Ways of the Hand: The Organization of Improvised Conduct [Hardcover]

David Sudnow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 1978

Ways of the Hand tells the story of how David Sudnow learned to improvise jazz on the piano. Because he had been trained as an ethnographer and social psychologist, Sudnow was attentive to what he experienced in ways that other novice pianists are not. The result, first published in 1978 and now considered by many to be a classic, was arguably the finest and most detailed account of skill development ever published.

Looking back after more than twenty years, Sudnow was struck by the extent to which he had allowed his academic background to shape the book's language. He realized that he could now do a much better job of describing his experiences in a way that would not require facility with formal social science and philosophical discourse. The result is a revised version of the book that carries the same intellectual energy as the original but is accessible to a much wider audience.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Sudnow is a trained ethnographer and social psychologist who gave up teaching in his fields to study piano and write exclusively about music. In 1978, he published the first edition of this work, a skill-development classic that documents how he taught himself to play jazz piano. The premise of that edition, as well as this update, is that the author's hands, apart from his conscious direction, learned to improvise jazz: "I sing with my fingers, so to speak, and only so to speak, for there's a new being, my body, and it is this being (here too, so to speak) that sings." This new version represents Sudnow's attempt to reach a broader, less academic audience with his findings. Although it features less scholarly diction, the text is still painstakingly detailed, which will limit the book's appeal. For academic and larger public libraries. Cleo Pappas, Lisle Lib. Dist., IL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A dezzling and deeply probing study of the relationship between human consciousness and behavior." - Jack Kroll, Newsweek "This marvelously detailed account of the acquisition of such a complex and fundamentally creative skill as jazz piano improvisation is both engrossing and informative." - Gerald J. Balzano, Contemporary Psychology "With astonishing descriptive precision, the author compels the reader to think and feel along with him as his fingers progress toward intimacy with the keyboard." - Psychology Today --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (February 23, 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674948335
• ISBN-13: 978-0674948334
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,181,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating premise, horrible execution, May 7, 2003

By 

Romann M. Weber (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ways of the Hand: A Rewritten Account (Hardcover)

It speaks volumes that David Sudnow found it necessary to completely rewrite his treatise on his experience learning jazz improvisation at the piano. According to Sudnow's introduction, upon reading it again not even he, the author, could penetrate the cloudy, turgid prose that cluttered his first edition to get any meaning out of it (although the author did not quite admit as much). However, Mr. Sudnow has blown away the first edition's clouds only to replace them with a thick fog in a tome just as impenetrable as the original.

Occasional moments of clarity notwithstanding, Sudnow's book reads like a manual of how to convolute language beyond its capacity to render meaning. That this occurs in a book about music--arguably the most emotionally expressive of the arts--makes Sudnow's literary idiosyncrasies unforgivable. Expecting enlightenment, the hapless reader instead encounters turbid gems like this: "A rapidly paced entry into a way thus known could take it with a sure availability for a numerical articulational commitment, and with no prefigured digit counting. Its paceable availability, here and now, afforded securely paced entries whose soundfully targeted particular places would now be found in course, doing improvisation." It's English--well, most of it; he invents a word here and there--but totally meaningless, and far from insightful.

Examples like the one above paint every page, and only morbid curiosity can keep the pages turning. Let me save you some money: One piece of decent advice is mentioned in the book twice, and it does not originate with Mr. Sudnow. Namely, sing while you improvise. It will increase your sensitivity to what you are playing, and will connect you more intimately with the piano. Sing while you play, and listen to your idols. Have faith in yourself to find your own insights, and let Mr. Sudnow wander in the fog.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars He May Play But He Cannot Write, May 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Ways of the Hand (Paperback)

This is a fascinating book. It is fascinating because it may actually be saying something interesting. Then again, it may not.

The primary problem with this book is that Mr. Sudnow may play the piano well, but he cannot write. I have actually used parts of this book to demonstrate why writing in the passive voice often obscures one's meaning and is hell on readers. Choose almost any page from the book, and you will find most of the sentences have a passive construction. Adding to the constantly convoluted sentence structure is a goofy vocabulary that obscures rather than elucidates.

This may be the most poorly written book I have ever read. I frequently read old books about wretchedly parched things and suffer reams of rotten student and doctoral prose, but I have never encountered anything as difficult to read as this book. What is sad is that a high school level writer could immediately identify Sudnow's flaws and describe how to correct them -- they are obvious, easily fixed, and unforgivable in a published volume.

On the plus side, Sudnow appears to be saying some things that may be interesting about improvisation and coordination. And he is definitely thinking about them, which in itself is interesting.

Would that he had had even a mediocre writing class at some point is his life or an editor.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sudnow's Original Work is Challenging but an Important Contribution, January 1, 2007

By 

Robert Epstein - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ways of the Hand: The Organization of Improvised Conduct (Hardcover)

Several of the reviewers here have expressed the opinion that Sudnow's prose is indecipherable. However, it is not true that it is meaningless. I was a former student of Sudnow's who worked closely with him on the book as a junior collaborator, and can tell of the struggle he engaged in to find a form of expression adequate to its subject. Sudnow attempted to create a language that would faithfully describe the real way in which improvised action takes place, and improvised knowledge exists as something that occurs in course rather than in stasis, a type of active understanding that had never been adequately described. Sudnow's work takes place in a tradition of phenomenological sociology known as Ethnomethodology, a fairly arcane academic discipline that attempts to describe the details of how interaction takes place from a descriptive and subjective standpoint, rather than an objective report from outside. The truth is that this book was not designed for a general audience, and probably couldn't be. Sudnow is a genuine philosopher, one who had spent years immersed in his meditations on the nature of reality from a philosophical and sociological perspective, and there is no way that he would have been able to return to ordinary language to engage with his subject. Those who want to go to the trouble of acquiring the necessary background to receive a vision of reality and the nature of action that is unique and piercing will find their efforts well rewarded. For the rest, it is like reading Finnegan's Wake. You can enjoy some of the music and poetry, meditate on the meaning of a sentence and find out what it involves through your own investigation, or leave it alone. But to declare it meaningless or pretentiously dense is only to declare one's own unfamiliarity with the genuine traditions it occurs within, and perhaps impatience with those who dare to present original thought and language to an unschooled public. For those desiring a background to really understand this work, I recommend Sudnow's own inspiration in Maurice Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenology of Perception," Harold Garfinkel's "Ethnomethodology" and Erving Goffman's books on social psychology. Reading those works, followed by Ways of the Hand, will give you an altered perspective on action and interaction that will be well worth your time.