Cherry Lane Music was founded in 1960 by Milton Okun in the apartment above the Cherry Lane Theater in Greenwich Village of New York City. Cherry Lane Music creates a wide range of high quality sheet music, DVDs and educational tools for practicing musicians.

The mission statement of Cherry Lane Music, as stated by John Stix, head of the company and also Senior Vice President of Rights Acquisitions, is to "get sheet music out of the piano bench and onto the piano. By making a pact with our fans, we hope they will come to see our folios as more than just songbooks."

The print company's portfolio includes a varied group of artists from Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

, John Mayer

John Mayer

John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...

 and the White Stripes to the Dave Matthews Band

Dave Matthews Band

Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...

, Metallica

Metallica

Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...

 and Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson (musician)

Jack Johnson was born May 18, 1975 is an American folk rock singer-songwriter, surfer and musician known for his work in the soft rock and acoustic genres. In 2001, he achieved commercial success after the release of his debut album, Brushfire Fairytales. He has since released four more albums, a...

. The company distributes through Hal Leonard, another US-based music publisher.

Types of Portfolios

Cherry Lane provides a number of different kinds of personality folios aimed at musicians of all skill levels.

• The Art Of - The Art Of series provides an overview of the style of important contemporary guitarists, from Kirk Hammett
  Kirk Hammett
  Kirk Lee Hammett is the lead guitarist and a songwriter in the heavy metal band Metallica and has been a member of the band since 1983. Before joining Metallica he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on Rolling Stones list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
  
   and James Hetfield
  James Hetfield
  James Alan Hetfield is the rhythm guitarist, co-founder, main songwriter, and lead vocalist for the American heavy metal band Metallica. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering a classified advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler,...
  
   of Metallica to Steely Dan
  Steely Dan
  Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...
  
  . The books are written with an educational focus, and include various licks, solos, lessons, interviews, and commentary to help the student understand a particular artist's work and the influence it has had. Topics are related to theory, and include discussions of melody, harmony, form, rhythm, instrumentation, and lyrics. There is a resource guide, for further reading, listening, and research included in the back of most of these books.

• Just the Riffs - Just the Riffs is a series of books that focus on a single artist and provide the player with all of the classic riffs in an artist's repertoire. As put in the Cherry Lane Music 2010-2011 catalog, "... here it is, here's how it sounds, and here's how to play it." The books include a brief theoretical background before each riff to give the musician more guidance in its performance.

• Legendary Licks - The Legendary Licks series combines the ease and straight-forward nature of the Just the Riffs series with the educational power of the Riff by Riff and The Art Of series. The books contain note-for-note transcriptions, as well as performance notes, of dozens of classic licks, fills, riffs, and solos of artists with as diverse a range as Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne
  Ozzy Osbourne
  John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...
  
   to Dave Matthews Band and Brian Setzer.  Each Legendary Licks folio contains a recording that features slowed-down versions of challenging solos and riffs to help musicians get the notes into their fingers. The recordings also are on separate channels, making it possible to listen to all of the instruments at once or to single out instruments with which the student can play along.

• Play it Like it Is and Artist-Approved - These editions boast exact, authentic transcriptions of various artists' folios for guitar, bass, and drums. Guitar and bass books include both notes and tablature. Those books that feature the "Artist-Approved" logo have been personally approved by the transcribed artist.

• Riff by Riff - This series provides an in-depth look at a number of tunes by a specific artist. Rather than picking a mix of riffs, as the Just the Riffs series does, it takes the entire song apart, using almost every guitar part played in a note-for-note transcription. The book examines the theoretical, rhythmic, and harmonic implications of each riff as it ties the song together. The series aims to give all musicians, no matter the skill level, a complete, in-depth, and thorough analysis of the work of an artist. Artists represented include Metallica and Black Sabbath
  Black Sabbath
  Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
  
  .

• Strum & Sing - The popular Strum & Sing series gives the musician a more pared-down approach to the songs of an artist, including only the chords and the lyrics. The quick, easy-to-play arrangements are designed for both amateur and professional musicians.

• Transcribed Full Scores - The Transcribed Full Scores provide vocal and instrumental arrangements of music from artists such as Guns N'Roses, Metallica, and Joe Satriani
  Joe Satriani
  Joseph "Joe" Satriani is an American instrumental rock guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, with multiple Grammy Award nominations...
  
  . There are transcribed parts for vocals, all guitars, bass, drums, and any other instruments used in the specific recording session as heard on the original album.

See also

The Cherry Lane Music website

Music Publisher