NOT FOR ENGINEARS ONLY
Music, Sound, & Technology by John M. Eargle. Van Nostrand Reinhold, hardcover, 290 pp., $42.95.
When reading this book, it is clear that the author has a vast knowledge of music, musical instruments, and the recording of acoustic music of all kinds. It is difficult to condense broad knowledge of many topics into a relatively small book that is of value to a broad spectrum of readers. In this case, the author has done an admirable job.
The first two chapters deal with topics of physical and psychological acoustics. The total of about 50 pages in these chapters allows for only very brief explanations of simple wave generation and propagation, and of the way the ear hears and interprets the physical phenomenon of sound. But with very compact writing and short, clear delineation of the facts, the author makes clear the most important issues. These chapters are a most suitable introduction to the main topics in this book.
Next is a good chapter on scales, temperament, and tuning as these topics relate to written music and, especially, acoustic instruments. These important topics are covered concisely.
The figures used are not very elegant but are clear enough to make their point.
The real substance of the book starts in Chapter 4 with a discussion of the physical means used to produce sound in acoustical instruments. The main classes of instruments-chordo-phones, aerophones of three classes, membranophones, and idiophonesare discussed. If you do not know acoustical instruments by these classes, this chapter will be of special interest since it does a very nice job of summarizing these matters. At the end of this chapter are references to the literature; I was pleased to see many books listed that I know well, and I am now making a point of locating several others. In fact, each chapter has a large and excellent list of important references that will give the reader more in-depth information on the topics that are discussed.
The heart of the book is contained, in my opinion, in Chapters 5 through 9. These deal with various instrument groups and their characteristics. The basics of how the instrument produces its sound are discussed. But of more importance, the structure of the sound produced-the timbre, the scale, the spectral distribution, and the spatial radiation patterns of the sound-is described. Knowledge of these issues is important to both the performer and the recording engineer. It is difficult to cover these topics for every instrument in a relatively short space, but the essence of each instrument group is covered here. Issues such as the spatial distribution of sound from various instruments are particularly important for the recording engineer to understand.
The reader, with these basics in hand, can then go to several references to get more detail regarding a particular instrument.
Even though I am familiar with most of the field covered, I found each chapter in this part of the book to yield a bit of new information or to clarify and put into perspective some facts that I already knew. After reading these chapters, I felt the time spent was definitely worthwhile. That, in my opinion, is the main value of any book.
Chapters are devoted to stringed instruments, including the bowed-string family of all sizes and the plucked-string instruments like the guitar and harp. Of particular interest are the acoustic characteristics and the polar radiation patterns shown. Some of the figures are not as elaborate as they might be, and some are not proportioned to each other carefully, but this minor problem is more a matter of book production than flawed writing.
The chapter on woodwind instruments is particularly thorough, covering both the flute-like instruments and the reed instruments in some detail.
Again, the acoustics data presented is very informative. The brass instruments are also covered in some detail in the following chapter. The summary of physical horn lengths and bore shapes, as well as the playing modes used to sound these instruments, is very welcome. Of special value is the data given on the frequency and dynamic ranges of the several instruments in this group.
The percussion group is so extensive that it could not be covered in every aspect. Still, the main drum-like instruments are discussed, as are the mallet-struck instruments. This chapter is a bit brief on acoustic characteristics. I would have liked to see more on directivity patterns and, especially, dynamic ranges. The data given indicates rather impressive dynamic range possibilities.
The chapter on keyboard instruments is too brief to satisfy my interests, but I have to admit to being a keyboard-o-phile. (I probably know too much about pianos and organs as it is.) I would have liked to see a bit more information on sound patterns and recording methods for the piano; one example is given.
In an overview, these five chapters are useful to both musician and recording engineer. They show the broad understanding the author has from both sides of the music stand.
The coverage of the totality of instruments is not entirely consistent and symmetrical from chapter to chapter, but this probably reflects the availability of data.
A chapter on musical ensembles includes everything from small chamber ensembles to orchestras and orchestras with choruses. I found this to be one of the most interesting chapters and one that is of utmost importance to the recording engineer. There is a good discussion of the placement of instruments and the way it affects the sound balance of the instrumental groups. This leads into the next chapter, which is about performance environments. These two topics together are not only vital to the performer who has to work with, hear, and complement the whole ensemble but also to the audience and the recording engineer who must capture the performance with some semblance of reality.
I had hoped that the chapters on musical ensembles and environments would be capped with a chapter on recording techniques. It is well known that John Eargle is one of the finest recording engineers around. (Some of his wonderful work is available on the Delos label.) I want to know more about this topic. This is a public plea for another book on putting it all together, John: The Making of Great Recordings.
The chapter on music and speech reinforcement has too many topics in it to allow for useful, detailed coverage of any one topic; instead, the coverage is uneven. Chapter 13 is a brief overview of various sound recording techniques, including microphone types and stereo sound pickup. I would have felt better about this chapter if it were fleshed out with the microphone material, including microphone placement, while omitting the sketchy description of magnetic recording.
The chapter on high-fidelity sound in the home is only 11 pages long and exceptionally brief on each topic. The cassette gets a half page, the CD and loudspeakers, one apiece. But this is not the thrust of the book in any case.
Similarly, the overview of music synthesis is very brief and could have been omitted (it is only seven pages). I find this to be a very good book in those areas which are its main thrust. It is more than worth having for the first 250 pages alone, and the parts I am not thrilled about total only about 25 pages. That is not a bad ratio, and it is much better than most books. Music, Sound, & Technology is suitable for both musicians who want to know more about the concerns of the recording engineer and for recording engineers who want to understand more about the instruments and concerns of the musician. Almost all music lovers, who are generally neither performers nor recording specialists, will find much of interest in this well-written and easy-to-read book. I recommend it highly.
--R. A. Greiner
Hit Men by Fredric Dannen. Random House, hardcover,
387 pp., $19.95.
Hit Men describes the impact independent promotion men have had on the record industry, especially in the '70s and '80s. It does so through the often interrelated stories of several key record company executives. Among them are Columbia's Walter Yetnikoff (who has since left the company); Dick Asher of Columbia and later PolyGram; David Geffen and Irving Azoff, who both experienced meteoric rises as industry kingpins; flamboyant Clive Davis, who was forced out of Columbia and currently runs Arista; Neil Bogart of Casablanca, and Morris Levy of Roulette, who is currently in prison Such prominent indie promo men as Joe Isgro and Fred DiSipio are also thoroughly profiled.
Since the book's publication, Isgro has gone to trial for a slew of charges relating to alleged payola. In a spectacular development at his highly publicized trial's opening day, the judge threw out all charges after a key witness recanted his grand jury testimony. That made this only the latest in a long series of judicial failures at payola prosecution. Hit Men throws a glaring fluorescent light on the history of this murky subject.
Dannen has done a spectacular homework job. He leaves the reader with an inescapable feeling that the record industry must be the slimiest, most double-faced business on earth.
The book reads as quickly as a good crime novel, but none of the names have been changed, and the innocent receive and--according to Dannen--deserve scant protection.
His book charts the rise of the Network, a web of independent promo men, which at its height allegedly managed to extract millions of dollars annually by influencing airplay at radio stations across the country. Dannen not only charts their history, he examines the Network's methods and the factors which made its operation possible as well.
Anyone in the Music Biz will consider Hit Men required reading. As I write this, the book is a major topic of conversation when radio or record people get together, even if only to discuss who does or doesn't appear in the book. Outsiders will find it no less fascinating.
It is worth noting here that in my more than 20 years in FM rock radio, only once was I offered money to play a record. I was hanging out at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios when David Bowie was recording his Young Americans album. One night, the band's chauffeur took me with him to lead him to some quality take-out burgers for the boys. While we were waiting for our order, he very clumsily offered me some money to play a bad Mick Ronson album that was current at the time. I wasted no time in turning him down. I thought he was just trying to impress his boss, but that was not the way to do it. The album stiffed anyway. But according to Hit Men, FM rock was never the payola hotbed that Top 40 was.
--Michael Tearson
Editor's Note:
Michael Tearson has been Philadelphia's boss rock jock for 21 years at WMMR, 93.3 FM. His music reviews have appeared regularly in Audio since 1976.
-E.P.
Grateful Dead Family Album by Jerilyn Lee Brandelius,
edited by Alan Trist. Warner Books, 256 pp., paperback, $16.95.
Having celebrated their 25th anniversary, The Grateful Dead are an American institution, and long ago journeyed beyond the boundaries of rock 'n' roll and into the realm of living folklore. What began as an experiment in creative formlessness-during their mid-'60s heyday as Ken Kesey's Acid Test house band-has evolved into a sort of alternative version of the national pastime. (Where else in our culture than at a baseball game are 15- and 55-year-olds brought together on such a common ground of drama and celebration, replete with old hands passing down the lore of days gone by to new enthusiasts? The only difference is that at Dead concerts, the home team always wins.) Between then and now, the band has woven a legacy three decades long, 2,000 concerts wide, and immeasurably thick with music, magic, and emotion. Through this great tapestry runs a colorful thread of human community that has held it all together--from crew to staff, friends to fans, truck drivers to tie-dyers. This is, collectively, the Grateful Dead family.
The Grateful Dead Family Album is a testament to that community, a crazy quilt of photographs and remembrances that follows the band and its extended family's path from Jerry Garcia's cherubic childhood mug to his grandfatherly gray locks. Written by one of those family members, Jerilyn Lee Brandelius, and edited by another, Alan Trist, the book takes a roughly chronological path, using over 700 photos to tell its tale of a legendary band and the social matrix of which it is part and parcel. Brandelius' photographic archive ranges from the professional to the purely homemade, including baby pictures, high school snapshots, and everyday gems likely culled from the family's own albums.
Complementing them are a host of quotes, anecdotes, press clippings, memories, self-perceptions, and snippets of spirit from the likes of Paul Krassner, Ken Kesey, music critic Ralph Gleason, rock impresario Bill Graham, columnist Herb Caen, longtime family members, fellow musicians, and band members themselves. Designer Jon Goodchild chose a creatively anarchic layout that in essence mirrors the theme of the book. The result-a patchwork of photos, posters, album covers, poetry, conversation, tie-dye backdrops, and jubilant audiences-runs from fun to dizzying, depending on your point of view. Suffice it to say that you'll end up holding the book at various angles. The cover and introductory artwork by veteran San Francisco poster artist Stanley Mouse playfully weds Grateful Dead iconography with a healthy dash of old-time Americana.
This visual/verbal narrative begins in the heady Haight-Ashbury days of the Merry Pranksters; The Diggers; Neal Casady; and Kerouac's legacy; its vehicle the first literal, then metaphorical Bus, whose destination reads "FURTHER," a signpost the Dead have heeded ever since. On it we careen through the streets of '60s San Francisco, around corners to intimate gigs at the Fillmore and the Family Dog, out country roads to the band's weekend retreat in rural Marin County, along widening avenues to vast rock concerts like Woodstock and Altamont, and across continents to the band's festive '72 tour of Europe and '78 trip to Egypt for history's first rock concerts in the shadow of the Sphinx. Highlights like the band's creation of its own record label, its 15th and 20th anniversaries, and its 1987 tour with Bob Dylan are counterpointed by painful losses--original member Ron (Pigpen) McKernan, good pal Janis Joplin, road manager Rex Jackson, poet and friend Bobby Petersen.
Along the way we encounter an eclectic assortment of personalities, among them Native American medicine man Rolling Thunder, master tabla player Alla Rakha, rock vets Mick Jagger and Pete Townshend, the Gyuto Tantric Monks of Tibet, professional do-gooder Wavy Gravy, director Francis Ford Coppola, and mythologist Joseph Campbell, who three years ago proclaimed the Dead no less than "the antidote to the atom bomb." Amidst the hoopla are scenes from everyday life and the folks who live it riding horses, cradling babies, playing softball, dancing in the breeze, hammin' it up for the camera, or just hanging out. Smiling kids, white-haired grandmothers, roadies loading trucks, couples at the altar, office staff, stagehands, sound mixers, cheering fans, hog farmers, family dogs, friendly strangers, and strange friends. Some come and go, others stay on and on.
Old companions are lost and eulogized, new ones born and celebrated. All remain in spirit. Among them are names and faces not even the most devoted Deadhead would recognize, certainly none remarkable enough to warrant much fervor in their own right. But together, they compose a whole that's far greater than the sum of its parts, and a sense that something special is going on here. Folklore with an emphasis on the folk. Home that defies a fixed sense of place. Family that transcends conventional ties.
Certainly there are few families large or interesting enough to support the mainstream publication of their own album. The appearance of this one seemed somehow inevitable. That it comes after a quarter-century is more by accident than design. For it's not really a summing-up, but more a progress report as Grateful Dead and family move full-steam ahead into the next decade and, for all we know, the next millennium. Neither a verbal history nor merely a picture book, this scrapbook is clearly a labor of love.
And if it is ultimately something only a true Deadhead could love, it will not necessarily be lost on others. For as well as being a family album, it is also a portrait of a counterculture: Its birth, growth, and persistence of vision. A culture that has never betrayed its roots and, in so doing, has not only survived but flourished. One whose stance outside the establishment became legitimized not because it compromised enough to gain entry, but because the mainstream grew broad enough to accommodate it. And while now accepted there, it still keeps one foot dancing on the periphery. All told, an American experiment whose weird and wonderful alchemy found it a lasting form and a lot of like-minded folks.
As Bill Graham reflects in his introduction: "This family embodies the essence of an all-powerful spirit that was born in the Bay Area in the sixties-a sense of camaraderie, of hope for a more idealistic world. After all these years, this family continues to represent a positive alternative-they make it possible for some light to shine through." Off in the future, children will sit and listen to sparkly-eyed grandparents spin outrageous yarns about a magical mystery band that played way back once upon a time. For any doubting Thomas, this book will prove they weren't making it up, and maybe even offer an inkling of what the fuss was about.
Michael Nash I Am the Blues: The Willie Dixon Story by
Willie Dixon with Don Snowden. Da Capo Press, softcover, 264 pp., $12.95.
When it comes to contemporary blues and blues/rock, Willie Dixon is probably the most recorded composer, living or dead. Period. His songs have graced recordings for at least three generations, a discography including (but not limited to) Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds, Cream, Jeff Beck, Otis Rush, Sonny Boy Williamson, Captain Beefheart, Dave Edmunds, Van Morrison, Megadeth, Little Walter, Tesla, Foghat, Otis Redding, Jeff Healey Band, and Conway Twitty. The first generation of Chess blues artists relied heavily (almost exclusively) on Willie Dixon's songs, production, and expertise to create their music, and the subsequent British blues explosion of the
'60s paid tribute to Willie by recording his songs, using his song titles as their group names (Pretty Things, Hoochie Coochie Men), and recording at the Chess studios in the hopes of getting close to the man (The Yardbirds and Rolling Stones in particular). There is no getting away from Willie Dixon's musical legacy; it is as pervasive an influence on contemporary music as Shakespeare is on contemporary literature.
This autobiography is sheer entertainment from start to finish, full of anecdotal remembrances of Willie's youth in Mississippi and his early days as a fighter/performer. There's a great deal of material about Willie's Chess days as well as pearls of wisdom about songwriting and the creative process.
The book is told, rather than written, primarily by Willie himself but with some secondary sources, such as the musicians he worked with, the managers and agents who helped him, and those who knew him when he was a youngster. Because he has never been particularly appreciated as an artist, and because he made some unwise deals early in his career, Willie Dixon has never really gotten his due (especially when it comes to financial compensation for his early works), but nowadays he's revered as the great source that he is. Any musician, songwriter, or music fan can acquire more than his share of knowledge by picking up this book; we know we'll be reading it more than once. Our only complaint is that it could have been a whole lot longer—250--odd pages simply aren't enough.
-Jon & Sally Tiven
(adapted from Audio magazine, Apr. 1991)
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