Behind the Editor’s Desk

These are the books I use most commonly as references.

Notation

Music Notation: Preparing Scores and Parts, by Matthew Nicholl and Richard Grudzinski. (Berklee Press 2007). For contemporary score layout, this is really the definitive source. I was its editor. And I say that to make myself look more impressive by association with this great text (though in truth, I really didn’t actually help it very much), not out of any delusion that my involvement would make it seem any more appealing.

Music Notation, by Mark McGrain (Berklee Press). This book has been around for decades, and at Berklee, it’s long been considered the definitive source for handwritten jazz charts, particularly lead sheets.

Music Notation, by Gardiner Read. This is the old standby, really more optimized for classical music than for contemporary popular music. It’s a classic. Maybe, it’s THE classic.

The Art of Music Copying, by Clinton Roemer. This is a classic text on old school engraving, and a very fine book.

Finale: An Easy Guide to Music Notation (2nd Edition), by Tom Rudolph and Vince Leonard (Berklee Press 2005). Again, I’m the editor. If you are using 2007 or later, wait a few months until the 2009 edition comes out. But this book is worth its price for the chart on page 245 alone.

Orchestration

The Harvard Dictionary of Music. Classic. Everyone has this. It is often hailed as the ultimate arbiter for disagreements, and it’s hard to argue with “Well, the Harvard Dictionary of Music says….” The only effective rebuttal is “Yeah, but it’s geared towards classical musicians,” and even that doesn’t always work.

The Study of Orchestration, by Samuel Adler. Classic, focused on classical music. Most people have this or Piston. I have and use both, but prefer Adler for most things.

Orchestration, by Walter Piston. Classic, focused on classical music. Most people have this or Adler.

Writing

The Chicago Manual of Style. If you write, you need this book on your shelf. If you are a professional writer, you absolutely must have it. It is ubiquitous in the industry.

The Associated Press Style Guide. This is useful particularly for newspaper and Web authoring, whereas CMS focuses more on books. Someone swiped my copy long ago, and I frequently feel guilty when I have a question and don’t look it up here. Did you take my copy? Curse you, give it back! (shaking fist…)

The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. Among the most lovable how-to books ever written. It’s been said that you can judge how serious a graduate student is by how many copies of this book they own. It is small and easily misplaced, but fortunately cheap, so people buy it again and again. I think I have three copies, but it’s hard to say.

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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.

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.

Berklee Press published The Bass Player’s Handbook, by Greg Mooter, in 2002, which was at about the same time when I was fooling around, a bit, with learning the electric bass. This book was just so damned incredibly helpful, at all stages of the game, that I wanted to give a copy to every bass player I met.

This book must suffer from Ugly Cover Syndrome, because the content is so @!!*& awesome, I don’t understand why every bass player on the planet doesn’t own a copy. Maybe we blew it by making the line length too wide? Or maybe its dimensions aren’t physically appealing? Is it on an inauspicious page of our catalog?

It is not the content. Hell, the Queen of Bass Carol Kaye herself wrote a huge quote for the back cover, oozing with praise about how helpful and informative it is.

The book tells you essential information about technique, how to buy a bass, how to fix a broken bass, how to set the intonation and action, how to get good tone, and a ton of other information. The author’s descriptions are clear and informative. There are good pictures showing exercises to help strengthen your hands and improve your flexibility.

It includes information about electric bass (4, 5, 6-string) and upright bass, including acoustic and electric uprights. Too much information? Skip a few pages, silly.

In short, this is just a tremendous resource. It is ~150 pages long, and crammed with essential information that will help you for your whole bass-playing career. Is it too good for you? Nah, you’re worth it.

If you play bass, The Bass Player’s Handbook should be at the center of your library. Then you can supplement your library with books on more specific topics, such as building bass lines, or slap technique, or whatever. If you teach bass, you should make your students buy this book.

This is my first Berklee Press product review. I’ve had it bottled up inside me for a long time that The Bass Player’s Handbook was an awesome and underappreciated title. In fact, you could say that a major part of why I wanted to have a blog at all is so that I could write something nice about this specific book.

I apologize, if the cover hurts your eyes. Please, get over it, and @!!*& buy a copy.

As an editor, it’s a little cheesy for me review products that I helped to produce. Really, there’s no way for me to escape the perception that if I say anything nice about a book, I’m doing it for marketing reasons, rather than out of sincerity. If I try to sell you something, then my blog becomes just more advertising gobbledy gook. I’m biased, I admit it.

Sorry.

The truth is, my salary is not affected by sales. I get paid the same amount if something is a hit or if it is a stinker. The only exceptions are those products where I’m listed as an author: my Finale course, and the books Essential Songwriter and The Berklee Practice Method Teacher’s Guide. On those, I get an author’s royalty.

(By the way, those are the best products ever, and if you don’t have them, you are NOT COOL…. )

Anyhow, I’m going to risk the criticism of seeming to advertise at you anyway, in this blog, and write about some of the products I’ve worked on. There are a few reasons why. First, new publications are “news.” Second, some of our books are just great, and I want to give a more personal insight into them—particularly those that were particularly difficult to produce, or books that are really great but might have suffered an ugly cover, and thus could use a boost up. Or books that I personally just like, as a reader/student/musician.

This blog is not advertising. It is not politics. It is not even strategic. It is based purely on my own idle whims, and my desire to move rocks and show you salamanders.

I’ll add that the reason that I’m sitting in this chair is that I’m just addicted to learning more about music, and editing these books gives me that opportunity. When I was a student twenty years ago, during a dorm party at NEC, I had an incredible epiphany: I often enjoy talking about the technique of creating music more than I enjoy the act of actually creating it! So, here I am.

The point is, I’m not just a staffer here, I’m also a client. [show lack of bald spot]

Some of these reviews are coming up. Review requests from authors not accepted. This is my place to say what I want, and I only plan to say truthful, positive things. Dig?

Thanks for not bugging me about my reviews. The only way I can keep credibility, here, and give real information is if I have 100% unadulterated control regarding what I write about what. I promise to be nice. Trust me….