the student/reader. Then, the course ends, and the student and teacher say their good-byes.

Books are forever. A book can sit on your shelf and serve as a reference indefinitely. You might have a question long after you read a book, and so look something up in the index, spending two minutes per year with a book every year for the rest of your life.

7. Online courses are relatively easy to update. A teacher can post “Late breaking news” at any time, during an online course, and therefore add content on the fly, that’s not part of the traditional authoring process. If you are teaching a software program and there’s a new release, you can change your content quickly and easily. A book might become obsolete and appropriately go out of print in the same circumstance.

It’s helpful to have taught material before writing a book about it. This could be in an online course, a live course, a seminar, a private studio, or whatever. Students and other sounding boards help us to refine our ideas and align our pet priorities with real needs. Their questions and challenges are gifts that help us to maintain relevance. But there’s nothing like writing a book to deepen how well we really understand our subject. Writing, and dare I say being edited, gives us the space to articulate our ideas clearly, reworking a sentence or an explanation over and over until it’s rendered clearly. And when we uncover a gap in our understanding, we can go research it. We can read three other books about it, and then write the best explanation ever about how it really should be.

To a great extent, courses are defined by the students participating. For example, in my Finale course, some sections might have more music teachers, others more film composers, others more church choir directors. Everyone asks unique questions to address their personal work (which is the basis for their assignments), and this makes each course a unique journey, with a unique persona.

Courses are optimized to be journeys, rather than persistent references. They are little communities that last for a finite period where participants can potentially change each other’s lives. They are about human interaction as the means of transferring knowledge.

In a book, the author is an expert who takes the stage and rhapsodizes, uninterrupted. In an online course, the instructor says his bit, and then opens the floor to discussion. In courses, the transfer of knowledge is more customized to the reader, and less predictable. In books, subjects can be more deeply articulated.

While the author’s effort is similar in producing either one, the reader’s experience is quite different. Both have their places in the learning process. And writing either one with an eye towards optimizing the user’s experience will always yield the most useful and even transformative results.

Writing books tends to drive musicians bonkers, particularly towards the end of the process when we’re fussing with minutia, reviewing proofs, cleaning up the final punchlist of details, and awaiting the final endlessly long march to the printer. Authors get crabby. There are two primary reasons why, in my opinion:

1. Books are persistent artifacts of an author’s best work and best thinking, and so getting books exactly right is intertwined with perceptions of self worth. At the end of the project, we feel stuck with its limitations, and are running out of time to make it the perfect, most holistic statement of who we are.

2. Musicians need to create actual music. Writing books about music is not the same as making music, and towards the end of the process, we get antsy because it’s been such an incredibly laborious distraction from what we need to be our primary life focus: making music.

(I won’t offer a third reason: that they are getting fed up with me torturing them…. That couldn’t be the case, could it?!)

An antidote to the first one, about identity, is to plan to write a series of books in your life that will collectively articulate a part of your persona, but more importantly to realize that no book could ever possibly do a soul justice. Books just don’t have that capability.

An antidote to the third one, if it exists (and I’m sure it does not), is to know that I will leave you alone very soon.

The middle one is what I really want to discuss. This past weekend, I took my boys to visit Sue (Gedutis) Lindsay and her family. Sue is a friend, musician, and fellow editor of Berklee Media projects. Here are Annie Lindsay and Forrest Feist munching on French fries, before we went to Plimoth Plantation.

We were catching up, and I was complaining about being generally crabby, and I mentioned feeling a bit far from music these days, when I seem to spend all my time talking and writing about music, rather than actually creating the real thing.

She offered a bit of wisdom that I feel is important to pass on. Cynical Sue said (and I paraphrase), “Musicians are special people, and we need to be creating music all the time, to feel normal.” She discussed her own journey through various distractions that were almost, but not quite, music, including writing books, research, teaching, and so forth. It’s not that these aren’t worthy, fun, and even necessary undertakings. We must call them “pseudo-musical activities,” though, and doing the real thing is where it’s really at. We must carve out time to create real music, for sanity’s sake, and be ferociously protective of this time.

So, I’m looking at life, and counting directions. I have my family (including two little boys), an old/maintenance-needing house, endless yard work, I serve on three town boards (chairing one), there’s my full-time gig at Berklee Press, part-time teaching Finale online, a variety of neglected hobbies, a few assorted other obligations, plus protecting my flock of chickens/ducks/geese from that hungry fox….. Quite a lot happening here, which all conspire to create distance from that spiritual life engine called music, which is the primary force that can keep me relatively sane and whole, but which is now at arm’s length. And I feel it poignantly this November, as days grow short and the world grows cold.

Prioritization is increasingly a necessary life’s skill for me, and I would venture, for anyone, as life developments bring increasing directions without offering us more hours in the day.

Arthur Cunningham, my first composition teacher and life mentor, once said to me, “I promise you that if you write every day, you will improve.”

So, here’s my thought/recommendation:

Create music every day.

Even if it’s for five minutes, you need to touch that fire, no how busy you are, and no matter how deeply your daily life is embroiled into pseudo-musical or non-musical activities. An hour would be great, but five minutes is better than nothing. Recognize that pseudo-musical activities (writing, teaching, studying, copying parts….) are not the same as making music, even though they might be delightful experiences in their own right. We need to be constantly warmed by that real core energy of musical spirit.

Commercial success and even inter-human communication are secondary to being warmed by the fire of creativity. Consider it a life imperative to touch the real thing. See progress over weeks, months, and years, not over the course of a few minutes.

If this rings true to you, please stop surfing the ’net, and create music for five minutes RIGHT NOW. Close your door, then play your guitar, beat your drum, improvise, scat sing, write a lyric—whatever the real-deal-essence-of-what-music-is-all-about-closest-to-center activity is for you. Then schedule a time when you will do it again tomorrow, and repeat. Just five minutes.

Let me know how it goes.

Citizens of the world should feel fortunate that the offbeat genius of Jon Damian was guided towards music and not, say, nuclear physics or politics. Otherwise, who knows what apocalypses might have resulted!

But music it is, and his second Berklee Press book The Chord Factory: Build Your Own Guitar Chord Dictionary, happily has come into print.

Sometimes, when I feel blue, I surf the Amazon reviews of books that I’ve edited. One set that never fails to cheer me up is for Jon’s first book, The Guitarist’s Guide to Composing and Improvising. I like how there is an early negative review, which is then followed by a raving horde of Jon Damian fanatics that basically say, “You are a twit, and you just don’t get how fricken’ brilliant this is.” Some direct quotes: “possibly the best book I’ve ever purchased regarding music,” and “This book is almost religious to me.”

There is indeed a cult of Jon Damian followers, who appreciate his eccentric approach to exploring music. His students have included legendary guitarists such as Mike Stern, Bill Frisell, and Wayne Kranz, who were kind enough to wax ecstatic in quotes on the Chord Factory back cover, alongside Jim Hall, and Allan Chase.

Do you remember the film, The Dead Poet’s Society, with Robin Williams playing a poetry teacher with an unusual approach to teaching? Much as I liked that flick, it fostered a breed of horrible teachers who leaned towards a fun and fluffy style that unfortunately found it permissible to sidestep the responsibility to teach real material.

This is different. Jon Damian’s novel teaching and theory comes out of a solid foundation in traditional musicianship, not just gratuitous fun. He has a unique ability to present advanced concepts of music theory in an entertaining—yet always practical—way. It is instruction for the thinking guitarist, straddling the precarious fence of traditional practical music-making to that elusive gray zone where Frank Zappa could dance to Arnold Schoenberg. Those two could have met at a Jon Damian Halloween party.

The Chord Factory is part meditation, part exploration, and sure, part light-hearted silliness. You can look at the study of music as learning both breadth and depth of music. In harmony, breadth would be memorizing a chart showing all the chord types and their accepted substitutions. That is the more common approach.

But Jon’s new book presents an unusually deep view into chords. Instead of just saying, “For C7, substitute a 9 for the 1 and practice this fingering until you memorize it,” Jon builds the chord types note by note, brick by brick. Play a note. Listen to it. Where does it lead? How is it useful? What does it express? Where else can you play it on the fingerboard? Next chapter, play each interval and ask the same questions. Then developing towards 3-note chords, 4-note chords, 5-notes chords, and so on. And along the way, indulge in digressions such as a get-rich-quick scheme based on common bird-watching practices, or Jon’s famous “CrossTones Puzzle”—which by somewhat miraculous intellectual Yoga stretches, Jon makes completely relevant to the harmonic concepts being explored.

It is a methodical, slow-motion look at harmony, gaining a uniquely intimate relationship with the components of the chords. You learn their possibilities, put them into context, and explore their relationship to other chords. This is the meditation. In the course of exploring a great variety of chord types, some unusual ones turn up and some old friends become new again. This is the exploration. And the process gives both rare depth and rare breadth, making harmony absolutely real, alive, practical, and expressive.

Jon’s writing is so full of life and his presentation style is so zany, that there is never a dull moment through this heady stuff. He has an imaginary friend, Chester, who asks questions, makes dumb jokes, and brings evidence in support of the discussion. This will endear some readers and baffle others, but it is actually a narrative practice that goes back thousands of years, to the Platonic dialogs, if not before (not to mention Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen). So, this is the most classical of teaching techniques.

Here’s Chester:

Is it for everyone? It is suited to any level and any genre of guitarist, from rock to jazz to avant garde. But a sense of humor and an adventurous musical spirit are absolute prerequisites.

Guitarists are a fairly unconventional lot, with the eccentrics perhaps closer to the center than at the fringe. Most would find that The Chord Factory expands their perception of what music can be. Or at least, gives them some useful new grips.

It’s “hip-hop.” Lowercase h, use the hyphen. Feel good about it.

This is controversial, as are so many aspects of hip-hop. But I’m happy to lean on the big guns for this preference. It’s how The Associated Press, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal write “hip-hop.” Also Keyboard Magazine. BET doesn’t seem to care much, using both “hip-hop” and “hip hop.” The American Heritage Dictionary, WordNet (Princeton University), The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and every other dictionary I consulted all render it “hip-hop.”

Lowercase is similarly accepted in other musical style names, such as jazz, blues, rock, classical, bossa nova, and so on. Motown, Latin jazz, and Delta blues get the capital only because the names come from place names, which get capitals, e.g., Roman numerals and French kiss (though these are also frequently set lowercase). “Bebop” is a minor monkey wrench; it lost its hyphen in most contemporary usage, but the b is decidedly lowercase.

All in all, I’m confident that “hip-hop” is a sound house style choice for Berklee Press.

One group that disagrees is Harvard University’s “Hiphop Archive”. This think tank is a treasure trove of rumination about “Hiphop.” Their argument for how they render the term (uppercase, no hyphen) is that it’s the name of a culture, not just a “cool dance,” (the likely etymological derivation of the term). Hiphop style includes language, visual arts, dance, and social practices, as well as musical genre(s).

Eh, maybe, they have a point. If one of our authors truly wishes to focus on these aspects, and feels strongly about the word choice, we might permit the anomalous rendering, though violating house style complicates the publishing process and I’d really prefer not to and would try to guilt the author into reconsidering. And the “Hiphop” preference just doesn’t seem to have much traction in the world outside Harvard University. For example, Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a provocative film by Byron Hurt, similarly discusses the social issues of hip-hop, but he renders the term as “hip-hop.” And not to pick on what is likely a sore point for the Hiphop Archive, even elsewhere on the Harvard University Web site, the term is rendered as “hip-hop.” Harvard, that’s just not good team spirit.

Anyhow, there is good reason to separate the culture from the musical aspects of the term, particularly at Berklee. Contemporary hip-hop culture is often problematic and even despised by its fans, with so much promulgation of aggression, the objectification of women, the romanticization of materialism, and so forth. This hasn’t always been the case; there are deep roots in hip-hop as an activity of peacemaking and a tool of raising social conscience. But that’s not what’s selling the most records, today, and there are good reasons to separate the medium from the current message.

Berklee hip-hop guru Prince Charles Alexander, one of my current guiding lights, suggests looking at hip-hop as essentially a production style, with emblematic sounds and groove characteristics. The music serves as a bed for the rap, the content of which can be anything. This, to me, is a healthy way to see it. You can love the sound of hip-hop, but despise many of its artists’ messages. For the record, PC was initially leaning towards the capital H, but I’m trying to talk him out of it.

I see his technocratic approach as a good teaching strategy, and the lowercase h helps us to divorce the evolving social elements of hip-hop culture from its essential musical/production elements in the classroom, as well as the printed page.

The homoerotic imagery, the desensitization regarding violence, the role of women—for now, I’m happy to let Harvard University sort these out. In a sense, it is more revolutionary to think about hip-hop in terms of shout choruses, Roland TR-808 drum sounds, and beat subdivisions. By presenting it in these terms, the tools of creating hip-hop become within reach of a great diversity of potential artists, who will hopefully rescue this vibrant, creative form from some of its current doldrums of content.