{"id":1872,"date":"2013-05-15T17:18:51","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T00:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/makingof\/?p=1872"},"modified":"2013-05-15T17:18:51","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T00:18:51","slug":"the-making-of-song-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/2013\/05\/15\/the-making-of-song-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"The Making of Song Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F92394055\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Beck&#8217;s latest album, Song Reader, echoes the time when popular songs were played at home, around the parlor piano, porch guitar or grandpa&#8217;s harmonica. Existing only as loose-leaf sheet music, Song Reader is an album for listeners to play for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Since Song Reader&#8217;s release in December 2012, Beck fans all over the world have stepped up to the music stand. They&#8217;re sharing their versions&#8211;each as authoritative as the next&#8211;on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.songreader.net\/\">SongReader.net<\/a>, the album&#8217;s online home.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DM41N2jaoy4?rel=0\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is now this whole universe of YouTube and SoundCloud and a community of people who are excited to produce their own versions and have others react to them,&#8221; says Jordan Bass, managing editor of McSweeney&#8217;s, the publishers of Song Reader.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The spirit of this book is really to think about the making of a song, and what an artist can ask from his or her audience,&#8221; Bass says. &#8220;The idea of the listener having in a role in how the song sounds is something people really respond to now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In early April, ten musicians from the Blue Bear School of Music performed seven songs from Song Reader at Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco. The musicians used a clarinet, ukelele, sousaphone &#8220;and a bunch of other instruments that normally don&#8217;t talk to each other,&#8221; says Isaac Clemens who blew 10 years of dust off his tuba to play brass for the evening.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NliD_Z1Mefg?rel=0\" height=\"349\" width=\"620\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With this experiment what Beck really did was to unleash his work on the creative horsepower of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people,&#8221; Clemens says. &#8220;He is saying in essence, &#8216;Here&#8217;s a spark, now make a fire.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McSweeney&#8217;s and Beck are collaborating together for the next issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/popupmagazine.com\/\">Pop-Up Magazine<\/a> on May 20.<br \/>\n&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>SPECIAL THANKS<br \/>\nJordan Bass, Isaac Clemens, Derek Fagerstrom, Steve Kirk, Douglas McGray, Joe Rubio and Lisa Strong.<\/p>\n<p>MUSIC<br \/>\nBy Beck and many others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beck&#8217;s latest album, Song Reader, echoes the time when popular songs were played at home, around the parlor piano, porch guitar or grandpa&#8217;s harmonica. Existing only as loose-leaf sheet music, Song Reader is an album for listeners to play for themselves. Since Song Reader&#8217;s release in December 2012, Beck fans all over the world have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/2013\/05\/15\/the-making-of-song-reader\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Making of Song Reader<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11456,"featured_media":1878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[62,69,426,512],"coauthors":[],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-1872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-beck","tag-blue-bear-school-of-music","tag-mcsweeneys","tag-pop-up-magazine"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"template_type":null,"featured_image_type":null,"is_audio_post":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11456"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"affiliates","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/affiliates?post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"programs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/programs?post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"collections","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collections?post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"interests","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/interests?post=1872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}