This series of three books aim to provide frustrated rock guitarists with new directions to explore their art. Armed with the accompanying CD, featuring detailed examples of pentatonic patterns, minor arpeggios and backing tracks, you will be able to do much more than simply learn solos and licks note for note. This book also contains a thorough explanation of music theory.

    The intense relationship between the American people and their surroundings has been the source of a rich artistic tradition. American Visions is a consistently revealing demonstration of the many ways in which artists have expressed this pervasive connection. In nine eloquent chapters, which span the whole range of events, movements, and personalities of more than three centuries, Robert Hughes shows us the myriad associations between the unique society that is America and the art it has produced:"O My America, My New Founde Land"  explores the churches, religious art, and artifacts of the Spanish invaders of the Southwest and the Puritans of New England; the austere esthetic of the Amish, the Quakers, and the Shakers; and the Anglophile culture of Virginia."The Republic of Virtue"  sets forth the ideals of neo-classicism as interpreted in the paintings of Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, and the Peale family, and in the public architecture of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Latrobe, and Charles Bulfinch."The Wilderness and the West"  discusses the work of landscape painters such as Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and the Luminists, who viewed the natural world as "the fingerprint of God's creation,"  and of those who recorded America's westward expansion--George Caleb Bingham, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Remington--and the accompanying shift in the perception of the Indian, from noble savage to outright demon."American Renaissance" describes the opulent era that followed the Civil War, a cultural flowering expressed in the sculpture of Augustus Saint-Gaudens; the paintings of John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and Childe Hassam; the Newport cottages of the super-rich; and the beaux-arts buildings of Stanford White and his partners."The Gritty Cities"  looks at the post-Civil War years from another perspective: cast-iron cityscapes, the architecture of Louis Henri Sullivan, and the new realism of Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, the trompe-l'oeil painters, and the Ashcan School."Early Modernism" introduces the first American avant garde: the painters Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Joseph Stella, Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, and Georgia O'Keeffe, and the premier architect of his time, Frank Lloyd Wright."Streamlines and Breadlines"  surveys the boom years, when skyscrapers and Art Deco were all the rage . . . and the bust years that followed, when painters such as Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, Thomas Hart Benton, Diego Rivera, and Jacob Lawrence showed Americans "the way we live now." "The Empire of Signs"  examines the American hegemony after World War II, when the Abstract Expressionists (Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, et al.) ruled the artistic roost, until they were dethroned by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, the Pop artists, and Andy Warhol, while individualists such as David Smith and Joseph Cornell marched to their own music."The Age of Anxiety"  considers recent events: the return of figurative art and the appearance of minimal and conceptual art; the speculative mania of the 1980s, which led to scandalous auction practices and inflated reputations; and the trends and issues of art in the 90s.Lavishly illustrated and packed with biographies, anecdotes, astute and stimulating critical commentary, and sharp social history, American Visions is published in association with a new eight-part PBS television series. Robert Hughes has called it "a love letter to America."  This superb volume, which encompasses and enlarges upon the series, is an incomparably entertaining and insightful contemplation of its splendid subject.

    Musicians of this genre have developed an often impenetrable sound that teeters on the edge of screaming, incomprehensible noise. Extreme metal circulates on the edge of mainstream culture within the confines of an obscure 'scene', in which members explore dangerous themes such as death, war and the occult, sometimes embracing violence, neo-fascism and Satanism. In the first book-length study of extreme metal, Keith Kahn-Harris draws on first-hand research to explore the global extreme metal scene. He shows how the scene is a space in which members creatively explore destructive themes, but also a space in which members experience the everyday pleasures of community and friendship. Including interviews with band members and fans, from countries ranging from the UK and US to Israel and Sweden, Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge demonstrates the power and subtlety of an often surprising and misunderstood musical form.

    A total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses the United States. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow will begin in the northern Pacific and cross the USA from west to east from Oregon to South Carolina. The Moon's penumbral shadow will produce a partial eclipse visible from most of North America. In fact, the 2017 full eclipse is such an important sky event that sky watchers in Europe are already planning trips to view it. 2017 Guide to the Night Sky provides all of the information needed to view this exciting eclipse and track its path. The time zones and transit of the eclipse will be noted inside the book's jacket for quick and easy reference.The night sky makes for exciting viewing any time of the year, and 2017 Guide to the Night Sky is the ideal guide to help amateur astronomers find their way for the entire 12 months. With monthly charts and other diagrams set for a latitude of 40 degrees North, it shows how the visible stars change from month to month and includes the many sky events that occur throughout the year. It is highly practical for beginning sky gazers because the objects and events may be observed with the naked eye, or nothing more complicated than a pair of binoculars.The month-by-month guides include sky activity charts and moon calendars; meteors (with dates of showers, including hourly rate of radiants); the Planets; ecliptic charts; diagrams of interesting events; plus sky and constellation maps throughout.An appendix includes a full glossary; the Greek Alphabet; the constellation genitives, abbreviations and English names; a table of common asterisms; further information; recommended astronomy journals, societies, institutions and organizations; software, and internet sources.Especially useful for beginning sky watchers, this guide will be fully updated to 2017. Its small and light format makes it the ideal portable reference for backyard astronomers.