Happy Travels

The library is closed from Saturday, August 24 to Saturday, August 31. If you are hitting the road between semesters, here of some suggestions of where to go:

50 Places Every Music Lover Should Visit

What destinations would you add to the list?

Welcome to the Piano/Keyboard Workshop

We welcome students attending the Piano/Keyboard Workshop and encourage you visit the library while you're here. To highlight parts of our collection of particular interest:

M 20--M 39.6	Classical Music Scores: Solo keyboard instruments
MP 20--MP 39.6	Popular Music and Jazz Scores: Piano collections, arrangements, and transcriptions
MP 1630--MP 1632	Piano/Vocal/Guitar popular music, fake books/real books/lead sheets
ML 549--ML 747	History of keyboard instruments

For a little more detail, including a list of our periodicals about piano and keyboard, see our Piano Research Guide.

Visiting Piano/Keyboard students are welcome to use our collection in the library, including using CDs and DVDs on our viewing stations in the media center, but we do not allow you to check materials out.

Welcome to Guitar Sessions

It's Guitar Week at Berklee, and we encourage attendees to visit the library and use our materials while you're on campus. Here are some suggestions on where to start:

To dive right into the stacks, see:

MP 125--MP 129    Guitar collections, arrangements, and transcriptions
MT 580--MT 599    Guitar methods
ML 1015.G9           Books about guitars, from repair manuals to coffee table tomes

Our periodicals are in alphabetical order, and we've got shelves and shelves that start with the word "Guitar." Use the Guitar World Tab Index to find specific songs in their family of magazines.

To dip your feet in a big further, take a look at our Guitar Research Guides.

If you're feeling inspired by visiting artist Mike Stern, we have plenty of music by him. Few highlights:

• Upside Downside (CD 239)
• Mike Stern Band: the Paris Concert (DVD 5614)
• Mike Stern Guitar Transcriptions (MP126.S735 M5 1992)

Guitar session students are welcome to use our collection in the library, including using CDs and DVDs on our viewing stations in the media center, but we do not allow you to check materials out.

Iggy Pop: Using the Library for Stage Attire Inspiration

Iggy Pop is so famously shirtless that Buzzfeed devoted a timeline to documenting it. Less famous is that his shirtlessness was a deliberate decision based on library research.

In Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed (ML420.P69 T79 2007), author Paul Trynka reports that the budding Stooge continued to visit the University of Michigan library after he stopped attending classes. Iggy stated, "I was looking at a book on Egyptian antiquity. And [I realized] the pharoahs never wore a shirt. And I thought, 'Gee, there's something about that.'"

What unexpected inspiration have you found at the library?

Hip-Hop at 40

Boston writer Dart Adam notes that August 11 marked the 40th anniversary of hip-hop, the day in 1973 when Clive "Cool Herc" Campbell threw his first party in the function room of 1520 Sedgwick Ave in the South Bronx.

Hip-Hop Turns 40

While Berklee can't match the Cornell Hip Hop Collection for archival materials, we do have plenty of books on hip-hop history, including many at ML3531 if you prefer to browse the shelves. A few highlights:

• Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop edited by Johan Kugelberg (ML3531 .B66 2007)
• Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America by Tricia Rose (ML3531 .R67 1994)

Elevator Music

The elevator construction in 150 Mass Ave. has left the library down one working photocopier, and we may need to relocate the remaining functioning ones as the project continues. The situation is only temporary.

In the mean time, enjoy some elevator-related music. And we certainly don't mean bland instrumentals piped in by Muzak.

• "Love in an Elevator" by Aerosmith on Pump (CD 10491) 
• The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (CD 26208)
• "Levitate Me" by the Pixies (with a refrain of "Elevator lady") on Come On Pilgrim (CD 3574)
• "Elevator Eyes" by the Temptations on Emperors of Soul (CD 1513-1517 Disc 5)
• "Elevator Man" on Saffire--The Uppity Blues Women (CD 27963)
• Elevator by Hot Hot Heat (CD 25422)
• "Elevator" by Flo Rida featuring Timbaland on Mail on Sunday (CD 30039)
• "Elevator Woman" by Sonny Boy Williamson on Blue Bird Blues (CD 25440)
• "Hippy Elevator Operator" by the W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band on Where the Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets, 1965-1968 (CD 32914-32917 Disc 2)

Share your suggestions for elevator-related music.