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In the previous post I noted Lesley Howie was a featured endorsing artist in the Woodwind & Brasswind catalog. It caught my eye as she is an E-flat tenor horn player, our cousin in the middle brass range. In her bio at Besson it also caught my attention that “Recently Lesley was asked to write a chapter for ‘The Brass Players Cookbook’ which is currently storming America.”
Having not even heard of the book that was “storming America” I checked online and found that Arizona State does not own it but also quickly found it on Amazon. It was published in 2006. The basic scenario of the book is that they asked 57 well known brass players to write chapters which were compiled into a collection of articles. There are, as expected, excerpts on Amazon and also some reviews. The four reviews at Amazon range from the glowing to the less-than-glowing.
With my Doctorate in brass pedagogy I am curious but also a tough customer for books of this type. Looking at the Amazon excerpts and the table of contents it hits a lot of famous players, several of whom are only rarely seen in print, but in a format that is at the least confusing. I have not seen the full book [see UPDATE] so I won’t pass judgment, and I am sure there must be some great tips sprinkled in over the book, but the comments from “bibliobob” sound like they ring true as valid criticisms. In part he notes,
Someone came up with the thought of formatting it as a cookbook. Each contributor was asked to write a brief article on whatever they want – an extreme case of editorial abdication which resulted in the predictable redundancy and inconsistency. When the articles came in, you would hope someone would notice the cookbook idea wasn’t working and either drop that format or hire a copyeditor to make it work. Unfortunately, they soldiered on and published them as written, in alphabetical order by author.
Why this comment rings so true to me is I know it would be quite difficult to maintain a consistent style and to cover things completely in a book of this type without an editor actively molding the content.
There are a number of horn players represented and one is actually singled out by bibliobob in his review in relation to the format problems of the book. Rather than repeat it (you can read his full comment on Amazon) the main thing to note again is it takes editing to make a publication flow. Many of the articles look interesting based on the titles but the ones available in the online copy for review are really not particularly strong articles.
If you are looking for a book of tips for brass playing from a number of famous brass players this is certainly a book to look into. I would probably check to see if you had library access to a copy first though to see if there is enough there for you to feel it worth the price. We welcome further comments on The Brass Players Cookbook from those who have actually read it.
UPDATE: I have a copy now. It is an interesting book, worth reading, but as noted above and without being specifically critical of anyone, the content is a bit uneven.
