KARL H. CORYAT

karl coryat I am a writer/musician/editor/animator living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Books (all published by Backbeat Books)

The Frustrated Songwriter's Handbook, co-authored with Nicholas Dobson of the Immersion Composition Society, published in May 2006

Guerrilla Home Recording, published in January 2005; Second Edition coming in late spring '08

The Bass Player Book (editor only), published in 1999


Music

I've been making original music since 1985. If you want to know more about it, go to my music MySpace page. (On this page you can check out dozens of other song sketches I've made with the Wig Lodge of the Immersion Composition Society.)


Animation & Video

One of my freelance gigs is video editing and motion graphics; most of the work is for Verizon Wireless, making things like videos that play on monitors for Verizon booths at rock concerts, and music-related content that can be downloaded to your phone. Lately also I've been making comedy videos for YouTube; go to my YouTube channel to watch them. Please note that these are comedy satires! (There are also a couple of music videos on there.) My cartoon "The Democrats Get Balls!", from March 2006, won the Huffingtonpost Contagious Festival Jury Prize that month (judges included Arianna Huffington and John Cusack); it was also featured on the Bravo Network.


Jeopardy

In 1996 I appeared on three episodes of the TV game show Jeopardy. Shortly afterward, I made a self-serving retrospective, Karl's Megalomaniacal Multimedia Jeopardy Experience. I've been meaning to redo it ever since. I also wrote So You Want to Be a Jeopardy Contestant, my treatise on how to prepare for and do well on the show. Since then, a scoring method that I mentioned on that page has become popular with Jeopardy enthusiasts; they call it the Coryat score. Thanks, fellow Jeopardy fans!


Musical Theater

I recently appeared in Sweeney Todd with Contra Costa Civic Theatre. Over the years I've also been in productions with Goat Hall, Alameda Civic Light Opera, and Pleasanton Playhouse.


Other Web Pages

Bad Clams & Turtlenecks: Lessons From a Long Career, my joke editorial in the April '06 issue of Bass Player

Commuter Traffic Education Page, where I ranted for paragraph after paragraph about how we could clear up rush-hour traffic if only we used our brains. This was the first Web page I ever did, back in early 1996, so cut me some slack.

Humor at my cat's expense.


Shit You Don't Need To Know

•  Born in San Rafael, California.
•  Raised in Vermont, upstate New York, and Connecticut.
•  Attended Brunswick School in Greenwich, Connecticut, grades 10-12.
•  Attended U.C. Berkeley; B.A. in Biological Sciences, 1988.
•  Formerly Senior Editor of Bass Player magazine; currently contributing editor.
•  Pants size: 32 w / 32 l.
•  Find life relatively meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
•  Interests include the Oakland Athletics, digital video, photography, home improvement, barrel-making, hole-digging, and self-touching.


My Man-Seed

Provided free of charge for the purpose of impregnating intelligent women who can sing and/or play a musical instrument. Information available on request.

karlc@pisspoor.com