JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Blume article

This topic is like CNN's coverage of that Malayasian plane...it just won't die.

I specifically said you can learn the mechanics of a song from a book. My point was this...that's only going to get you to first grade. I am not saying you don't need others' help or guidance and I never have. Hell, I needed my wife's help to program our new coffee maker.

The analogy was made about players and coaches. That actually makes my point. Players have to try out for teams and then coaches give them personalized attention. You can't get that from a book...esp ones designed for mass consumption. Which is why I have nothing against Julliard. I've had this discussion many times on these sites here and elsewhere and they often end with others angrily defending Blume's book, Pat pattison's and others with an evangelical fervor but almost always declining to demonstrate with their own work just what they learned from those books. I still say, if you aspire to mediocrity, those books(along with all the 1000s of mentors and workshops) are for you. Otherwise you're better off by yourself in a room full of records and movies trying to carve out your own rhyme from the marble of reason.