AV������

Shawn Persinger is an adjunct lecturer teaching in the AV������’s Department of Music, Theater, and Dance. Mark Tavern, assistant professor of practice and coordinator of Music Industry, recently checked in with him about his new book, , which was published on July 1 and went to No. 1 on Amazon. Here’s a lightly edited transcript of their conversation:

Mark Tavern: Can you share your background, your current position at the AV������ and what you teach, both in terms of courses and ensembles?

Shawn Persinger: I am currently an adjunct lecturer in the music department, and I regularly teach History of Rock, Intro to Music, and Fundamentals of Music. I have also taught the honors classes The Music and Lyrics of The Beatles—and am looking forward to again teaching Rock Becomes Art, a class I created and team-taught with Joseph Smolinski, M.F.A., that explores the parallels between rock music and the fine-art world. I graduated from Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, CA, in 1991, and I have been teaching and performing ever since.

MT: I want to audit Rock Becomes Art. That sounds fascinating! Are there other areas of interest to you?

SP: While I do read voraciously, and I used to travel widely before I had kids, everything else I do revolves around music—playing, composing, teaching, writing, it’s all music.

MT: I feel the same, but for me it’s all about music industry! Tell me, what inspired you to write this book?

SP: This started as a practice routine I created for myself, using drummers—such as Neil Peart from Rush, Billy Cobham from The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bill Bruford from Yes and King Crimson, and Chester Thompson from Zappa’s mid-1970s work, and others—as a source of inspiration. Drummers view rhythm in a distinctive way, compared to guitarists or any melodic instrumentalist. So by focusing on drummers I admire, I was able to create melodic phrases that are unique.

MT: What was the writing process like?

SP: I wrote this book relatively quickly as I have been collecting drum notation for years ... so, quickly, but only after 20 years of collecting! The work itself was more a matter of organization. There is minimal text, as it’s about the music. There are almost 200 melodic phrases in the book, and it includes two and a half hours of audio.

MT: Where did all the audio and video samples come from? What was that recording process like?

SP: Again, this is something I’ve done for years. I created the audio by writing the notation in Finale, then importing MIDI files into Logic. From there, it was a matter of mixing.

MT: There are four versions (guitar, bass, treble clef, and bass clef melodic instruments). What inspired that?

SP: I love the guitar, but I want this book to be for every instrument! Once I made the guitar parts, with guitar tablature and fingerings, doing a bass version was relatively easy. There are also B♭ and E♭versions coming out soon—high school band teachers, here I come!

MT: How does this method inform your teaching overall? What are the takeaways for students? For other musician-authors?

SP: Creativity is the foundation of my teaching approach! Learning history and facts—real facts you’ve researched yourself and verified—is vital, but I want students to be creative with what they learn from research. Don’t just mimic, innovate!

MT: Good advice. This isn't your first book. What are some other things you've learned—and taught—in your writing?

SP: There is a long answer here, but the most important takeaway is editing! Writing spontaneously is easy. Editing that spontaneity, so it’s readable on the page, that’s work!

MT: Now for my music industry question: Is there any comparison in the rollout and marketing of a book to that of a musical release?

SP: In this day and age, definitely ... and people still buy books ... some people. That said, marketing is a whole other world. That’s why it’s important for musicians to find other people to do it. Music and marketing are two different skills. Luckily, I’ve built up an audience over the years, so I can reach out to them. That’s one of the reasons the book rose to No. 1 so quickly. Still, expanding that audience takes a team. I’m working on building that team now: I should have done it after my last book in 2017.

MT: Tell us about "Prester John," your stage name. Is there a story behind that?

SP: Long story short, I was in a moderately successful progressive rock band in the 1990s with a name that was difficult to spell and pronounce, Boud Deun (pronounced “Boo-ed Dee-un"). We could have been more successful if we’d had a more straight-ahead name. That was my fault. So when I went solo, I was eager to avoid that issue. “Shawn Persinger,” the name, is normal, but not necessarily memorable. And people misspell it all the time! So I added the Prester John moniker to make it stand out. It has worked.

MT: So now I have a listening assignment! Do you have other performances or appearances coming up?

SP: I will be doing some clinics at local music stores, maybe a bookstore or two, and I play approximately every two months with my band The Luck Pushers. There is crossover between the live music performances and the book clinics/workshops. I will also do some demos at NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) in 2026.

MT: And lastly, how do you see the book being used as a practice tool?

SP: As for uses as a practice tool: The audio is recorded in a “call-and-response” manner, and each example loops four times. So, any musician can simply put the audio on and run straight through the book, which will take you more than two hours! But I don’t recommend that. As I wrote in the book, find one example you like, master it as written, then change positions/fingerings, harmonize, modulate, and make up your own variations, etc. There are an infinite number of ways to modify phrases based on rhythm, so there is no need to bulldoze through the book. One phrase can serve a creative musician for a long time.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I would like this book to be used like the classics – Hanon, Czerny, and, the father of us all, Bach. I play a lot of music. I create my own, and I study as much as I can, so I’m always looking for new practical, musical ideas, I’m hoping this book will add to the canon and inspire others to follow in the same way.