Book picks similar to
Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist Sixty Exercises for Piano Complete Edition by Charles-Louis Hanon
music
piano
non-fiction
sheet-music
Harmony
Walter Piston - 1941
By now it is plain that the book is different from what it used to be, but its essential approach and its basic substance remain as they were. The major departure of the fourth edition was the addition of seven new chapters, including four on the complicated subject of harmony after common practice, which had not been discussed in the first three editions. However, then as now, the core of the book remains the exhaustive treatment of common-practice harmony, the subject of most one-year or two-year courses in tonal harmony. In the present edition, the entire text has been carefully revised with a view to clarifying the language and illuminating the essential principles. Wherever possible, the text has been opened up to allow the reader to adopt a more leisurely pace through what had been a terse and detailed presentation. The results will also be perceived in the more spacious design of this edition. New exercises have been added to the early chapters as well as some fresh music examples. There is an entirely new chapter on musical texture that serves to clear up many difficult points encountered by the beginning student. Another innovation is the rearrangement of the chapters dealing with harmonic rhythm and the structure of the phrase as well as the inclusion of a short summary of analytical method. This book has long been known as an introductory textbook, but because of its comprehensive range, it also serves as an invaluable reference book. The acquisition of an consummate knowledge of composers' practice--the goal of any study of harmony--is admittedly an endless assignment. Ars longa, vita brevis, but consolation may be derived from the thought that intellectual and artistic rewards are to be found at all stages along the way.
Jazz
Gary Giddins - 2009
They explain what jazz is, where it came from, and who created it and why, all within the broader context of American life and culture. Emphasizing its African American roots, Jazz traces the history of the music over the last hundred years. From ragtime and blues to the international craze for swing, from the heated protests of the avant-garde to the radical diversity of today’s artists, Jazz describes the travails and triumphs of musical innovators struggling for work, respect, and cultural acceptance set against the backdrop of American history, commerce, and politics. With vibrant photographs by legendary jazz chronicler Herman Leonard, Jazz is also an arresting visual history of a century of music.
The Recording Engineer's Handbook
Bobby Owsinski - 2004
From using microphones to deciding on EQ settings, choosing outboard gear to understanding how, when and why to process your signal, the seemingly never-ending choices can be very confusing. Professional Audio's bestselling author Bobby Owsinski (The Mixing Engineer's Handbook, The Mastering Engineer's Handbook) takes you into the tracking process for all manner of instruments and vocals-- providing you with the knowledge and skill to make sense of the many choices you have in any given project. From acoustic to electronic instruments, mic placement to EQ settings, everything you need to know to capture professionally recorded audio tracks is in this guide.
Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
Stephen Nachmanovitch - 1990
It is about where art in the widest sense comes from. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms. Free Play is directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity. Filled with unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors, it reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured by certain unavoidable facts of life, and how finally it can be liberated - how we can be liberated - to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice. The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. It brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had.
Guitar For Dummies
Mark Phillips - 1998
Guitar for Dummies 2E features new practice techniques -- from scales to full pieces. Guitar for Dummies 2E also includes updates to charts, illustrations, photos and resources. Guitar for Dummies 2E features updates on tuning as well as the latest information on buying a guitar and accessories. Plus an all-new interactive CD allows readers to listen, learn, tune, and play along. Perfect for beginner to intermediate guitar players seeking step-by-step advice and tips to play the guitar.
The History of Jazz
Ted Gioia - 1997
From the seed first planted by slave dances held in Congo Square and nurtured by early ensembles led by Buddy Belden and Joe King Oliver, jazz began its long winding odyssey across America and around the world, giving flower to a thousand different forms--swing, bebop, cool jazz, jazz-rock fusion--and a thousand great musicians. Now, in The History of Jazz, Ted Gioia tells the story of this music as it has never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history--Jelly Roll Morton (the world's greatest hot tune writer), Louis Armstrong (whose O-keh recordings of the mid-1920s still stand as the most significant body of work that jazz has produced), Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, cool jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young, Charlie Parker's surgical precision of attack, Miles Davis's 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality, Pat Metheny's visionary extension of jazz-rock fusion, the contemporary sounds of Wynton Marsalis, and the post-modernists of the Knitting Factory. Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of these and many other great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. Gioia also evokes the many worlds of jazz, taking the reader to the swamp lands of the Mississippi Delta, the bawdy houses of New Orleans, the rent parties of Harlem, the speakeasies of Chicago during the Jazz Age, the after hours spots of corrupt Kansas city, the Cotton Club, the Savoy, and the other locales where the history of jazz was made. And as he traces the spread of this protean form, Gioia provides much insight into the social context in which the music was born. He shows for instance how the development of technology helped promote the growth of jazz--how ragtime blossomed hand-in-hand with the spread of parlor and player pianos, and how jazz rode the growing popularity of the record industry in the 1920s. We also discover how bebop grew out of the racial unrest of the 1940s and '50s, when black players, no longer content with being entertainers, wanted to be recognized as practitioners of a serious musical form. Jazz is a chameleon art, delighting us with the ease and rapidity with which it changes colors. Now, in Ted Gioia's The History of Jazz, we have at last a book that captures all these colors on one glorious palate. Knowledgeable, vibrant, and comprehensive, it is among the small group of books that can truly be called classics of jazz literature.
Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning
Gary F. Marcus - 2012
Do you have to be born musical to become musical? Do you have to start at the age of six? Using the tools of his day job as a cognitive psychologist, Gary Marcus becomes his own guinea pig as he takes up the guitar. In a powerful and incisive look at how both children and adults become musical, Guitar Zero traces Marcus’s journey, what he learned, and how anyone else can learn, too. A groundbreaking peek into the origins of music in the human brain, this musical journey is also an empowering tale of the mind’s enduring plasticity. Marcus investigates the most effective ways to train body and brain to learn to play an instrument, in a quest that takes him from Suzuki classes to guitar gods. From deliberate and efficient practicing techniques to finding the right music teacher, Marcus translates his own experience—as well as reflections from world-renowned musicians—into practical advice for anyone hoping to become musical, or to learn a new skill.Guitar Zero debunks the popular theory of an innate musical instinct while simultaneously challenging the idea that talent is only a myth. While standing the science of music on its head, Marcus brings new insight into humankind’s most basic question: what counts as a life well lived? Does one have to become the next Jimi Hendrix to make a passionate pursuit worthwhile, or can the journey itself bring the brain lasting satisfaction?For all those who have ever set out to play an instrument—or wish that they could—Guitar Zero is an inspiring and fascinating look at the pursuit of music, the mechanics of the mind, and the surprising rewards that come from following one’s dreams.
The Study of Counterpoint
Johann Joseph Fux - 1965
J. S. Bach held it in high esteem, Leopold Mozart trained his famous son from its pages, Haydn worked out every lesson with meticulous care, and Beethoven condensed it into an abstract for ready reference.
The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life
Timothy Ferriss - 2012
It’s a choose-your-own-adventure guide to the world of rapid learning.#1 New York Times bestselling author (and lifelong non-cook) Tim Ferriss takes you from Manhattan to Okinawa, and from Silicon Valley to Calcutta, unearthing the secrets of the world’s fastest learners and greatest chefs. Ferriss uses cooking to explain “meta-learning,” a step-by-step process that can be used to master anything, whether searing steak or shooting 3-pointers in basketball. That is the real “recipe” of The 4-Hour Chef.You'll train inside the kitchen for everything outside the kitchen. Featuring tips and tricks from chess prodigies, world-renowned chefs, pro athletes, master sommeliers, super models, and everyone in between, this “cookbook for people who don’t buy cookbooks” is a guide to mastering cooking and life.The 4-Hour Chef is a five-stop journey through the art and science of learning:1. META-LEARNING. Before you learn to cook, you must learn to learn. META charts the path to doubling your learning potential.2. THE DOMESTIC. DOM is where you learn the building blocks of cooking. These are the ABCs (techniques) that can take you from Dr, Seuss to Shakespeare.3. THE WILD. Becoming a master student requires self-sufficiency in all things. WILD teaches you to hunt, forage, and survive.4. THE SCIENTIST. SCI is the mad scientist and modernist painter wrapped into one. This is where you rediscover whimsy and wonder.5. THE PROFESSIONAL. Swaraj, a term usually associated with Mahatma Gandhi, can be translated as “self-rule.” In PRO, we’ll look at how the best in the world become the best in the world, and how you can chart your own path far beyond this book.
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes: P/V/G
Tori Amos - 1992
A deluxe matching folio to Tori Amos's debut album. Piano/vocal arrangements with complete lyrics, color and black-and-white photos, and notes on the songs by Tori herself. Includes the hit singles: China * Crucify * Winter * Silent All These Years * and more.
The Piano Book: Buying Owning a New or Used Piano
Larry Fine - 1995
Hundreds of thousands of pianos are bought and sold each year, yet most people buy a piano with only the vaguest idea of what to look for as they make this major purchase. The Piano Book evaluates and compares every brand and style of piano sold in the United States. There is information on piano moving and storage, inspecting individual new and used pianos, the special market for Steinways, and sales gimmicks to watch out for. An annual supplement, sold separately, lists current prices for more than 2,500 new piano models.
How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (And Why You Should Care)
Ross W. Duffin - 2006
Duffin presents an engaging and elegantly reasoned exposé of musical temperament and its impact on the way in which we experience music. A historical narrative, a music theory lesson, and, above all, an impassioned letter to musicians and listeners everywhere, How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony possesses the power to redefine the very nature of our interactions with music today.For nearly a century, equal temperament—the practice of dividing an octave into twelve equally proportioned half-steps—has held a virtual monopoly on the way in which instruments are tuned and played. In his new book, Duffin explains how we came to rely exclusively on equal temperament by charting the fascinating evolution of tuning through the ages. Along the way, he challenges the widely held belief that equal temperament is a perfect, “naturally selected” musical system, and proposes a radical reevaluation of how we play and hear music.
Without Frontiers: The Life & Music of Peter Gabriel
Daryl Easlea - 2013
A quintessential Englishman, he has since pursued several overlapping careers, bringing to each of them his trademark preoccupation with quality control and restless curiosity.In 1975, after leaving the band that made him famous he diversified into writing movie soundtracks, various audio-visual ventures, tireless charity work and supporting major peace initiatives. He also became world music’s most illustrious champion, launching the WOMAD festival and recording solo albums that featured musicians from every corner of the globe. These and several other careers make writing Peter Gabriel’s biography an unusually challenging task, but Daryl Easlea has undertaken hours of new interviews with key friends, musicians, aides and confidants to get to the very heart and soul of Peter Gabriel, his music and his complex life. The result is an extraordinary biography of an extraordinary man.
All You Need to Know about the Music Business
Donald S. Passman - 1991
Now in its sixth edition, it has been completely revised and updated with crucial, up-to-the-minute information on the industry's major changes in response to today's rapid technological advances and uncertain economy. Veteran music lawyer Donald Passman is in the thick of this transformation and understands that anyone involved in the music business is feeling the deep, far-reaching effects of it. This latest edition of what the "Los Angeles Times" called "the industry bible" will lead novices and experts alike through the fundamental practices as well as the new, uncharted territory of one of this country's most dynamic industries.In the music business, the key to success lies in knowing how to protect yourself. To do that, you need the best and most up-to-date advice available. Whether you are -- or aspire to be -- a performer, writer, or executive, Passman's comprehensive guide to the legal and financial aspects of the music world is an indispensable tool. Drawing on his unique professional experience as one of the most trusted advisors in the industry, Passman offers authoritative information on how to: Select and hire a winning team of advisors -- personal and business managers, agents, and attorneys -- and structure their commissions, percentages, and fees in a way that will protect you and maximize these relationshipsMaster the big picture and the finer points of record dealsNavigate the ins and outs of songwriting, music publishing, and copyrightsMaximize concert, touring, and merchandising deals This latest edition also includes information on: Music downloads, webcasting, streaming-on-demand, and podcastingThe new video streaming servicesHow royalties are computed in the digital ageThe latest developments in deals with independent labels, including upstream dealsUpdates on all the traditional industry matters, such as royalties, advances, video budgets, and copyright lawIn "All You Need to Know About the Music Business," one of the industry's most influential figures shows you how to thrive in the most exciting business in the world. It's a book that no musician, entertainment lawyer, agent, promoter, publisher, manager, record company executive -- anyone who makes their living from music -- can afford to be without.
50 Psychology Classics: Who We Are, How We Think, What We Do: Insight and Inspiration from 50 Key Books
Tom Butler-Bowdon - 2006
Spanning fifty books and hundreds of ideas, 50 Psychology Classics examines some of the most intriguing questions regarding cognitive development and behavioral motivations, summarizing the myriad theories that psychologists have put forth to make sense of the human experience. Butler-Bowdon covers everything from humanism to psychoanalysis to the fundamental principles where theorists disagree, like nature versus nurture and the existence of free will. In this single book, you will find Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and the most significant contributors to modern psychological thought. From the author of the bestselling 50 Self-Help Classics, 50 Success Classics, and 50 Spiritual Classics, 50 Psychology Classics will enrich your understanding of the human condition.Includes:1. Alfred Adler "Understanding Human Nature" (1927)2. Gavin Becker "The Gift of Fear" (1997)3. Eric Berne "Games People Play" (1964)4. Edward de Bono "Lateral Thinking" (1970)5. Robert Bolton "People Skills" (1979)6. Nathaniel Branden "The Psychology of Self-Esteem" (1969)7. Isabel Briggs Myers "Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type" (1980)8. Louann Brizendine "The Female Brain" (2006)9. David D Burns "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" (1980)10. Robert Cialdini "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" (1984)11. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi "Creativity" (1997)12. Albert Ellis & Robert Harper (1961) "A Guide To Rational Living" (1961)13. Milton Erickson "My Voice Will Go With You" (1982) by Sidney Rosen14. Eric Erikson "Young Man Luther" (1958)15. Hans Eysenck "Dimensions of Personality" (1947)16. Susan Forward "Emotional Blackmail" (1997)17. Viktor Frankl "The Will to Meaning" (1969)18. Anna Freud "The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense" (1936)19. Sigmund Freud "The Interpretation of Dreams" (1901)20. Howard Gardner "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences" (1983)21. Daniel Gilbert "Stumbling on Happiness" (2006)22. Malcolm Gladwell "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" (2005)23. Daniel Goleman "Emotional Intelligence at Work" (1998)24. John M Gottman "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" (1999)25. Harry Harlow "The Nature of Love" (1958)26. Thomas A Harris "I'm OK - You're OK" (1967)27. Eric Hoffer "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (1951)28. Karen Horney "Our Inner Conflicts" (1945)29. William James "Principles of Psychology" (1890)30. Carl Jung "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious" (1953)31. Alfred Kinsey "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" (1953)32. Melanie Klein "Envy and Gratitude" (1975)33. RD Laing "The Divided Self" (1959)34. Abraham Maslow "The Farther Reaches of Human Nature" (1970)35. Stanley Milgram "Obedience To Authority" (1974)36. Anne Moir & David Jessel "Brainsex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women" (1989)37. IP Pavlov "Conditioned Reflexes" (1927)38. Fritz Perls "Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality" (1951)39. Jean Piaget "The Language and Thought of the Child" (1966)40. Steven Pinker "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" (2002)41. VS Ramachandran "Phantoms in the Brain" (1998)42. Carl Rogers "On Becoming a Person" (1961)43. Oliver Sacks "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" (1970)44. Barry Schwartz "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less" (2004)45. Martin Seligman "Authentic Happiness" (2002)46. Gail Sheehy "Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life" (1974)47. BF Skinner "Beyond Freedom & Dignity" (1953)48. Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen "Difficult Conversations" (2000)49. William Styron "Darkness Visible" (1990)50. Robert E Thayer "The Origin of Everyday Moods" (1996)