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Tonefiend Book Week is simple: I discuss a few titles I’ve found particularly enlightening, useful, or entertaining, and then you jump in and do the same. I’ve organized the days of this week by subject matter. Today’s topic: musical fiction.
In comments to yesterday’s installment on musical autobiographies, several folks mentioned the Real Frank Zappa Book. Which reminds me of a quote often (and apparently incorrectly) attributed to Frank: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”
A music fan rescues ’60s rock via time travel. (Not as dorky as I’m making it sound!)
The line probably originated in reference to music journalism, but it applies just as well to fiction about music. Countless novelists and screenwriters are ardent music lovers. Yet there aren’t many novels or films that capture the act of music creation — what’s it’s like to be a musician.
The problem isn’t a lack of passion for music. Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, and Victor Hugo were knowledgable listeners who channeled the emotions they perceived in great music into equally great prose. But even among literary titans, depictions of the music-making process tend to be as bogus as that clichéd Hollywood montage: Composer paces room. Furiously crumbles aborted manuscript page. Howls at moon. And then — Eureka! — a Masterpiece is born.[CUT TO END OF CONCERT, STANDING OVATION.]
Writers seem to do better depicting the worlds that surround music. For example, Jennifer Egan’s 2011 novel A Visit from the Goon Squad includes scenes set in the old San Francisco punk scene, and she nails the vibe. Many fine younger writers — Egan, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Lethem — are obvious rock geeks who skillfully evoke the experience of music consumption. There are also memorable depictions of fandom, notably Nick Hornby’s 1996 novel High Fidelity. But few books attempt to provide glimpses into the musicianly mind. (Actually, I haven’t yet read Lethem’s You Don’t Love Me Yet, which is set in the indie rock scene. Have any of you? I sure love his Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude.)
At worst, smart writers sound stupid when attempting to write knowingly of music creation. I dig most Salman Rushdie I’ve read, but man, his 2000 “rock” novel, The Ground Beneath Her Feet is a stinker. Rushdie attempts an alternate rock history via his signature South Asian magic realism, and the result isn’t fantastical — it’s bunk. Sorry, partying with members of U2 doesn’t automatically afford vast insight into the musicianly mind. Or at least that’s been my experience. 😉
Tonefiend Book Week is simple: I discuss a few titles I’ve found particularly enlightening, useful, or entertaining, and then you jump in and do the same. I’ve organized the days of this week by subject matter. Today’s topics are musical biographies and autobiographies.
Classic rock fans have been rewarded with many cool autobiographies in recent years: Keith Richards’ Life, Patti Smith’s Just Kids, Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace, and Pete Townshend’s Who Am I: A Memoir, to name a few. I’ve read Richards and Smith, and I plan to read the others. Any thoughts about those and similar titles?
And then there are the great jazz autobiographies, such as Miles Davis’s Miles and Duke Ellington’s Music is My Mistress. Despite their alleged omissions and inaccuracies, both are epic accounts of epic lives dedicated to epic music. (So which is better: a lively, lying-through-the-teeth autobiography, or a dry but truthful biography?)
But my favorite musical autobiography is Hector Berlioz’s Mémoires, first issued in 1865.
Hector Berlioz: total punk!
This, admittedly, isn’t a book for all musicians, or even most musicians. It concerns the explosive classical music scene of 19th-century Europe. If that topic holds no interest, the Mémoires probably won’t either.
But consider: Berlioz (1803-1869) is, along with Debussy, France’s greatest composer. He was a founder of Romanticism, and the first composer to fuse literature and instrumental music on a grand scale. He helped create the modern concept of orchestration and wrote the first orchestration manual. And of all the great composers, Berlioz is hands-down the best writer. He is arrogant, irreverent, sarcastic, and blisteringly funny. If you enjoy, say, the acidic humor of Mark Twain’s essays, you’ll dig Berlioz’s voice.
And like Twain, Berlioz played guitar. (More on that in a bit.)
The Mémoires drip attitude from page 1:
Needless to say, I was brought up in the Catholic faith. This charming religion (so attractive since it gave up burning people) was for seven whole years the joy of my life, and although we have long since fallen out, I have always kept the most tender memories of it.
Berlioz’s music was often less than subtle. Here’s one contemporary caricature.
…and it never lets up. We meet the era’s greatest composers and performers and learn what it was like to be a professional musician in an era before recorded music. Concerts were longer. Audiences were more passionate. Wars were waged in the music journals. If you think going on tour today is demanding, imagine it in an era of unpaved roads and horse-drawn carriages.
Tonefiend Book Week is simple: I discuss a few titles I’ve found particularly enlightening, useful, or entertaining, and then you jump in and do the same. I’ve organized the days of this week by subject matter. Today’s topics are repair and DIY.
I’m indispensable.
Sorry in advance if my faves in this category are a bit predictable!
For any repair topic, I turn to the redoubtable Dan Erlewine. Dan knows his stuff like no one else, plus he’s a terrific writer, with a rare talent for explanation and a charming sense of humor.
Dan has serviced the instruments of countless great players. (I’d insert a list, but it might wear out my comma key.) Better yet, he makes comprehensive notes and measurements. You learn much about, say, Albert King, just by studying Dan’s numbers.
Now, I’m the furthest thing from a guitar tech. (Just ask San Francisco’s brilliant Gary Brawer, who regularly rescues my guitars from clumsy abuse and ill-considered DIY attempts.) But for players who simply need help with basic setup, maintenance, and modification tasks, Erlewine’s books — The Guitar Player Repair Guide and How to Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great — are godsends. Get ’em both. You won’t be sorry. (The digital versions live on my iPad for workbench reference.)
I’m indispensable too!
I never had the pleasure of editing Dan’s columns when I worked at Guitar Player — Jas Obrecht jealously guarded that privilege. But the entire staff would laugh itself silly over Dan’s April Fools columns, like the one where he explained how to install a Floyd Rose tremolo on a pre-War Martin. (If I recall correctly, the process involved filling the body with cement.) Another year, he suggested using kitchen objects as lutherie tools. The photos included a kitchen table used as a clamp for a glue job on some über-valuable axe. (Touch of genius: The pic showed the poor guitar being crushed by a weighty trestle table, where Dan’s kids sat enjoying large bowls of breakfast cereal.) That one prompted a very famous guitar maker to write a shrill letter to the editor. (“It’s highly irresponsible for Mr. Erlewine to recommend using a heavy kitchen table as a clamp. Proper clamps don’t even cost that much!”) The luthier followed this with a frantic phone call, explaining that someone had alerted him to the joke, and begging us not to run the letter. We didn’t. (Dagnabbit!)
This week we’re talking about our favorite guitar/music books. The plan is simple: I discuss a few titles I’ve found particularly enlightening, useful, or entertaining, and then you jump in and do the same. I’ve organized the days of this week by subject matter. Today’s topic is guitar gear.
Guitar gear books seem to fall into three categories:
Pornographic. Lavish publications featuring beautiful photos of rare instruments, often focusing on a single manufacturer or collector.
Encyclopedic. Thick reference books covering wide swaths of guitar history.
Pragmatic. Books that explain the inner workings of guitar technology, with an emphasis on how to turn this info to your musical advantage.
Even if I weren’t a jaded former guitar mag editor, I doubt I’d have much interest in coffee-table guitar porn books (and the occasional guitar porn magazine). Or at least, no more interest than I’d have in photos of, say, beautiful watches, speedboats, or nutcrackers. I’m not a guitar collector.
Not on my coffee table, you don’t!
Hey — stop laughing! Yeah, I own more than 20 guitars. (The exact number depends on whether I count guitars I’ve loaned out indefinitely and ones I’ve borrowed indefinitely.) I appreciate my instruments greatly, and I am very aware of how fortunate I am to have access to so many musical tools. But in the end, they are just tools to me, with little significance beyond their musical applications.
I realize this is a pretty weird attitude for a guitar dude, and one reason why I was probably never a perfect fit as a guitar mag editor. (I must be missing some crucial male gene, because I’m equally blasé about cars and sports. With rare exceptions.)
The classic reference book.
Reference books are a different story, especially the books of George Gruhn and Walter Carter, and those of Tom Wheeler. Sure, some of their weightier works have guitar porn aspects, but always paired with vast historical knowledge and the expertise of longtime industry insiders. Gruhn and Carter may know more about American guitars than anyone. But I always gravitate to Tom Wheeler’s books, and not just because he’s a longtime friend and mentor. Tom is a fine writer, an impeccable researcher (he’s been a journalism prof for the last 20 years), and he still conveys a teenager’s passion for the instrument. Tom is my hero.
(Bonus question: Has Wikipedia rendered the guitar reference book obsolete?)
But these days, the gear books that excite me most are the technically slanted, nuts-and-bolts titles. It’s one thing to ogle pretty instruments, and another to explain how they work, why they sound the way they do, and what that all means for the music we make today. And that’s why I love the books of Dave Hunter.
This week we’re talking about our favorite guitar/music books. The plan is simple: I discuss a few titles I’ve found particularly enlightening, useful, or entertaining, and then you jump in and do the same. I’ve organized the days of this week by subject matter. Today’s topics are theory and technique.
Tonefiend Book Week 2013 is an entirely selfish project. I expect to reap tons of great new info from you, smart readers. So don’t be shy about chiming in.
1. Ted Greene’s complete works
This week on Finding Bigfoot, the BFRO team visits Encino, California.
Ted Greene’s jazz guitar books have haunted me since the ’70s. Chord Chemistry, Modern Chord Progressions, and Jazz Guitar Single Note Soloing Vols 1 & 2 remain in print, and are available in both paper and digital editions.
Ted’s books helped me understand the fretboard, tackle jazz harmony, and perhaps most of all, grasp the concept of voice-leading — that is, the ability to perceive chords not as static blocks, but as volatile structures resulting from dynamic melodies. Ironically, even though Ted’s books are divided into chordal and single-note topics, they go a long way toward erasing such distinctions. Melody generates harmony, Ted teaches, and harmony generates melody.
Not that I’ve completely digested Ted’s books. Has anyone? These tomes are dauntingly dense and complex. I just cracked open Modern Chord Progressions at random, and this confronted me:
Next week at tonefiend we’ll be talking about our favorite guitar/music books. I’ll write about some of the titles I find especially useful, inspiring, or entertaining, and I hope you’ll chime in with some of your recommended reading.
Since there’s so much potential material here, I suggest we focus on a different book category each day. Here’s my proposed schedule:
Friday, June 7th: Fiction (guitar mag product reviews don’t count)
Tonefiend Book Week is strictly an experiment, and a selfish one at that. If the past is any guide, the obsessive geeks experienced and sophisticated players who frequent this site will introduce us to lots of lively lutherie-linked literature. And I’ll do my best to keep up!
So scour your bookshelves, real and virtual. This shit is about to get real promises to be a most edifying conversation.
It’s the latest chapter in my ongoing search for the right acoustic strings. Most available options simply sound far too harsh and bright to my ears, especially for fingerstyle playing on the small-bodied guitars I favor. Even though the Martin silk-and-steels I used were dramatically quieter than most bronze strings, I dug their warmth and strong fundamentals — and the absence of the hyped sizzle of bronze.
Several of you responded in comments with string suggestions, including several types I barely knew existed. Despite some rather shocking expenditures for these high-end, imported strings, I found much to love. Now I’m rich in tone, if nothing else.
Since I’m hot on the trail of a cool new fuzz circuit, I haven’t yet had time to record demos (and besides, I’d rather wait till the strings wear in a bit). But I’d like to share details about several products that impressed me.
Saw this today on the Guardian‘s site: A clever programmer named Joe Cannatti decided to visualize the fretwork of a 22 well-known players. He used Ruby on Rails code to search the internet for tablature files, and then depicted the data as “fretboard heatmaps” — fretboard graphics with frequently played notes depicted in red. (The redder the note, the more frequently the player uses it.)
You can also view these visualizations on Cannatti’s website, which includes more details about how they were created.
I predict that, like me, you’ll find the results interesting but not surprising. Dave Mustaine and James Hetfield chunk a lot of low E. (James once told me that he could never play a guitar without a low E-string, adding that the only features he finds lacking in his guitars are beer holders of the type found on boats.) Dave Matthews loves open-position D chords. B.B. King doesn’t play many low notes — he’s got a band for that. Satch and Vai are busy beavers, their fretboards a smear of pink.
No less predictable: Damn, we guitarists can be argumentative know-it-alls! Check out the Guardian’s comments section, where dozens of players screech that the data is either meaningless or faulty.
I disagree. These results ring true to me. I’d be shocked if you were to examine the instruments of the guitarists in question and not find exactly the fret-wear patterns suggested here.
Silk and steel — bad-ass, or strictly for wusses?.
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve tried silk and steel strings.
I’ve always thought of them as a transitional set for students migrating from nylon to steel strings. At least that’s how my mom used to explain them to me back when she was giving me my first lessons. Like many players, I viewed them more as a remedy for tender fingertips than a sound you’d actively seek out.
But over time, almost everything I thought I knew about strings turned out to be wrong. So I figured I’d give silk-and-steels a fresh listen.
This thread over at the Acoustic Guitar Forum seems like a fair summary of common attitudes about these strings. Opinions seems divided between players who simply find silk-and-steel strings too soft and quiet to be of much use, and those who enjoy them for fingerstyle playing, especially on small-bodied guitars.
I’ve been frustrated finding the right strings for the old Martin acoustic I picked up last year. I had a violent reaction against coated bronze strings, which I wrote about here. But I was kind of digging the way Martin Marquis 80/20s bronze strings sounded on the instrument, as heard in this video. Sometimes, though, the tone is just too harsh and clacky, so I wanted to try something lighter and softer.
I slapped down this quick duet performance of “Drewrie’s Accordes,” an anonymous lute duet found in The Jane Pickering Lute Book, a manuscript anthology of late 16th-century lute pieces. (This would have been played on gut strings in its day, and is usually performed on nylon-string classical guitar or lute today. My steel treble strings are definitely not historically correct, though some wire-stringed fretted instruments such as the cittern did exist in the Renaissance.)
Observations after the video.
Compared to all-metal strings, the silk-and-steels are definitely quieter, with less treble bite. I like their soft, malleable feel for intricate fingerstyle playing like this. They offer relatively smooth transitions between unwound and wound strings. They exhibit less clacky string and fingernail noise. Playing aggressively with a pick definitely “overloads” them, and would no doubt destroy the windings in short order. Even when playing exclusively fingerstyle, you get the sense that the bass strings aren’t long for this world. But I enjoy their sweet, quasi-classical tone, which to my ear does indeed split the difference between nylon and all-metal strings.
Still, I’m not sure I want to commit to having these on the guitar all the time. (I wish the guitar had a switch to toggle between a bronze and silk-and-steel sound!) Also, these are lighter than I usually play (the treble is .0115, and I pretty much never go below .012). But the relaxed tension does seem to suit this particular guitar.
How about you guys? Any experience with these soft-spoken strings? Do you think they sound cool, or are they merely a salve for sore fingers? And has anyone tried John Pearse silk-and-bronze strings? (That’s probably the next stop on this particular string quest.)
P.S.: This is also a pretty good example of how I apply lute techniques to steel-string playing, as I mentioned here. For most of the fast bits, I pick alternately using my right-hand thumb and index finger. A proper classical player would be more likely to alternate index- and middle-finger. Also, my right thumb sometimes drifts “behind” my right-hand fingers (that is, closer to the bridge). Classical players rarely position their picking thumbs closer to the bridge relative to the fingers. It’s not conscious on my part — it just what my hand does when I’m trying to brighten the bass notes and darken the trebles.
Here’s reader Freddie Lenzel, writing in response to my post on the bizarre late-medieval composition Fumee fume par fumee:
To me, it sort of sounds like The Shaggs from the Dark Ages. But seriously, it’s really interesting. Greetings from Spain, love your blog.
And I love your comment, Freddie! It really strikes a chord (pun intended), because the Shaggs have always sounded medieval to me. And I think I can explain why.
(But first: If you don’t know the Shaggs, stop reading this second and make your acquaintance with the group and their 1969 magnum opus, Philosophy of the World. Kurt Cobain cited it as one of the five-best albums of all time, and Frank Zappa insisted that the Shaggs were “better than the Beatles,” words that inspired this indie-trash tribute album. Meanwhile, NRBQ’s Terry Adams, who launched the Shaggs revival by getting Philosphy re-released in 1980, rightfully compared their homespun sound to Ornette Coleman’s free jazz.)
The Shaggs weren’t the only band to make an album before they knew how to play or write music, but they were one of the best. Many musicians, when first exposed to the Shaggs’ idiot-savant sound, compare it to what might result if you explained music to an alien species unfamiliar with the concept, and then sent them into the studio before letting them hear any actual music. Shaggs songs have no underlying chord structures, no consistent meter, no conventional phrasing, and little harmonization. It’s just odd, meandering “melodies” that stumble along until singer/guitarist Dot Wiggin happens to require a breath. Why, it’s practically…medieval!
