Navigate the guitar neck better than ever before with this easy-to-use book! Designed from Musicians Institute core curriculum programs, it covers essential concepts for players of every level, acoustic or electric. A hands-on guide to theory, it will help you learn to build any scale or chord on your own and unleash creativity. No music reading is required. This second edition has been thoroughly updated and includes new music examples.

       With honed sensitivity and unquestioned expertise, Stuart Isacoff—pianist, critic, teacher, and author of Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization—unfolds the ongoing history and evolution of the piano and all its myriad wonders: how its very sound provides the basis for emotional expression and individual style, and why it has so powerfully entertained generation upon generation of listeners. He illuminates the groundbreaking music of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, and Debussy. He analyzes the breathtaking techniques of Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Arthur Rubinstein, and Van Cliburn, and he gives musicians including Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Menahem Pressler, and Vladimir Horowitz the opportunity to discuss their approaches. Isacoff delineates how classical music and jazz influenced each other as the uniquely American art form progressed from ragtime, novelty, stride, boogie, bebop, and beyond, through Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Charlap. A Natural History of the Piano distills a lifetime of research and passion into one brilliant narrative. We witness Mozart unveiling his monumental concertos in Vienna’s coffeehouses, using a special piano with one keyboard for the hands and another for the feet; European virtuoso Henri Herz entertaining rowdy miners during the California gold rush; Beethoven at his piano, conjuring healing angels to console a grieving mother who had lost her child; Liszt fainting in the arms of a page turner to spark an entire hall into hysterics. Here is the instrument in all its complexity and beauty. We learn of the incredible craftsmanship of a modern Steinway, the peculiarity of specialty pianos built for the Victorian household, the continuing innovation in keyboards including electronic ones. And most of all, we hear the music of the masters, from centuries ago and in our own age, brilliantly evoked and as marvelous as its most recent performance.   With this wide-ranging volume, Isacoff gives us a must-have for music lovers, pianists, and the armchair musician.

    Here is a book that will be enjoyed by all pianists not only for the stimulating advice it provides, but also for the style with which it is written.

    Includes a 30-page bibliographical essay, numerous illustrations, and a full-color pictorial biography of the composer.

    Take your playing to the stratosphere with the most advanced lead book by this proven heavy metal author. Speed Mechanics is the ultimate technique book for developing the kind of speed and precision in today's explosive playing styles. Learn the fastest ways to achieve speed and control, secrets to make your practice time really count, and how to open your ears and make your musical ideas more solid and tangible. Packed with over 200 vicious exercises including Troy's scorching version of "Flight of the Bumblebee." Music and examples demonstrated on CD. 89-minute audio.

    Written in 1828, in the last months of the young Schubert's life, 'Winterreise' ("Winter's Journey"), has come to be considered the single greatest piece of music ever written for the male solo voice. Deceptively brief - the twenty-four short poems are performed uninterrupted in 70 minutes - it nonetheless has an emotional depth and power that no music of its kind has ever equalled. Originally intended to be sung to an intimate gathering, performances of 'Winterreise' now pack the greatest concert halls around the world. Drawing on his firsthand experience with this work (he has performed it more than one hundred times), on his musical knowledge, and on his training as a scholar, Ian Bostridge teases out the enigmas and subtle meanings of each song, exploring the world and the states of heart and mind in which Schubert created them, and the exquisite resonance and affinities that continue, even today, to move us so profoundly.

    Martini) * Minuet, BWV Anh. II 114/Anh. III 183/Anh. II 115 (J. S. Bach) * Gavotte in G Minor, Gavotte en Rondeau from Suite in G Minor for Klavier, BWV 822 (J. S. Bach) * Humoresque, Op. 101, No. 7 for Piano (A. Dvor�k) * Gavottes I and II from Suite III in C Major for Violoncello, BWV 1009 (J. Becker) * Gavotte in D Major (J. S. Bach) * Bourr�e, Bour�es I and II from Suite III in C Major for Violoncello, BWV 1009 (J. S. Bach). This title is available in SmartMusic.

    Prior to the tournament, a statistician calculated the Bulldogs as a 200-to-1 shot to win. But as fascinating as what Butler accomplished was how they did it. Underdawgs tells the incredible and uplifting story. Butler’s coach, 33-year-old Brad Stevens, looked so young he was often mistaken for one of the players, but he had quickly become one of the best coaches in the nation by employing the “Butler Way.” This philosophy of basketball and life, adopted by former coach Barry Collier, is based on five principles: humility, passion, unity, servanthood, and thankfulness. Even the most casual observer could see this in every player, on the court and off, from NBA first-round draft pick Gordon Hayward to the last guy on the bench. Butler was coming off a great 2009–10 regular season, but its longtime existence on the periphery of major college basketball fostered doubt as March Madness set in. But after two historic upsets, one of top-seeded Syracuse and another of second-seeded Kansas State, and making it to the Final Four, the Bulldogs came within the diameter of a shoelace of beating the perennial leaders of college basketball: the Duke Blue Devils. Much more than a sports story, Underdawgs is the consummate David versus Goliath tale. Despite Duke’s winning the championship, the Bulldogs proved they belonged in the game and, in the process, won the respect of people who were not even sports fans.

    Takes you from the fundamentals of fingerpicking to five authentic blues tunes. Includes graded exercises, illustrated tips, plus standard notation and tablature.

    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.

    Paul Weller became the blueprint for David's life, and he followed his music and his style with the fervour of a truly devoted fan - to the bemusement of his long-suffering family. At once disarmingly candid and hilariously funny, this is the story of what it means to have a hero, its pleasures and pitfalls. Illustrating his memoir with landmark songs from The Jam and The Style Council, David maps out the occasionally bizarre events in the life of an obsessive fan and wannabe writer.From Player's Navy Cut to Gitanes, boating blazers to cashmere sweaters, The Modfather is about acquiring style, finding substance and living life with Paul Weller.

    No rock star contrivance, no intellectual perspective, no master plan for world domination. You're talking about four guys from rural Washington who wanna rock..."--Everett True, Melody Maker, March 18th, 1989In 1992, Nirvana's breakthrough anthem, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," introduced a new underground sound to the mainstream music world. The record-breaking sales and global recognition that followed should have been a welcomed payoff for the hard-working punk band. Instead, that bright optimism quickly faded into bitter dissatisfaction, as the trio became conflicted about their unexpected success, and about having an audience that was the epitome of everything they had attempted to rebel against.Nirvana's sonic catapult from obscurity to international stardom and their chart-topping success changed the face of rock music world-wide. In Nirvana: The Chosen Rejects, the authors have used a wealth of sources, including personal interviews with Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, in order to reconstruct Nirvana's meteoric rise and the subsequent fall of their troubled lead singer. The result is a front row perspective of the musical influences that helped nurture Nirvana's seminal sound, the stories about the creation of their albums, and the ideas that shaped their songs. Nirvana: The Chosen Rejects also contains a comprehensive discography and an A-Z listing of every Nirvana song officially released.Kurt St. Thomas and Troy Smith were an award-winning programming team at WFNX-FM, Boston (MA), one of the nation's top alternative radio stations in the early 1990's. The pair wrote and produced the definitive Nirvana interview compact disc, Nevermind, It's an Interview, as well as interview CDs for Paul Weller, The Breeders, and Frank Black. St. Thomas lives in New York City, and Smith resides on Cape Cod, MA.

    Recording Unhinged: Creative and Unconventional Music Recording Techniques dares you to "unlearn" safe record-making, to get out from behind the windshield, stick your head out the sunroof, and put the pedal to the metal! Sylvia Massy and her cohort of celebrity music industry producers, engineers, and recording stars discard fixed notions about how music should be recorded and explore techniques that fall outside the norm and yield emotionally powerful, incredibly personal, gut-wrenching, and even scary recordings. Joined by Hans Zimmer, Al Schmitt, Bruce Swedien, Jack Joseph Puig, Dave Pensado, Tchad Blake, Bob Clearmountain, Linda Perry, Michael Franti, Michael Beinhorn, Bob Ezrin, Geoff Emerick, and many others, this book has the stories, tips, recipes, photos, advice, diagrams, exercises, illustrations, and jokes that you won't find in any other instructional manual. And what about that cover? Recording Unhinged contains many eye-popping illustrations by Sylvia herself. As if being a celebrated producer isn't enough, Sylvia's iconic illustrations bring real and imaginary recording situations to life. Catchy Bass Lines? Engineering Marvels? How to Mic a Chicken?!! Do a swan-dive into the unknown and make studio magic with inspiration from Recording Unhinged.

    The author examines the nature of intervals in various contexts, discusses the modes and other scales employed in modern music, describes the formation and uses of chords by thirds, by fourths, and by seconds, of added-note chords and polychords; he deals with different types of harmonic motion, with harmonic rhythm and dynamic sand ornamentation, with harmonic behavior in tonality, polytonality, atonality and serial composition.

    Whether you are just beginning to search beyond basic barre chords or are already an advanced player looking for new sounds and ideas this is the book that will get you there. Designed to inspire creativity this book is a musical treasure chest filled with exciting new ideas and sounds.