The Leading Note now has a copy of one of those long-neglected treasures of scholastic research, discarded as worthless by ignorant but pretentious academics only to fall into obscurity and forgotten by the collective memory of our culture, following the same fate as the slide rule, the rotary phone, BBS sites, and the definitive biography of the late-great P.D.Q. Bach (which we do, in fact, have on our shelf).  Rejected by a dozen or two publishers before finally hitting the press and hailed subsequently as a work of genius (Andre Previn called it “amazing”), Denys Parsons’ The Directory of Classical Themes solved once-and-for-all the ailment that plagues all who suffer from the insidious earworm, allowing even the musical luddite the power to Name That Tune.

Parsons’ ingenious system allows any person, even one without any knowledge of musical theory, to assess and classify the tune she is humming by its most fundamental of features, namely its up and down motion.  Got a tune stuck in your ear?  The Directory of Classical Themes will identify it for you, immediately removing its mystery and allowing your mind to focus on some other irritating question instead of repeating the God-forsaken melody incessantly while you bathe, eat, sleep and work.

Denys Parsons’ The Directory of Classical Themes: available now without prescription at The Leading Note.