2006-10-13
The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Popular Standards
Author: Max Morath
The contents of this book are neatly summarized in six bullet points on the front cover:
A concise history of the art form: the American Popular Standards are songs written between 1920 and 1960 that became pervasive in the music industry, being recorded by many major players, each adding their own special something to the presentation of the piece, and which outlived the context of their creation to become timeless.
The major composers, lyricists, and performers: paragraph-size biographies of hundreds of individuals are included, with the biggest names getting up to three pages each.
Classic songs: without including lyrics and sheet music, this section a discussion of the musical elements of 100 standards in the language of musicians. This section mostly reminded me that if you don't know music, you don't know music. (See the Wikipedia Music Theory category if you have no other background.)
An A-to-Z glossary of terms: this short glossary was needed to make this printed book complete, but really, try Wikipedia if you actually need to look up a term.
Valuble resources for the Curious Listener: books and websites
75 Essential Popular Standards CDs: if you want to go beyond listening to the radio and taking what they give you, here is a list of actual CDs you can easily purchase to hear what you've read about.
The topic interests me, and for the discount price I paid I'm happy with the book, but of course the topic needs audio to be treated properly. A good audio version of this book with examples to illustrate the material might run to 20 CDs with licensing costs pushing the price over $100. I bet it's been done well on radio -- presenting 20, one-hour sessions, with licensing costs being much cheaper -- but I couldn't tell you when, or when you'd be able to hear it for yourself, so something that the consumer can actually go buy would be preferable. If you're ready to spend some money on CDs though, or if you have some of this type of music and just want to learn more, this book should satisfy your curiosity.
The contents of this book are neatly summarized in six bullet points on the front cover:
A concise history of the art form: the American Popular Standards are songs written between 1920 and 1960 that became pervasive in the music industry, being recorded by many major players, each adding their own special something to the presentation of the piece, and which outlived the context of their creation to become timeless.
The major composers, lyricists, and performers: paragraph-size biographies of hundreds of individuals are included, with the biggest names getting up to three pages each.
Classic songs: without including lyrics and sheet music, this section a discussion of the musical elements of 100 standards in the language of musicians. This section mostly reminded me that if you don't know music, you don't know music. (See the Wikipedia Music Theory category if you have no other background.)
An A-to-Z glossary of terms: this short glossary was needed to make this printed book complete, but really, try Wikipedia if you actually need to look up a term.
Valuble resources for the Curious Listener: books and websites
75 Essential Popular Standards CDs: if you want to go beyond listening to the radio and taking what they give you, here is a list of actual CDs you can easily purchase to hear what you've read about.
The topic interests me, and for the discount price I paid I'm happy with the book, but of course the topic needs audio to be treated properly. A good audio version of this book with examples to illustrate the material might run to 20 CDs with licensing costs pushing the price over $100. I bet it's been done well on radio -- presenting 20, one-hour sessions, with licensing costs being much cheaper -- but I couldn't tell you when, or when you'd be able to hear it for yourself, so something that the consumer can actually go buy would be preferable. If you're ready to spend some money on CDs though, or if you have some of this type of music and just want to learn more, this book should satisfy your curiosity.
