Behind the Editor’s Desk

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.

In grammar and style guides, a tremendous amount of ink has been devoted to the topic of when to use words and when to use numerals. Many book publishers, including Berklee Press, use the Chicago Manual of Style as their guide for such things. Although CMS makes a valiant attempt at clarifying this topic, the needs of music writing are very specific, and other resources have been necessary in our quest towards clarity and consistency with this.

I found that the most helpful resources are ones devoted to the most technical forms of scientific writing. Fun reading, let me tell you. In this post, I will share some of the insights I’ve gained about when to use numerals and when to use words.

A guiding principle, though, is this: Numerals are different than words, and they are an interruption to the reader’s general flow. They can be a great help in clarifying comparisons and names, but they should be used thoughtfully because there is the danger that they can become annoying.

As with all matters of writing, clarity is key.

The CMS general rule is to write out all whole numbers from –100 to 100. A-hah, you say! You should have written “minus one hundred to one hundred.” Well, I wish I could have, but when quantities are set in close proximity, as in a range, it’s clearer to use numerals.

See the game?

Here’s a sentence that took a ton of research to construct, the process of which was extremely helpful to me in understanding how to render numerals.

1. “A 12-bar blues has three 4-bar phrases.”

[applause, please...]

Here, we have two types of quantities: types of musical constructions (12-bar, 4-bar) and a quantity of objects of these types (three). It’s clearer to have a distinction in how these differing logical organizations are rendered. Compare that above sentence to the alternatives:

2. “A twelve-bar blues has three four-bar phrases.”

3. “A 12-bar blues has 3 4-bar phrases.”

The eye has to puzzle out examples (2) and (3) in a way that it doesn’t have to puzzle out (1). Example (3) is particularly difficult, figuring out the 3 and 4. It’s an example of a numeral being annoying and disruptive rather than clarifying.

By the way, I set parentheses around example numerals because I don’t want to confuse the other numerals with my example numerals. So, each type of number gets a unique treatment, and reading comprehension is served, hopefully.

This gets hairy, hairy, hairy. One of the most difficult types of writing to do is writing about music theory for guitar, as in Jon Damian’s recent book, The Chord Factory. Why? Because there are a great many types of numbers involved. You’ve got:

String numbers
Fret numbers
Finger numbers
Interval numbers
Chord extension numbers
Scale tone numbers

With your first finger on the 1st fret of the 6th string and your third finger on the 3rd fret of the 4th string, play a fifth from the root, and then imagine the C9 accompaniment….

[more applause, please….]

It’s quite murderous, tracking these over hundreds of pages (not to mention, hundreds of books).

Beyond just specifying rule after rule, there are a couple principles that I find helpful to keep in mind.

1. If something is identified or categorized by its number, then use the numeral (or “ordinal” form of the numeral, e.g., 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). 16-track unit, 1st fret, fret 1, page 6. Cmin7(9)

2. If there are two different types of numbers that are likely to be discussed in close proximity to each other, see if there is a logical way to make them different, even if it forces you to violate some “rules.” “Put your first finger on the 1st fret.” Or, rework: Put your 1st finger on fret 1.”

3. If you are comparing more than two quantities, use numerals. I have 2, you have 6, and she has all 9.” That’s an example of numerals being clarifying.

It is a great challenge to make sure that these are stylistically consistent at the book and catalog level, and this is where lists of rules can be helpful. Again, though, you sometimes need to violate the rules to achieve clarity.

Here are the “rules” listed in the Berklee Press Style Guide, which have a specific slant towards music writing and are thus supplementary to CMS. Unfortunately, this list seems to be ever expanding. I think it was originally compiled by Susan Gedutis Lindsay.

Words

Whole numbers (zero to one hundred, including negative numbers)

Numbers that begin a sentence (Three thousand fifty-five people…)

Intervals (Play both notes of the minor third in measure 3.)

Also note: In labels in musical examples, intervals are abbreviated using the numeral and its quality. M (major), m (minor), and P (perfect), as in M7, m3, P5.

Note values up to sixteenths (whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note, but 32nd note, 64th note, etc.)

Beat quantities (A half note lasts for two beats.)

Measure quantities (Vamp for sixteen bars.)

Inversions (first inversion)

Finger number (Third finger)

Numerals

Numbers with decimals and fractions (1.56, 2 1/2)

Measure numbers (measures 3–11)

Item names where numbers are important (16-track recorder, 12-bar blues)

Model numbers (DX-7, Hammond B3 organ)

Money ($25)

Note values larger than a sixteenth note (32nd note)

Beat numbers (beats 2 and 4)

Scale degrees (Degree 4 of C major is F.)

Chord degrees (A major triad has a major 3rd.)

Chord numbers (Substitute VI for II at the coda.)

Metronome markings (Set the quarter note to 88 bpm.)

String number (First finger on the 3rd string.)

Fret or position (7th fret or fret 7)

Time signatures (4/4)

Forms (12-bar blues)

###

Chord symbols used to indicate “minor” vary. C minor 7 might have three different renderings: Cmin7, Cm7, C–7.

The third of these is best rendered as an “en-dash.”

The possible dashes are:

- [hyphen], used for compound adjectives such as blue-green algae
- [minus sign on numeric keypad] minus symbol, as in -6 (in some fonts, this looks identical to either a hyphen or an N-dash)
– [en-dash], used for symbols (minor chord symbol, sometimes the negative sign), as well as ranges, e.g., A–Z or 315–19
— [em-dash], used to interrupt sentences—like this.

Making a hyphen is easy enough. Just type the hyphen key.

A minus symbol is also easy. Type the dash on the numeric keypad. Whether this looks different than the hyphen and/or en-dash will depend on your font.

To make an en-dash, on Macintosh, type Option-[hyphen]. On a Windows machine, it’s trickier. You need to use ASCII codes. To do this, type Alt, then 0150. You could also cheat and use the Character Map utility, which lets you copy it to the clipboard and then paste it where you will. In Microsoft Word only, you can use CTRL-[minus sign on numeric keypad]. You can also type [space] [hyphen] [space], but then delete the spaces.

To make an em-dash, on Mac, type Option-Shift-[hyphen]. On PC, use Alt-0151. A low tech alternative is to use two hyphens, which is how it’s done on typewriters. Word will convert two hyphens into an em-dash automatically. Or, again, only in Word, type CTRL-Alt-[minus sign on numeric keypad].

Here’s how to set Finale up to accept an en-dash in minor chord symbols.

1. Choose the Chord tool, and select Chords > Manual Input.

2. Click the note you want to add your minor chord, say C–7, and then in the Chord Definition window, type C–7 in the Chord field. You can type the dash as a hyphen or as an en-dash; hyphen is actually easier, as we will set it to automatically replace the hyphen with a proper en-dash.

3. It will ask you if you want to add it to the library. Say “OK.”

4. Click the Edit button next to “Suffix” to open the Suffix Editor.

5. In the field showing the dash, replace the displaying hyphen with an N-dash, by hook or by crook. Even click “Select” to hunt for it.

Now, when you enter C-7 for a chord, it will automatically display as C–7. My Finale course goes into some more depth on this, but at least now you can do it.

I recommend using the en-dash, as the dash of choice, because the hyphen is too easily lost (particularly with A-7) and the em-dash is too big and dorky (C—7).

If you are using the JazzText font for your chord symbols, though, just use the hyphen, as that (problematic) font doesn’t include an en-dash.

By the way, using the dash for minor is purported to have its origins at Berklee. The story goes that people were getting messier and messier with their lowercase m’s until it was just a line. I will confess to hating it at first, feeling that it was a sort of institutionalized laziness, like having class times officially start at ten minutes past the hour. But it’s grown on me over time.

These days, I prefer it to the lowercase m. The reason is that in Finale, if someone uses the JazzText font for chord symbols, the lowercase letters are actually smallcaps—in other words, just little versions of capital letters.

The problem is that another common convention is to use M for major and m for minor. But if lowercase is just a teeny tiny uppercase letter, and particularly if all chords in the chart are minor, it’s impossible for readers to know whether you intend major or minor.

My own personal preference? I like CMaj7 and Cmin7. It’s easy to tell what’s what, and they are of parallel construction. Berklee Press house style, though, is CMaj7 and C–7. They are certainly easy to tell apart. My only concerns with it are that first, the meaning of the dash is not immediately evident to all musicians (i.e., beyond Berklee), and second, so many people don’t know how to make proper en-dashes, and so use hyphens instead, which again, are difficult to read. And it’s like mixing up two different approaches: an abbreviated word and a symbol.

But if you are “in the know,” as you likely are, now that you have finished reading all this, the dash will serve you well.

Consistency, though, is important. For example, don’t have C–7 and Gmin9 in the same piece. Stick with the same symbol throughout the chart.

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The language used to discuss music often reveals the subtle, profound, and even spiritual underpinnings of this mystic art, which in our daily wrangling can seem a mundane and predictable craft, with finite and predictable parameters. By looking at wording in precise degree, I will try to present some insights into music that might not be readily evident, otherwise, and reveal some wizards behind the curtains of house style.

A quick example: chord symbols. Berklee Press holds the following stylistic practice about how to render altered fifths: C7b5, not C7(b5).

What’s interesting about the decision to omit parentheses, as we would have on C7(9), is that at Berklee, the flat-5 is not considered a tension. It is considered a core note of the chord. Setting it in parentheses would suggest that it is more of an optional flavor, than a fundamental characteristic. No, here, life is all about that crazy dissonance.

Chatting about parentheses is how I torture people, all day long, in my work managing Berklee Press. Similar issues frequently cross my desk that lead to some fascinating explorations of music. As a publisher, we have to be careful, because our books are often perceived as sets of “rules,” and particularly books published by Berklee are often held to be definitive works on their subjects. And that’s how we want it.

Funny story, I was once scouting consensus on some other seemingly mundane issue, and the process brought me to the office of one of the Berklee department chairs. I asked what he thought the proper way to render something was, and to answer my question, he grabbed a book from his shelf, which he considered the “definitive reference” on the topic.

What he didn’t know is that I was actually the editor of the book he grabbed.

That act shook my foundations, regarding books, and I have replayed that scene of him reaching up to the shelf for a Final Word, over and over, in my head. Sheesh, if books that were my responsibility were to be considered “definitive,” I’d better take this mission of establishing best practice and consensus very carefully! And, of course, from that moment forward, I haven’t believed a word I’ve read on any subject. I mean, Hell, it could have been written by someone like me!

But his reaching reiterated for me that our books are permanent articulations of Berklee pedagogy and international ambassadors of what we teach here. As such, we try to be persnickety about language and stylistic choices, as do all responsible publishers. Obviously, clarity is a top priority. But beyond clarity, we try to reflect the campuswide consensus on values and approaches to music, and “best practice” regarding what to teach and how to present ideas. As you might guess, this is often a complex charge, for the local cats have varying opinions regarding pretty much every topic, from articulations to Zydeco….

I do regularly poll them, though, and I am fortunate to have worked closely enough with over a hundred Berklee faculty members, whom I can bug to ask about this or that. I find that they frequently are eager to share strong opinions on the minutest of details—as if they were just itching to be asked, for years and years.

In editing their books, we discuss some of their deepest held beliefs and technical practices about their craft. Many of these educators are performing artists who have achieved worldwide acclaim as musicians. Some are hit-song writers, some are Grammy-award winners, and more are teachers of Grammy award winners. They all have profound insights to share about music.

When helping them write about what they are doing, I can press them hard on details, and get them to articulate their thoughts to an unusually precise degree. From these discussions will come many of the topics that I plan to focus on here.

In this blog, I will articulate some of the personal/professional/musical journeys I’ve embarked on, in my role here. I plan to cover a lot of ground: terminology, concepts, stylistic preferences, and perhaps also technical concepts in manuscript preparation. Feel free to post here any thoughts, feedback, or suggestions for topics I might address.

Please see what I write here, though, as my own personal statements, rather than a voice of the college. So many of the fascinating stories behind some of our books haven’t made it public. I’ll try to give my own personal perspective both to our catalog and also to some of the pedagogical choices we’ve made in how to write about music, and hope that it provides some insight and entertainment.