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Music

Music speaks directly to your feelings and comes in many forms. For that reason Tales have selected some of the finest music books just for you. You can for example find a biography of your favorite music idol, but you can also find music theory books that will help you become your own musician. Whether you like rock, pop, musicals or classical music we have the books for you. Find your inner melody with a music book from Tales.
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  • Save 21%
    by Zoe Howe
    £13.49

    Lyrical visionary, enduring style icon and one indispensable fifth of post- Peter Green megaband Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks is one of the most recognisable figures in rock 'n' roll history - very much Fleetwood Mac's 'Queen Bee', as Mick Fleetwood himself describes her.

  • Save 30%
    by Mark Phillips
    £15.49

    Guitar For Dummies, 4th Edition (9781119293354) was previously published as Guitar For Dummies, 4th Edition (9781119151432). While this version features a new Dummies cover and design, the content is the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product.

  • Save 21%
    - How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal
    by Greg Renoff
    £14.99

    In an account based on more than 200 original interviews, historian Greg Renoff tells the untold story of Van Halen's 1970s ascent out of the backyards of Pasadena to international rock superstardom.

  • Save 23%
    - The Disastrous Story of The Hollywood Brats
    by Andrew Matheson
    £15.49

    The Hollywood Brats are the greatest band you've never heard of. Recording one near - perfect punk album in 1974, they were tragically ahead of their time. This is memoir about never quite achieving success, despite flying so close to greatness.

  • Save 17%
    by Bernard Sumner
    £9.99

    Includes an account of Bernard's Salford childhood, the early days of Joy Division, the band's enormous critical and popular success, and the subsequent tragic death of Ian Curtis.

  • Save 21%
    by Ringo Starr
    £27.49

    PHOTOGRAPH goes from behind the drums to behind the lens, as Ringo Starr opens his archives to share more than 250 rare and unseen photographs, with mementos and memories from his childhood, The Beatles and beyond.

  • Save 21%
    by Dennis McNally
    £14.99

    The Grateful Dead were one of the most fascinating rock bands and cultural phenomena of the twentieth century. Not just a brilliant rock biography, it forms a compelling portrait of America's West Coast from the halcyon days of Magic Buses and Merry Pranksters to the corporate dawn of the twenty-first century.

  • Save 29%
    by Nick Drake
    £31.99

    An official celebration of Nick Drake's life and music.

  • Save 23%
    - Book + Online Video and Audio Instruction
    by Desi Serna
    £15.49

    Improve your guitar-playing rhythm, feel, and timing If you want to improve your timing, sharpen your technique, or get inspired by new ideas, Guitar Rhythm & Technique For Dummies breaks down the basics of reading, counting, strumming, and picking rhythms on guitar to make you an ace on the axe in no time.

  • by Green Day
    £10.99

    Green Day Guitar Chord Songbook contains guitar chords and lyrics to 34 Green Day faves, including: American Idiot, Basket Case and Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

  • - Anthology of Songs & Hymns by N F S Grundtvig (Translated by John Irons)
    by Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig
    £14.99

  • Save 13%
     
    £13.99

    (Guitar Method). A comprehensive, easy-to-understand intermediate approach to jazz guitar playing techniques, helps develop an individual concept of improvising by learning scales and their basic chord forms and further develops improvisation skills through the use of practice patterns. Utilizes transcriptions along with several original pieces by Joe Pass.

  • Save 18%
    by Muse
    £17.99

    Muse Guitar Songbook contains twenty-eight accurate guitar transcriptions of their classic guitar songs, including Starlight, Madness and Uprising. All songs are transcribed for guitar and voice in standard notation and tablature.

  • Save 10%
    - Easy to Use, Easy to Carry, One Chord on Every Page
    by Jake Jackson
    £8.99

    The perfect companion to Piano & Keyboard Chords, for those who are ready to take the next step. It provides 15 chords per key, with positions for left and right hand, including diminished 9ths, 11ths, 13ths and add 9ths. Ideal for jazz and musical theatre. In a practical spiral-bound format.

  • Save 10%
    - To Hell and Back With One Of Rock's Most Notorious Frontmen
    by Vince Neil
    £8.99

    An explosive biography of one of America's most notorious bands - Moetley Crue.

  • Save 22%
    - Getz/Gilberto (Transcribed Scores)
     
    £25.49

  • by Michael Stewart Foley
    £10.49

    In 1978, San Francisco, a city that has seen more than its share of trauma, plunged from a summer of political tension into an autumn cascade of malevolence that so eluded human comprehension it seemed almost demonic. The battles over property taxes and a ballot initiative calling for a ban on homosexuals teaching in public schools gave way to the madness of the Jonestown massacre and the murders of Mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk at the hands of their former colleague, Dan White.In the year that followed this season of insanity, it made sense that a band called Dead Kennedys played Mabuhay Gardens in North Beach, referring to Governor Jerry Brown as a "zen fascist," calling for landlords to be lynched and yuppie gentrifiers to be sent to Cambodia to work for "a bowl of rice a day," critiquing government welfare and defense policies, and, at a time when each week seemed to bring news of a new serial killer or child abduction, commenting on dead and dying children. But it made sense only (or primarily) to those who were there, to those who experienced the heyday of "the Mab."Most histories of the 1970s and 1980s ignore youth politics and subcultures. Drawing on Bay Area zines as well as new interviews with the band and many key figures from the early San Francisco punk scene, Michael Stewart Foley corrects that failing by treating Dead Kennedys' first record, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, as a critical historical document, one that not only qualified as political expression but, whether experienced on vinyl or from the stage of "the Mab," stimulated emotions and ideals that were, if you can believe it, utopian.

  • Save 18%
    by Pink Floyd
    £20.49

    Note-for-note transcriptions for 16 songs from the legendary prog-rockers Pink Floyd.

  • Save 20%
    by Stanley Booth
    £11.99

    'The one authentic masterpiece of rock 'n' roll writing' Peter Guralnick

  • - The Unauthorized Biography of Joan Jett
    by Dave Thompson
    £14.99

    BAD REPUTATION - BIOGRAPHY OF JOAN JETT

  • Save 21%
    by Tom Waits
    £29.49

  • Save 24%
    by Jean-Marie Potiez
    £17.49

    Over thirty years since their triumphant victory at the Eurovision Song Contest with 'Waterloo' in 1974, ABBA's unfailing popularity remains. From dancefloor classics like 'Dancing Queen' and 'Mamma Mia' to ballads like 'The Winner Takes It All' ABBA's musical legacy endures and their songs have been covered or sampled by many artists from U2 to Madonna. Fully illustrated throughout with unique photographs and rare memorabilia, "ABBA The Scrapbook" gives a complete history of one of the best-loved pop groups of all time: including their early days in Sweden; the relationships within the band; the excitement of Eurovision victory; the outrageous 1970s fashion and style of ABBA; "ABBA The Movie"; the eventual break-up of the group; and the legacy of ABBA including the hugely successful "Mamma Mia!" stage musical and the forthcoming film. This visual biography charts the amazing story of how ABBA conquered the world!

  • Save 27%
    by Jonny Trunk
    £25.49

  • Save 17%
    by Willard A Palmer
    £18.99

    Book CD 2. Alfreds Basic Adult All-in-One Course is designed for use with an instructor for the beginning student looking for a truly complete piano course. It is a greatly expanded version of Alfreds Basic Adult Piano Course that will include lesson, theory, technic and additional repertoire in a convenient, all-in-one format. This comprehensive course features written assignments that reinforce each lessons concepts, a smooth, logical progression between each lesson, a thorough explanation of chord theory and playing styles, and outstanding extra songs, including folk, classical, and contemporary selections. At the completion

  • Save 12%
    - Ether Music and Espionage
    by Albert Glinsky
    £18.49

    Written by an award-winning composer whose music has been performed in the US, Europe, and the Far East, this title combines the whimsical and the treacherous into a chronicle that takes in various things from the KGB to Macy's store windows, Alcatraz to the Beach Boys, Hollywood thrillers to the United Nations, Joseph Stalin to Shirley Temple.

  • Save 16%
    by Carl Magnus Palm
    £29.49

    Revised and expanded edition, with a foreword by the four band members and over 500 colour photos. First published in 1999, this edition also covers the last 10 years, both on-stage and behind-the-scenes.

  • Save 14%
    - Britpop and my part in its downfall
    by Luke Haines
    £9.49

    Written with wit, brio and no small amount of bile, Luke Haines recounts how it felt to ride a wave of self-congratulatory success in a world with no taste. Funny, honest and ridiculously entertaining, Luke Haines attacks anyone within rifle range, and is more than happy to turn the gun on himself.

  • Save 27%
    by Daniel Ekeroth
    £25.49

    Sweden is a remote country in the freezing northern Europe, with less than nine million inhabitants and a reputation for Volvos, hockey players, cheap furniture, vodka, and blonde women. Since the late 1980s, however, Sweden has produced over a thousand extreme heavy metal bands, creating one of the most respected regional music scenes in the world. This is the improbable history of how a marginalized teen movement crawled from Sweden's small towns and suburbs, and found a lasting place on the world stage. Daniel Ekeroth captures the epic tale with enlightening detail, beginning with Sweden's violent loss of innocence in the 1980s, through the metal's virtual chokehold on the country during the 1990s into the lasting legacy and influence in the turbulent 2000s of the Sunlight guitar tone, the "Gothenburg Sound," and the countless offshoots of Sweden's most lethal cultural export. This ultimate blow-by-blow account of Sweden's legendary death metal underground is based on exclusive interviews with members of Nihilist/ Entombed, In Flames, At the Gates, Dismember, Grave, Hypocrisy, Opeth, Unleashed, Marduk, Morbid, Mob 47, Deranged, Edge of Sanity, Merciless, Therion, Liers in Wait, Carnage, Carcass, Tiamat/Treblinka, Afflicted, Repugnant, and the Haunted.

  • by Paul Harris
    £7.99

    Helps the player overcome problems, by building up a complete picture of each piece, through rhythmic and melodic exercises related to specific technical issues, then by studying prepared pieces with associated questions, and finally 'going solo' with a series of meticulously-graded sight-reading pieces.

  • by Paul Harris
    £7.99

    Helps the player overcome problems, by building up a complete picture of each piece, through rhythmic and melodic exercises related to specific technical issues, then by studying prepared pieces with associated questions, and finally 'going solo' with a series of meticulously-graded sight-reading pieces.

Music
Music has that special connection with our feelings. It can both make us happy and sad, help through a crisis and through all the difficult feelings we need to acknowledge. Life is not just about being happy, and music can take you on a journey through all those different feelings. In that way music can function as a form of therapy. Music can comfort you and the lyrics can make you feel embraced and recognized. Some of the songs we love most are those, which have that universal feeling and message in them. Those songs that cover all the different and conflicting feelings of life in a verse. You can learn the secrets behind some of the biggest hits or most beautiful ballads in our selection of music books. 
You could also get to know your biggest idol in our icon books. Some of the music icons have lived an inspiring and sometimes hard life, and you can learn a lot from there stories. We have biographic music books with musicians from different genres, all with their own fascinating story. We have multiple music books about the extremely talented singer Freddie Mercury - the frontman, pianist and songwriter in the legendary band Queen. Freddie Mercury had an amazing career and a magnificent voice, and he was at the same time a huge inspiration for homosexuals and generally everyone, who felt different. The singer must tragically lost his life to AIDS and the world lost one of its biggest stars to date, but you can revisit Freddie Mercury’s amazing talent and read his story in the music books Bohemian Rhapsody - The Definitive Biography of Freddie Mercury, Freddie Mercury - the Biography, Somebody to Love - The Life, Death and Legacy of Freddie Mercury, and many more.

Music books for students
If you are studying the wonderful world of music or just wants to improve your performance you should look at our music theory books. They will help you with all the different techniques no matter the instrument. At Tales you find music books for piano, music books for keyboard and music books for guitar. They will all help you in your musicology study or on your journey to becoming an amazing musician yourself. 
We also have music history books that will take you on a journey with all the greatest from Beethoven and Mozart to Tjajkovskij and Stravinskij. When you travel through the history of music you will also visit different music periods and get a better understanding of why the music sounds so differently throughout history. The music is formed by its time and the historical events of that time. If you are interested in the history of music we will recommend the music history book by Cecil Gray called History of Music. The music book moves in the crossfield between the elementary, educational and tries to give answers to some of the things we do not yet understand. It starts with the Gregorian Chant and moves through investigations of both French, Italian, English, and Russian music. 

Musical
If you like to visit the theatre for a musical you can take some of that magic with you home by finding the books, scripts and lyrics of all the biggest hit shows on Broadway and West End. Experiencing a live performance is something unique, but it is over too fast. That is why we recommend you to dive deeper into your favorite musicals with the music books on Tales. You find the lyrics and story behind the world’s nr. 1 hit musical Hamilton that changed the world. The show won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2016 and tells the story of one of America’s Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton. The musical contains an amazing Grammy award winning soundtrack with the most brilliant lyrics telling the story of the American civil war. The man behind it all is the extremely talented Lin Manuel Miranda, who tells the story of American then, but with the sounds and faces of modern times. You can dive into the fascinating story of Alexander Hamilton and the musical in the book Hamilton: The Revolution or you can learn how to perform the amazing songs yourself with the music books Hamilton - Vocal Selections & Piano or Hamilton - Easy Piano Selections

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