Before we can truly express our inner self, we must first learn to be at peace and overcome the distractions that can make performance difficult. Kenny's remarkable work deals directly with these hindrances, and presents ways to let our natural creative powers flow freely with minimal stress and effort. Includes inspiring recordings of meditations designed to initiate positive thought. This book has become a favorite of many musicians who credit it with changing their lives! Many are so impressed that they buy copies for their musician friends as gifts. Easy, effortless reading paperback.Effortless Mastery is a book that the world really needs. It was not written by a philosopher or an academic. Kenny Werner, is one of my favorite pianists I've ever had the pleasure of working with, and in my opinion one of the best pianists living on the planet. Kenny teaches that 'The joy of practicing is concentration. The joy of playing is liberation.' Effortless Mastery teaches the seeker how to achieve both at the highest levels. It also shows how to practice effectively, promoting real growth and how to play and perform free from fear and self-judgment. I highly recommend this book. ---Quincy Jones

    

    But, in fact, record stores served as community centers, information exchanges, clubs, art galleries, and launching pads for numerous bands and record labels. Record Store Days takes a long, loving look back at the retail refuges that enthralled at least three generations of music lovers, providing a glimpse into the special alchemy that makes a great record store. Written and compiled by two record store veterans, this lively and nostalgic anthology includes photographs and reminiscences from musicians, music industry executives, former record store clerks, and, of course, avid fans.

    This book only contains the text of the hymns.Included Content:Songs:• Hymns (includes optional verses)• Children's Songbook (includes actions)For more information, visit our website at: StandardWorksApp.com/Kindle

    Nominated for a whopping 10 Tony Awards in 2005, Wicked is an undeniable Broadway smash! A prequel to the all-American classic The Wizard of Oz , this new musical is a character study of Elphaba and Glinda, school roommates who grow up to become the Wicked Witch and the Good Witch, respectively. This songbook, in standard piano/vocal format with the melody in the piano part, feature a color photos from the production, a note from composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz, and these fantastic tunes: As Long as You're Mine * Dancing Through Life * Defying Gravity * For Good * I Couldn't Be Happier * I'm Not That Girl * No Good Deed * No One Mourns the Wicked * One Short Day * Popular * What Is This Feeling? * The Wizard and I * Wonderful.

    In this book, readers will discover how he got his start in the entertainment industry through fascinating facts and a timeline of his career so far. Exciting concert photographs and cute close-ups enhance the accessible text. Reluctant readers will have Bieber fever after reading this high-interest book.

    Inside, you’ll find all of the biggest-selling, most-played hits for the past six decades. Each alphabetized artist entry includes biographical info, the date their single reached the Top 40, the song’s highest position, and the number of weeks on the charts, as well as the original record label and catalog number. Other sections—such as “Record Holders,” “Top Artists by Decade,” and “#1 Singles 1955-2009”—make The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits the handiest and most indispensable music reference for record collectors, trivia enthusiasts, industry professionals and pop music fans alike. Did you know?    • Beyoncé’s 2003 hit “Crazy in Love” spent 24 weeks in the Top 40 and eight of them in the #1 spot.   • Billy Idol has had a total of nine Top 40 hits over his career, the last being “Cradle of Love” in 1990.    • Of Madonna’s twelve #1 hits, her 1994 single “Take a Bow” held the spot the longest, for seven weeks—one week longer than her 1984 smash “Like a Virgin.”   • Marvin Gaye’s song “Sexual Healing” spent 15 weeks at #3 in 1982, while the same song was #1 on the R&B chart for 10 weeks.   • Male vocal group Boyz II Men had three of the biggest chart hits of all time during the 1990s.   • The Grateful Dead finally enjoyed a Top 10 single in 1987 after 20 years of touring.    • Janet Jackson has scored an impressive 39 Top 40 hits—one more than her megastar brother Michael!

    As with his music, Steve has written a highly detailed, entertaining and embracing tome that charts his life in full, but with a firm emphasis on his years with Genesis that saw the band’s meteoric rise to become one of the most successful British bands of all time.Steve talks candidly about his early life, his time with Genesis, and his personal relationships with the other four band members, with great insight into the daily goings on of this major rock band.Naturally A Genesis In My Bed also regales stories of Steve’s career since leaving Genesis and the many different journeys that it has taken him on. With his flair for the creative, and a great deal of levity, A Genesis In My Bed is a riveting read. Indispensable for Genesis fans but also essential for general music lovers and avid readers of autobiographies full of heartfelt and emotive tales.

    The story of Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, told through exclusive interviews with those who know him best: from his formative days to all his time in Maiden, through his solo years, right up to the present day, where Iron Maiden are considered legends of music worldwide.

    A French-speaking kid from Canada, Lanois was driven by his innate curiosity and intense love of music to transcend his small-town origins and become one of the world’s most prolific and successful record producers, as well as a brilliant musician in his own right. Lanois takes us through his childhood, from being one of four kids raised by a single mother on a hairdresser’s salary, to his discovery by Brian Eno, to his work on albums such as U2’s The Joshua Tree, Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, and Emmylou Harris’s Wrecking Ball. Revealing for the first time ever his unique recording secrets and innovations, Lanois delves into the ongoing evolution of technology, discussing his earliest sonic experiments with reel-to-reel decks, the birth of the microchip, the death of discrete circuitry, and the arrival of the download era. Part technological treatise, part philosophical manifesto on the nature of artistic excellence and the overwhelming need for music, Soul Mining brings the reader viscerally inside the recording studio, where the surrounding forces have always been just as important as the resulting albums. Beyond skill, beyond record budgets, beyond image and ego, Lanois’s work and music show the value of dedication and soul. His lifelong quest to find the perfect mixture of tradition and innovation is inimitable and unforgettable.

    Inside you'll learn all the secrets behind her exciting new fusion of traditional spinning and envelope-pushing creativity.The yarn styles explored in this comprehensive spinning guide are as well made as they are inventive. Jacey walks you through each of her techniques, with a refreshing mixture of quirky, fanciful, and unexpected designs that are always skillfully constructed. Inside you'll discover:*How to create innovative, eye-catching single and plied yarn styles, including wraps, beehives, bumps, racing stripes, loops, bubblewrap, multiplied, and more.*Detailed technical instruction with step-by-step photos with finished yarn and swatch close-ups.*Jacey's bright personality and motivational tips to inspire all spinning enthusiasts to unleash their creative spirit.Traditional spinners will love Jacey's adventurous spirit and attention to expert technique, while textured-yarn spinners will love Jacey's wild designs and solid construction.As a bonus, the instructional DVD provides additional handspinning demonstration and commentary to complement the techniques in the book. Jacey has bottled the energy and expertise of her highly sought after workshops into a personal, at-home workshop experience for you.

    Rarer than Stradivarius violins, these musical works of art are built from near-extinct Brazilian Rosewood, Appalachian spruce, black ebony, and fine mother-of-pearl. With Henderson's keen ear for the vibrations of each piece of wood he uses, each note that comes out of them has the power of a cannon and the sweetness of maple syrup.In "Clapton's Guitar," Allen St. John recounts how a perfect acoustic guitar comes into the world and how an artist gauges perfection. Wayne Henderson, master luthier and genius in blue jeans, will tell you that he simply puts penknife to wood and carves away "everything that isn't a guitar." This is the story of a master artist, set deep in the mountains of southwestern Virginia in a brick, one-story guitar shop, as busy and chaotic inside as it is simple outside. The space is well-lighted, cluttered with power tools, air hoses, and guitar bodies in various stages of completion. It is in this modest shop that Wayne Henderson crafts some of the most highly coveted acoustic guitars on earth, including one very special instrument he built for Eric Clapton.Normally, there is a ten-year wait for a Henderson guitar, and St. John finds there are no exceptions even for an iconic figure like Clapton. But seeing it as a shortcut to getting his own guitar done, St. John jump-starts the process, and then takes readers with him on a mesmerizing journey into the heart of high-end instrument making with the man "The Washington Post" calls the "Mad Scientist of Mountain Music." Henderson, a small-town wise man, is not only the star ofthis book as a master guitar maker but also is the star of any stage he sets foot on as a master guitar player, equally at home at Carnegie Hall or the local VFW hall. Around this drolly humorous man circulates a small coterie of colorful characters and inspired musicians, who welcome you for an all-too-brief visit. By book's end, you too will want to be Wayne Henderson's friend.In a rich tapestry of folklore and folksiness, St. John tells the story of building the Clapton guitar in loving detail, from the centuries-old forests where great tonewood grows, to the auction floor of Christie's where one of Clapton's guitars commands over $700,000. It's also a loving look at Wayne's corner of the world, the Blue Ridge mountain hamlets where American traditional music was born, and of Wayne's hometown of Rugby, Virginia, population 7, where the winding roads have kept progress at bay.Whether you love old-time music, unplugged rock, traditional American craftsmanship, or simply gifted storytelling, Clapton's Guitar is an engaging work that you will want to savor and share with friends.

    J. Albany's recollection of life with her father, the great jazz pianist Joe Albany, is the story of one girl's unsentimental education. Joe played with the likes of Charles Mingus, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker, but between gigs he slipped into drug-induced obscurity. It was during these times that his daughter knew him best. After her mother disappeared, six-year-old Amy Jo and her charming, troubled father set up housekeeping in a seamy Hollywood hotel. While Joe finished a set in some red-boothed dive, chances were you'd find Amy curled up asleep on someone's fur coat, clutching a 78 of Louis Armstrong's "Sugar Blues" or, later, a photograph of the man himself, inscribed, "To little Amy Jo, always in love with you--Pops."Wise beyond her years and hip to the unpredictable ways of Old Lady Life at all too early an age, A. J. Albany guides us through the dope and deviance of the late 1960s and early 1970s in Hollywood's shadowy underbelly and beyond. What emerges is a raw, gripping, and surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a young girl trying to survive among the outcasts, misfits, and artists who surrounded her.

    Davis, political activist, scholar, author, and speakerSophisticated Giant presents the life and legacy of tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1923-1990), one of the major innovators of modern jazz. In a context of biography, history, and memoir, Maxine Gordon has completed the book that her late husband began, weaving his "solo" turns with her voice and a chorus of voices from past and present. Reading like a jazz composition, the blend of research, anecdote, and a selection of Dexter's personal letters reflects his colorful life and legendary times. It is clear why the celebrated trumpet genius Dizzy Gillespie said to Dexter, "Man, you ought to leave your karma to science."Dexter Gordon the icon is the Dexter beloved and celebrated on albums, on film, and in jazz lore--even in a street named for him in Copenhagen. But this image of the cool jazzman fails to come to terms with the multidimensional man full of humor and wisdom, a figure who struggled to reconcile being both a creative outsider who broke the rules and a comforting insider who was a son, father, husband, and world citizen. This essential book is an attempt to fill in the gaps created by our misperceptions as well as the gaps left by Dexter himself.

    Rahman's first film Roja was released in 1992, his astonishing music with its other-worldly melodies, tonal texture, pulsating rhythms made an instant impact in India. His abundantly flowing talent has given life to the score of over a hundred films, including Dil Se, Bombay, Lagaan, Warriors of Heaven and Earth, 127 Hours and Jodhaa Akbar. According to a recent estimate by the BBC, 150 million Copies of his albums have sold worldwide. A.R. Rahman has won a host of awards, together with a Golden Globe, a Bafta, two Oscars and two Grammys for his score in Slumdog Millionaire. In 2010, he received the Padma Bhusan, the third civilian honour, awarded by the Government of India. Despite all his great success, Rahman remains a deeply private person, shying away from the glitz and glamour of show business. A.R. Rahman, The Spirit of Music is in the form of biographical conversations between the composer and Nasreen Munni Kabir in which we hear of Rahman's amazing journey from modest beginning to an assured place in world music history.