🎸 Music Books — Finish-Line Scorecard

Every music book, on-disk-verified · what it would take to finish them all · Ship = Etsy + Gumroad + Ghost/Substack. Paid actions never auto-fired.

📚 Books Board 🗺️ 10-Phase Plan 📖 BandBooks Library 💿 BELIEVEYOUME
28music books
11live or ship-ready
5render-away
8template shells
2concept only
The honest read: the finish line is close for 11 books and far for the rest. Eight Tier-1 albums are fully drafted with rendered PDFs and only need the paid ship; Flat 6s and the Outside-the-Key ebook are already BUILT (a canonical-pick and a rights clearance stand between them and the store); the 32pp Songwriting Guide is live. But the eight Tier-3 albums that now show 700-line manuscripts are data-driven template shells (real keys/BPM, ~75% boilerplate prose, generic chord grids): they look ~55% done and are really ~25%. "Finish them all" ≈ a couple of ship sessions for the fast lane, and roughly 18–22 focused passes for the render + rewrite + concept tail, at one book per pass.

What it would take — five lanes

Fast lane — SHIP (paid, you fire it)≈ 2–3 sessions
10 Tier-1 books have manuscript + reality-check + figures + a rendered designed PDF already on disk. All that remains is the paid upload (Etsy + Gumroad) and the Ghost/Substack post, which are never auto-fired. Batchable in ~2–3 ship sessions.
Render lane — Tier-2 (5 books)≈ 5 sessions
Failure and Tame Impala are confirmed dense, real analysis. Blockers are mechanical: notation figures are empty placeholders, 40–70 voice-gate violations each (em-dash / however / antithesis), Tame Impala's Chapter 7 is stubbed. Shiner-Ground, Life & Times, Beach House Book 2, Zappa need a densify pass too. One book per pass = ~5 sessions.
Rewrite lane — Tier-3 shells (8 books)≈ 8–10 sessions
The hidden cost. These now have 700-line manuscripts, so they LOOK ~55% done — but they are data-driven shells: real keys/BPM/titles wrapped in 70–85% templated boilerplate and generic chord grids (every minor song gets i-VI-VII-i). Each needs real per-song harmonic analysis, lyric grounding, and production detail before it can be densified and shipped. This is the bulk of the true remaining work.
Theory lane (5 books)≈ 2 decisions + 3 writing
Audited 2026-07-01, two corrections. Flat 6s is BUILT (94pp PDF + EPUB + DOCX + MOBI); the open item is picking the canonical final among ~8 iterations. Outside the Key ebook is BUILT (39pp PDF + EPUB) but rights-gated before sale (Wong FACGCE permission + Shiner transcription license). Songwriting Theory Guide (32pp) confirmed shipped. Synth Indie is a 9pp stub with a raw AI preamble, not the shipped book the board claimed. The 4-book pipeline is further along than listed: Textbook has a 300KB partial, 33⅓ has real prose, only Beginner starts from scratch.
Concept lane (2 books)≈ 2 sessions each
Laurel Canyon is working notes only; Writing in the Style of Shiner is a concept. Both need a full manuscript from scratch.

Progress dots = pipeline stages: ● Draft → ● Source ✓ → ● Visuals → ● PDF → ● Ship. Filled = done.

8 Tier 1 — ship-ready

BELIEVEYOUME (Shiner 2025)
80%
Ship
2073L · PDF ✓ · 87 img
To finish: Ship only (Gumroad $7.99 draft + Etsy + Ghost)
Hooray for Earth — Racy
80%
Ship
2558L · PDF ✓ · 35 img
To finish: Ship only
Rush — A Farewell to Kings
80%
Ship
829L · PDF ✓ · 91 img
To finish: AFTK lyric-match decision, then Ship
Writing Like Tame Impala (Slow Rush)
80%
Ship
2091L · PDF ✓ · 43 img render+voice+ch7+ship
Dense, real (bVII thesis, music21 data). BLOCK: 0 of ~22 figs, ~60-70 voice hits, Chapter 7 (Posthumous Forgiveness) is STUBBED.
To finish: Ship only
In Rainbows (Radiohead)
80%
Ship
941L · PDF ✓ · 10 img
To finish: Ship only
Siamese Dream (Smashing Pumpkins)
80%
Ship
543L · PDF ✓ · 8 img
To finish: Ship only
Thirteenth Step (A Perfect Circle)
80%
Ship
782L · PDF ✓ · 12 img
To finish: Ship only
Mer de Noms (A Perfect Circle)
80%
Ship
579L · PDF ✓ · 9 img
To finish: Ship only

5 Tier 2 — render away

Writing Like Failure
40%
Visuals
2595L · no PDF · 35 img render+voice+ship
Dense, real analysis (17 MIDI runs, modal grammar). BLOCK: 0 notation figs, ~40-50 voice-gate hits (em-dash/however), source-texts link unverified.
To finish: Densify check + designed PDF + Ship
The Ground Never Settles (Shiner)
40%
Visuals
1587L · PDF ✓ · 12 img
To finish: Densify to 2/pg + Ship (in Shiner bundle $14.99)
Life and Times — Tragic Boogie
40%
Visuals
1813L · no PDF · 12 img
To finish: Densify + designed PDF + Ship
Beach House Book 2 (Once Twice Melody)
40%
Visuals
2710L · PDF ✓ · 1 img
To finish: Biggest density gap: add figures + Ship
Zappa — Over-nite Sensation
40%
Visuals
1069L · PDF ✓ · 1 img
To finish: Densify + Ship

8 Tier 3 — template shells

Appleseed Cast — Mare Vitalis
20%
Source ✓
707L · no PDF · 0 img heavy-rewrite (~40-50h)
SHELL: 15% real / 85% template. Real keys/BPM but copy-paste prose, generic i-VI-VII-i grids.
To finish: VERIFY quality, then density + PDF + Ship
Beach House — Teen Dream
20%
Source ✓
698L · no PDF · 0 img verify + likely heavy-rewrite
Presumed same template family as Tier-3 shells (not individually read this pass).
To finish: VERIFY quality, then density + PDF + Ship
Goldfrapp — Seventh Tree
20%
Source ✓
708L · no PDF · 0 img heavy-rewrite
SHELL: 20% real. Template prose across all 10 tracks, I-vi-IV-V for every song.
To finish: VERIFY quality, then density + PDF + Ship
Hooray for Earth — True Loves
20%
Source ✓
706L · no PDF · 0 img verify + likely heavy-rewrite
Presumed same template family (not individually read this pass).
To finish: VERIFY quality, then density + PDF + Ship
A Moon Shaped Pool (Radiohead)
20%
Source ✓
775L · no PDF · 0 img moderate-heavy rewrite
SHELL: 30% real (best of Tier-3). Solid orchestral context, but per-track prose identical.
To finish: VERIFY quality, then density + PDF + Ship
Portishead (Dummy)
20%
Source ✓
764L · no PDF · 0 img heavy-rewrite (~40-50h)
SHELL: 20% real. No production/sample/vocal detail, template grids.
To finish: VERIFY quality, then density + PDF + Ship
Red Hot Chili Peppers (Return of Dream Canteen)
20%
Source ✓
708L · no PDF · 0 img heavy-rewrite
SHELL: 25% real. Strong intro, throwaway per-track prose, no Frusciante differentiation.
To finish: VERIFY quality, then density + PDF + Ship
Toe (math-rock)
20%
Source ✓
680L · no PDF · 0 img verify + likely heavy-rewrite
Presumed same template family (not individually read this pass).
To finish: VERIFY quality, then density + PDF + Ship

5 Theory & Songwriting

Songwriting Theory Guide (32pp)
100%
LIVE
— · PDF ✓ · 0 img listing polish only
CONFIRMED built: 32pp polished PDF (WRITING IN THE STYLE, 41 songs / 4 albums) in Brandon-Vault/Books. Plus a 93pp Post-Hardcore Vol.1 companion beside it.
To finish: Shipped/live; Etsy listing polish
The Brilliant Use of Flat 6s
80%
Ship
— · no PDF · 0 img pick canonical + ship
BETTER than board: already BUILT — 94pp FINAL PDF + EPUB + DOCX + MOBI in flat6-book/.publish/dist. ~8 parallel iterations exist (94pp v7 vs 56pp sixlens); needs one canonical-final pick.
To finish: Pick canonical final (94pp v7 vs 56pp sixlens), then Ship
Outside the Key: Ebook
80%
Ship
— · no PDF · 0 img rights clearance, then ship
BUILT (39pp PDF + EPUB in build/) but RIGHTS-GATED before sale: Trevor Wong FACGCE permission + Shiner transcription license; byline placeholder.
To finish: Clear rights (Wong FACGCE + Shiner license), fix byline, then Ship
Synth Indie Songwriting Theory Book
20%
Source ✓
— · PDF ✓ · 0 img decide canonical or rewrite
CORRECTION: the on-disk SynthIndieTheory_v1.pdf is a 9pp STUB with a raw AI preamble on page 1 (Etsy id 4502641213). Either the 32pp guide is the real synth-indie book, or this needs a rewrite.
To finish: Decide: 32pp guide = canonical? else strip AI preamble + expand 9pp stub
Outside the Key — 4-Book Pipeline
20%
Source ✓
— · PDF ✓ · 0 img finish 3 books
X-Factor: 101pp PDF done (same lineage as Flat 6s, needs Shiner-only re-scope). 33-1/3: real de-scaffolded prose (31KB). Textbook: 300KB/1878-line partial. Beginner: outline only, seed PDF missing from disk.
To finish: Finish Textbook (300KB partial) + Beginner (from scratch) + polish 33-1/3; re-scope X-Factor vs Flat 6s overlap

2 Concept

Laurel Canyon (genre book)
0%
Draft
270L · no PDF · 0 img
To finish: Working notes only; write full manuscript
Writing in the Style of Shiner
0%
Draft
— · no PDF · 0 img
To finish: Concept; companion craft guide to write

🎸 The Music Books, explained simple

Brandon is writing 28 books about music — how famous albums are built, note by note.
10 books are almost ready. They just need to be put in the store. That is the easy part.
5 books are written but need pictures of the music added and a little cleanup before they can be a real book.
8 books look done but are not. A computer filled them with the same words for every song. Brandon has to rewrite them so each song sounds different and true.
A few books are just an idea with no story written yet.
So: a few books can be finished this week, and the rest need about 20 more work days, one book at a time.