Book Addiction!

Claude 013

Claude 013

Do you have book addiction?
I have a problem; whenever I start a new interest, the first thing I have to do is buy too many books on the subject.
I have practice books for guitar and banjo I've put on the shelf and never opened. I know I should work through a book before buying a new one, but there's always something interesting that demands to be bought!
I have Standards of Excellence and Accent on Achievement. I need to get Rubank this weekend.
I need to get "The Oboe" by Geoffrey Burgess. Is there a good book on Clarinet history?
I have "The Bassoon" by James B. Kopp, which has excellent material on the curtal and baroque bassoon. I can't afford a bassoon, but I would like a tenoroon. And I wish Yamaha would make a plastic dulcian. I'd buy it.
One of my favorites was "Never Too Late" by John Holt. It's all about how he took up cello again after spending his adult life without playing.
What about you folk? Do you tend to buy too many books, and which ones are your favorites?
 
Books on clarinet history that I like are Kroll's The Clarinet, and several books by Pamela Weston.
You could try looking for used bassoons, you know-I found a Conn (1960s Schreiber stencil) for $300 at an estate sale, and all it needs is some new pads!
I tend to both buy books and check them out from the library here, and I have 6 from there right now =P
 
Note that some method books are online. You might have to do a bit of searching, but it's sometimes amazing what you can find. Also, if you live close to a university with a music school, they might have something that you can check out. I was spoiled when I lived in Buffalo, NY because the university had a big music library and the downtown library had a large music section.

Also remember there's inter-library loans.
 
Regarding your question do I buy to many books on music, that's not possible ... for me. I have whole libraries of music books, fictional and biographical, educational and just for fun. I also picked up 100s of piano books for possible use in arranging sax quartet charts. Only ever did one, and that was for my grandson for his middle school quartet project. He helped me with it too. The last book I bought ... some years ago ... was Doug Ramsey's "Take Five, the public and private lives of Paul Desmond". Paul was a hero of mine from youth. One of my music highlights in high school was when my band teacher said I had an alto sax sound like Paul Desmond. You live for moments like that.

"I would like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age." ~ Paul Desmond
 
I think that's also the last music-related book I've read, too, Jim.

I haven't bought books in a long time. My libraries have a good selection on digital and I've got a nice Kindle Fire that I can take around with me that allows me to download books and magazines directly from the libraries around me. (It was also pretty cheap, so I don't care too much about destroying it or losing it, which, of course, means I never will do either.)

The last "method" book I bought was ... Rascher's 24 Intermezzi, when I was still in college. Well, one of the times I was in college. For those of you who play sax and/or understand the basic fingering system, you'll quickly realize how difficult the two samples on the website I linked to are. Several of the exercises have double sharps or double flats in the key signature. I don't remember how many I could play at anything approaching decent speed, but I'd put the number in the single digits.
 
I went through a period roughly 1995-2006 when I basically bought every advanced clarinet method book I could find--to add to my already large collection. I went into music stores and looked though them to see if I would benefit from them. I am curious nowadays as to what % of people still do it that way as opposed to searching for books online.
 
I have to buy books in the store. I can't look inside books on the internet.
And I like scanning down the aisle for anything I haven't heard of but should have. Amazon doesn't have a good way to do that. If you don't already know that you want to look at a a particular title, it's hard to find it by chance.
 
Claude 013 said:
I have to buy books in the store. I can't look inside books on the internet.
And I like scanning down the aisle for anything I haven't heard of but should have. Amazon doesn't have a good way to do that. If you don't already know that you want to look at a a particular title, it's hard to find it by chance.
Click to expand...
Don't tell a librarian that! ;)
 
Related to what I mentioned before about transitioning to all digital, there's also one other benefit: I was able to get rid of a couple of bookcases and give my self a bit more room -- some of which I immediately filled with plants, so YMMV :).

I was thinking about my electronica. I have an old Lenovo Yoga, which is a laptop where the screen can be rotated to "tablet mode" and anything in between. It's almost the size of a standard piece of sheet music: 9" x 13.3". There are a couple laptops that are bigger than that (15" and 17"), including one of the newer Lenovos, so they'd be even better. Nice touchscreen, too, so easy page turns. I've got a pretty decent scanner on my all-in-one printer.
 
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