Book picks similar to
John Thompson's Modern Course for the Piano: The Fourth Grade Book by John Thompson
piano
donated-books
music
music-being-played
Piano Playing: With Piano Questions Answered
Josef Hofmann - 1976
A student of Anton Rubinstein and a leading exponent of the works of Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann, he always balanced his virtuoso playing with a firm adherence to the piece as written. It is this balanced approach to piano playing that he advocates in this highly regarded volume on piano technique.The first section of the book contains a discussion of the rules and tricks of correct piano playing: touch, methods of practicing, the use of the pedal, playing the piece as it is written, "How Rubinstein Taught Me to Play," and indispensables in pianistic success. The second, much longer, section contains Hofmann's answers to specific questions sent to him by piano students and amateurs: questions on positions of the body and hand, actions of the wrist and arm, stretching, staccato, legato, precision, fingering, octaves, the pedals, practice, marks and nomenclature, phrasing, rubato, theory, transposing, and much more.Full of important background information that is highly useful to every piano player, this book will set students on the right track in their studies and allow every amateur to measure the level of his commitment and the quality of the instruction he is receiving. For insight into many facets of playing the piano, there is no better guide than Josef Hofmann.
This Book is Broken
Stuart Berman - 2008
The alternative music scene had all but died, and pre-packaged pop stars had filled the vacuum. But in a basement apartment in the heart of downtown Toronto, two musicians were forming a creative partnership that would revive the mass appeal of indie music and forever change how we think of a band.In this biography of the ever-evolving indie-rock collective, Broken Social Scene, music columnist Stuart Berman tracks the group's inception by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning; groundbreaking performances at Ted's Wrecking Yard that raised the band's local status to mythical proportions; Broken Social Scene's meteoric rise upon the release of breakout album You Forgot It In People; the creation of Arts & Crafts records with music-biz maverick Jeffrey Remedios; and life on the road with revolving bandmates, including members of Stars, Metric, The Dears, and international pop sensation Feist.Stuart Berman has drawn from hours of interviews with members and affiliates of Broken Social Scene, and exclusive, never-before-seen photographs, gig posters, and artwork to create a spectacular oral and visual history of this ever-evolving indie-rock collective.
Time Between: My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond
Chris Hillman - 2020
He went on to record and perform in various configurations, including as a member of Stephen Stills’s Manassas and as a co-founder of The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. In the 1980s he formed The Desert Rose Band, scoring eight Top 10 Billboard country hits. He’s released a number of solo efforts, including 2017’s highly acclaimed Bidin’ My Time—the final album produced by the late Tom Petty. In Time Between, Hillman shares his quintessentially Southern Californian experience, from an idyllic, rural 1950s childhood; to achieving worldwide fame thanks to hits such as “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Eight Miles High”; to becoming the first musician to move to Laurel Canyon. Featuring behind-the-scenes insights on his time in The Byrds, his productive but sometimes complicated relationship with Gram Parsons, his role in launching the careers of Buffalo Springfield and Emmylou Harris, and the ups and downs of life in various bands, music is only part of his story. Within the pages of Time Between, Hillman reveals the details of his personal life with candor and vulnerability, writing honestly about the shocking tragedy that struck his family when he was a teenager, his subsequent struggles with anger, and how his spiritual journey led him to a place of deep faith that allowed him to extend forgiveness and experience wholeness. Chris Hillman is much more than a rock star. He is truly a founding father of American music and a man who has faced down the challenges of life to discover what really matters.
Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music
Ted Templeman - 2020
Along the way, Ted details his late ’60s stint as an unlikely star with the sunshine pop outfit Harpers Bizarre and his grind-it-out days as a Warner Bros. tape listener, including the life-altering moment that launched his career as a producer: his discovery of the Doobie Brothers. Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music takes us into the studio sessions of No. 1 hits like “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers and “Jump” by Van Halen, as Ted recounts memories and the behind-the-scene dramas that engulfed both massively successful acts. Throughout, Ted also reveals the inner workings of his professional and personal relationships with some of the most talented and successful recording artists in history, including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Lowell George, Sammy Hagar, Linda Ronstadt, David Lee Roth, and Carly Simon.
The Violin Maker: Finding a Centuries-Old Tradition in a Brooklyn Workshop
John Marchese - 2007
As he tells this extraordinary story, journalist John Marchese shares the rich lore of this beloved instrument and illuminates an art that has barely changed since the Renaissance.Marchese takes readers from start to finish as Zygmuntowicz builds the violin, from the first selection of the wood, to the cutting of the back and belly, through the carving of the scroll and the fingerboard, to the placement of the sound peg. Though much of the story takes place in the craftsman's museum–like Brooklyn workshop, there are side trips across the river to the rehearsal rooms of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln center, and across the world. Stops on the itinerary include Cremona, Italy, the magical city where Antonio Stradivari (and a few of his contemporaries) achieved a level of violin–making perfection that has endured for centuries, as well as points in France and Germany integral to the history of the violin.A stunning work of narrative nonfiction that's also a finely crafted, loving homage to the instrument that most closely approximates the human voice.
Isle of Noises: Conversations with Great British Songwriters
Daniel Rachel - 2013
Artists discuss their individual approach to writing, the inspiration behind their most successful songs, and the techniques and methods they have independently developed. It is an incredible musical journey spanning fifty years, from ‘Waterloo Sunset’ by Ray Davies to ‘The Beast’ by Laura Marling, with many lyrical and melodic secrets revealed along the way.Original handwritten lyrics from personal archives and notebooks (many never-before-seen) offer a unique glimpse into the heart of the creative process, and some of the greatest names in photography, including Jill Furmanovsky, Pennie Smith and Sheila Rock, have contributed stunning portraits of each artist.The combination of individual personal insights and the breadth and depth of knowledge in their collected experience makes Isle of Noises the essential word on classic British songwriting – as told by the songwriters themselves.
Give the Anarchist a Cigarette
Mick Farren - 2001
Now he has written his own insightful account of the British counterculture in the 1960s and ‘70s. With a continuing commitment to the tradition of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, he recounts a rollercoaster odyssey - sometimes violent and often hilarious.
Jacqueline Du Pre: A Life
Carol Easton - 1989
Jacqueline du Pré (the subject of the recent film Hilary and Jackie) was the music world's "golden girl," with what appeared to many to be a fairytale career and storybook marriage to Daniel Barenboim. But away from her cello, du Pré was achingly human. As a child, she was isolated by her phenomenal talent. As an adult, she was confined to the rarefied, insular concert world. And during the last fifteen years of her life, she lived in the inexorably shrinking world of the invalid, as multiple sclerosis took its toll. The Baltimore Sun said, Carol Easton tells this extraordinary story "with feeling befitting du Pré's own."
Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Series, Box Set: Books 1-3
Loulou Harrington - 2017
The founding members of the Myrtle Grove Garden Club are Jesse Camden and her mother, Sophia, who are co-owners of the Gilded Lily Tea Room and Coffee House, along with Vivian Windsor, who is Myrtle Grove’s resident oil heiress and a lifelong friend of the Camden ladies. Bonus: Recipes included in each book. Three complete books in the boxed set are: Murder, Mayhem and Bliss (Book 1) When the husband of Bliss Kerr, niece of Vivian Windsor, is found dead in their pool, Jesse Camden hurries to the side of her dear friend, Vivian. As murmurs of murder grow, and Bliss’s future darkens, Vivian turns to Jesse for help. With eager assistance from the Garden Club, Jesse sets out to find a killer, painfully aware she has no idea how, and failure isn’t an option. Murder Most Thorny (Book 2) Jesse Camden’s reunion with an old friend comes to a shocking halt when a tornado drops a dead body out of the sky almost on top of them. When that body proves to be her friend’s ex-husband, Jesse scrambles the Garden Club together to help dig up evidence of her friend’s innocence. Unfortunately, all they dig up is another dead body. Murder on a Silver Sea (Book 3) A string of accidents and a wealthy dowager’s fatal fall send Jesse Camden and her Garden Club bestie, Vivian Windsor, rushing to a remote island in the Salish Sea to search for a possible murderer and fulfill a promise to safeguard the small dog who inherits not only the fortune but the danger that comes with it.
From My Heart: The Autobiography
Linda Nolan - 2018
And I’ve chosen not to spend it constantly stressing about cancer. I’ve chosen to enjoy the little things. I’ve chosen to laugh. And I’ve chosen to look back on my life and thank God for it.'
In March 2017, Linda Nolan was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer and was given the terrible news that, while it was treatable, it was not curable. Her first thought was to worry about her family, who were still grieving the loss of their sister Bernie. Her second was, ‘But I’m alive and I’m going to fight it.’In From My Heart, Linda writes honestly about growing up in her big Irish family and finding fame with her sisters in The Nolans and reveals the shocking family secrets and feuds that threatened to tear them apart. She also describes her original battle with breast cancer and how the death of her husband left her deeply depressed, to the point of feeling suicidal. Just as she’d learned to embrace life again, and even to start dating, the cancer came back . . . In this warm, brave and funny memoir, Linda shows that it’s never too late to learn what really matters.
LDS Hymns and Children's Songbook
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - 2009
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
Ride a White Swan: The Lives and Death of Marc Bolan
Lesley-Ann Jones - 2012
His far reaching musical and stylistic influence is more relevant today than ever with hits such as 'Ride A White Swan', 'Children Of The Revolution', 'Get It On' and 'Hot Love' as fresh and exhilarating as when first released. At the peak of his popularity during his lifetime Bolan was outselling Jimi Hendrix and The Who, and yet relatively little is really known about the hypnotic, enigmatic 20th century boy turned 21st century icon. At last, in the 35th anniversary year of his tragic death, Marc Bolan represents the definite biography. Here rock biographer, Lesley-Ann Jones, paints a meticulous portrait of the T-Rex front man. From his childhood growing up in Hackney to his untimely death at the age of 29, Bolan's life was one of relentless experimentation and metamorphoses. Hallucinogenic drugs, wizardry and levitation, alcoholism, tax evasion and a spectacular fall from grace were to punctuate his short life, as he continued to strive to reinvent himself and his music over and over again. Lesley-Ann has been granted access to those who knew Bolan best, including his partner and the mother of his only son, Gloria Jones and his brother, Harry Feld.
God Save the Kinks: A Biography
Rob Jovanovic - 2013
After a little noticed debut and a follow-up that had failed to chart at all, Pye Records were threatening to annul the group’s contract. But with its unforgettable distorted guitar riff, 'You Really Got Me’ went on to reach No.1, entering the US Top Ten later the same year. Followed by a string of hits, it marked the breakthrough of one of Britain’s most innovative and influential bands, and a turning point in the fortunes of two brothers whose troubled story is as tumultuous and characterful as the music they produced: Ray and Dave Davies. Born into a deeply musical working-class family in London’s Muswell Hill, Ray and Dave grew up in a city recovering from the bombs and privations of the Second World War, and, more than any other musicians of the Sixties, they crafted the soundtrack that made it swing again. In songs such as ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’, ‘Sunny Afternoon’ – which toppled The Beatles to become the hit of Summer 1966 – ‘Waterloo Sunset’, ‘Days’ and ‘Lola’, they drew on music hall, folk and rhythm and blues to craft a peculiarly English pop idiom, inspiring generations of songwriters from David Bowie to Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn.Pocked by sibling rivalry, furious on-stage violence, walkouts, overdoses, a career-throttling ban from the US, gross self-indulgence, and the band's curious rebirth as Eighties stadium rockers, the story laid bare in God Save The Kinks is one of the greatest in British pop history.
Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing
Josef Lhevinne - 1972
Lhevinne was, with Rachmaninoff, Schnabel, and Hoffman, one of the great modern masters, and was the first artist invited to teach at the newly formed Julliard Graduate School of Music. Technique, through essential, must be subordinate to musical understanding. Complete knowledge of scales, apprehended not mechanically but musically; understanding of the uses of rests and silence, which Mozart considered the greatest effect in music; a feeling for rhythm and training of the ear; these are the basic elements of a thorough grounding in musicianship and are accordingly emphasized in the opening chapters. The heart of the book is devoted to the attainment of a beautiful tone. Anyone who has heard Lhevinne play or has listened to one of his recordings will know how great were his achievements in that area. The secret lay, at least in part, in the technique he called "the arm floating in air," and in the use of the wrists as natural shock absorbers. The achievement of varieties of tone, of the singing, ringing tone, of brilliancy, of delicacy, and of power are all explained in terms of a careful analysis of the ways in which the fingers, hand, wrist, arm, and indeed the whole body function in striking the keys. There are further remarks about how to get a clear staccato and an unblurred legato, about the dangers of undue emphasis on memorization and the need for variety in practicing, and special comments on the use of the pedal, which should be employed with as much precision as the keys. Throughout, specific musical examples are presented as illustrations. The author draws not only upon his own experiences and methods, but upon the examples of Anton Rubenstein and of his teacher, Safonoff, for this remarkably lucid and concise formulation of basic principles.
Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed
Aidan Levy - 2015
On a personal level, too, he seemed to take pleasure in insulting everyone who crossed his path. How did this Jewish boy from Long Island, an adolescent doo-wop singer, rise to the status of Godfather of Punk? And how did he maintain that status for decades?Dirty Blvd.—the first new biography of Reed since his death in 2013—digs deep to answer those questions. And along the way it shows us the tender side of his prickly personality.Born in Brooklyn, Reed was the son of an accountant and a former beauty queen, but he took the road less traveled, trading literary promise for an entry-level job as a budget-label songwriter and founding the Velvet Underground under the aegis of Andy Warhol. The cult of personality surrounding his transformation from downtown agent provocateur to Phantom of Rock and finally to patron saint of the avant-garde was legendary, but there was more to his artistic evolution than his abrasive public persona. The lives of many American rock stars have had no second act, but Reed’s did.Dirty Blvd. not only covers the highlights of Reed’s career but also explores lesser-known facets of his work, such as his first recordings with doo-wop group the Jades, his key literary influences and the impact of Judaism upon his work, and his engagement with the LGBT movement. Drawing from new interviews with many of his artistic collaborators, friends, and romantic partners, as well as from archival material, concert footage, and unreleased bootlegs of live performances, author Aidan Levy paints an intimate portrait of the notoriously uncompromising rock poet who wrote “Heroin,” “Sweet Jane,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” and “Street Hassle”—songs that transcended their genre and established Lou Reed as one of the most influential and enigmatic American artists of the past half-century.