Hey Friends. It’s been too long! I’ve been wrestling with a challenge and an exciting development that I’d like to share with you, the kind folks who’ve agreed to let me visit your inbox with my writing from time to time.
I’m almost done writing a new book. And I could use your help.
Musicality For The Modern Human is my take on a music appreciation book for the 21st century. It was born about a decade ago when I gave a TEDx Nashville talk about insights I’d had through the years about how to listen with more attention and insight to music. And I realized that I’d been picking up cues and advice and tips for years, and I wanted to put them in a single, readable volume.
Here’s my current book jacket blurb:
Human beings have been making music for ourselves and each other for tens of thousands of years. Most of us like it and respond to it, even if we don’t know why, while for some people, music is a deep study and a foundational part of their personality. Now in the modern world, music is abundant, ever-present and almost free to access. Yet the data tells us that we as a people are tapping into a mere fraction of the spiritual, emotional and intellectual power of music. The popular song and singer rules, while instrumental music for close listening - music made by composers, ensembles, soloists and sound artists - struggles as a tiny fraction of the overall music market and national music conversation. The legacies of jazz, classical, and third stream music are little-known, and young practitioners of these fine arts confront a largely indifferent and unaware public. This is not because people don't like contemporary music. Instead people don’t understand or relate to it, because basic musical literacy has been diminished in schools and largely exiled from the mainstream media. People are just expected to value the inner game of music without easy access to its rules. In Musicality For The Modern Human, journalist and lifelong hobbyist musician Craig Havighurst offers an anecdote-driven antidote to fussy, traditional "music appreciation" with a collection of connected essays about active, engaged listening - about what to listen for in the realms of tone, time and timbre. Becoming more musically aware and insightful is a lifetime journey that, once embraced, enhances our sense of self-worth, our mental health, and our personal growth. Readers of every level and musical background are invited to heed the words of Isaac Stern and make music "an active part of natural life" through discerning listening and a joyful, life-long climb up the mountain of musicality.
The book is set to have 24 chapters, in three parts. First are chapters that attempt to reset or wipe away biases and blockages many people have due to the way music is marketed and promoted in our culture, including an alternative framing to genres. Then in the heart of the book are chapters about sound, audio perception, tone and melody, harmonic theory, rhythmic concepts, and the under-appreciated creative variable of timbre. And the final third includes chapters about practical guidance for listening to more complicated music, including how to understand conductors and band leaders, how to make sense of curators and discovery algorithms, and how to approach listening in live venues and at home.
My hope and challenge is to deliver a work that’s readable by people who are not already deeply engaged with music. I want to recruit new citizens into a life of musicality and help those who are interested in music become more active and discerning listeners. But I have been writing to an audience of one - me - for these past few years. I really need to know if this first draft is close or way off the mark. Where does it work and where does it lose people? I have no idea!
That’s where you come in. Will you be part of my focus group? If you would like to see the book in near-finished form (21 of 24 chapter) and a chapter outline on a secret web site, please email me at: chavighurst@gmail.com. I’ll send you a link and the password or a PDF if you prefer. I’ll suggest a couple of focus chapters for you if the whole thing seems too much to bite off. I’ll follow up to see what you do and don’t like about it. And I’m eager for criticism. If you have ideas about agents, publishers or avenues to satisfying self-publishing, I’m eager to engage.
NEW WORK
In other news, my 2024 started in the most unexpected way, with a late-breaking invitation to be part of the programming (as artist interviewer) on Delber McClinton’s Sandy Beaches Cruise, which made its 28th voyage between Jan. 12 and 20. That makes it the longest-running music cruise in the business, as far as I can tell. I asked if I could use the trip to do some reporting on the story of this cruise and the music cruise business, and the promoters were extremely warm and welcoming. So I put together a special episode of The String and a narrative with photos that you can link to here. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
If somebody asked me to recommend my favorite album so far of this new year 2024, I might well pick the self-titled debut by The American Patchwork Quartet. It’s the latest global-minded project from New York guitarist and singer Clay Ross. I’ve long admired him and this was the ideal chance to have a conversation for The String.
It was a thrill to start 2024 off with an interview with the absolutely iconic Rosanne Cash. This songwriter, performer and essayist has by no means cruised under the power of her famous father. She’s had several different kinds of success, whether at country radio in the 80s or as a beacon of cultural light in recent decades. We spoke by Zoom from her home in New York.
You probably know that I’m a major jazz hound, and I love to champion today’s coolest practitioners, especially women. This hour of The String presents a feature interview with drummer and composer Allison Miller, a musician with more than a few ties to our roots/Americana world. Also in the hour, Nashville’s remarkable drummer/band leader Sofia Goodman.
Finally, in case you missed it, here’s my final list of 30 outstanding and essential Americana albums from 2023.