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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 23%
    by Mark Perry
    £15.49

    The seminal Sniffin' Glue fanzine, collected here in its entirety, is a potent slice of 1967 / 77 punk culture. The book, which reproduces all twelve issues as well as insights from its creator Mark Perry, is back in print and all copies come with a special print.Sniffin' Glue may have been the closest thing to perfection ever achieved by a fanzine. Untroubled by the demands of owners, publishers, designers and production editors, it was a one-man enterprise that perfectly mirrored the spirit and manners of its subject matter - punk rock - by being intentionally amateurish, passionate, and crude.Mark Perry's first issue (1 of 12) set the tone for an exercise in kitchen-table publishing that did not even have a kitchen table. Boldly scrawled in his bedroom, Sniffin' Glue started out as a fan's rallying cry, went on just long as it needed to (one year) and then stopped, as good punk enterprises should.

  • Save 24%
    by Todd Boyd
    £45.49

    A visual and cultural history of hip hop, charting its meteoric rise from underground trailblazer to global tastemaker To tell the story of contemporary American culture is to tell the story of hip hop. From its humble, underground origins, hip hop transcended the confines of rap music and spread its influence across a broad spectrum of American life - fashion, film, art, sports, politics, language - to become a cultural movement of profound influence. Rapper's Deluxe is a critical contribution to America's cultural canon, shining a light on hip hop's ability to redefine and influence culture, through: photographs; fine art; advertisements; book, magazine, and album covers; film stills; and more. Organized chronologically from the 1970s to the present, image-rich and dynamic layouts show the people, places, events, objects, outfits, and inspirations that redefined the world as we know it - from fur-coated fans lining up for a Muhammad Ali fight at Madison Square Garden to a legendary party in the "Boogie Down" Bronx, through the hoods of South Los Angeles and the trap houses of Atlanta to the extravagant red carpet looks of the Met Gala. Drawing on a broad range of curated examples, Dr. Todd Boyd re-examines hip hop's legacy and how the genre remixes 'high' and 'low' culture, past and present, to come up with a style that is uniquely its own. Filled with original insights and clever wordplay, Rapper's Deluxe is a tale of transformation,  following hip hop's arduous, but always triumphant, journey as it rose up to dominate the game. |A visual and cultural history of hip hop, charting its meteoric rise from underground trailblazer to global tastemaker| Dr. Todd Boyd is Price Chair for the Study of Race and Popular Culture and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at USC. A media commentator, author, producer, and consultant, Dr. Boyd has appeared in documentaries such as The Last Dance (ESPN, 2020) and the Ken Burns-directed Muhammed Ali (PBS, 2021). His body of work includes seven books and his essays have appeared in the New York Times , Los Angeles Times , and the Guardian .

  • by Bernhard Wolff
    £13.49 - 24.49

  • Save 21%
    by Joel Mciver
    £13.49

    Find out all you need to know about how John, Paul, George and Ringo became the most influential band of all time. Ultimate Beatles Collection charts the Fab Four's musical evolution through the sixties. Includes a fascinating biography of each member of the band, an introduction to the members' early years as school kids with love of American Rock and Roll. Also reveals the wide variety of members of The Beatles before settling on the Fab Four, the "Fifth Beatle," Beatlemania in the US, their films--HELP, A Hard Day's Night, Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine--The Beatles' White Album, the band's split and their lives after The Beatles, including the murder of John Lennon and the untimely death of George Harrison. It also features a brief description and explanation for each song on the track for albums Please Please Me, A Hard Day's Night, Beatles for Sale, Help!, Revolver, and their alter-egos Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and more!

  • by Adam Levy
    £19.99

    String Theories is the book every modern guitarist needs for a lifetime of inspiration and growth.¿¿In String Theories, renowned guitarists Adam Levy and Ethan Sherman offer a comprehensive and practical guide to boundless musical growth for the dedicated guitarist, as well as on-the-job lessons learned from both of their many years of experience as players and teachers.Originally adapted from Adam Levy's popular YouTube series Guitar Tips, the essays and lessons in String Theories cover topics including effective practice strategies, fretboard technique, playing with other musicians, composition, improvisation, listening and reading recommendations, and more. Concepts are followed by practical exercises and plans of action-things you can do today, throughout the week or month, or even all year.String Theories will offer something different yet equally useful to the student, hobbyist, or pro-and everyone in between. Offering a framework for lifelong growth on the guitar, it's a book you can return to year after year as you evolve as a musician.

  • Save 27%
    by Joe Boyd
    £21.99

  • Save 23%
    by Boy George
    £16.99

  • Save 15%
    by Julia (author) Hollander
    £10.99 - 16.49

  • Save 22%
    by Kazuo Ishiguro
    £13.99

    Memorably introduced by Ishiguro himself, The Summer We crossed Europe in the Rain collects the sixteen song lyrics he wrote for world-renowned American singer, Stacey Kent, which were set to music by her partner Jim Tomlinson.

  • by Andrés Segovia
    £7.99

    In 1953 classical guitar master Andrés Segovia published his unique fingerings for all diatonic major and minor scales. Here, for the first time, his scale fingerings are presented in both standard notation and tablature. Includes 12 major and 12 melodic minor two- or three-octave scales.

  • Save 20%
    by Jeff Tweedy
    £11.99

    A mix of memories, music, and inspiration from Wilco front man and New York Times bestselling author Jeff Tweedy.

  •  
    £11.49

    Introducing the 2024 Iconic Guitars Calendar - a tribute to the most legendary guitars that have shaped the world of music. This calendar seamlessly blends the history of music with visual artistry, celebrating the instruments that have defined genres and inspired generations.Throughout the calendar, significant birthdays of iconic guitarists are highlighted, reminding us of the individuals who have harnessed these instruments to create timeless melodies. Whether it's rock, blues, jazz, or folk, these guitarists and their guitars have pushed the boundaries of music and become synonymous with their craft.Whether you're a musician, a music lover, or an art enthusiast, the 2024 Iconic Guitars Calendar is a captivating journey through the iconic instruments that have enriched our lives with their melodies.

  • Save 21%
    by Andrew Parrott
    £27.49 - 48.99

  • Save 25%
     
    £48.99

    (Lead Sheets: Melody line, lyrics and chord symbols). What better way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Disney than with 100 magical songs in a beautiful, collectible hardcover edition? Beginning with a foreword by composer and Disney legend Alan Menken, and a preface by Walt Disney Records Supervising Producer and Music Historian Randy Thornton, and featuring colorful art throughout, Disney 100 Songs will take you on a century-long musical journey through 60 feature films, theme park attractions, and television shows. Each song is presented with melody, lyrics, and chords so everyone will be able to sing and play these beloved favorites. Songs include: Baby Mine * Be Our Guest * Beauty and the Beast * Bella Notte * Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo (The Magic Song) * Breaking Free * Can You Feel the Love Tonight * Chim Chim Cher-ee * Do You Want to Build a Snowman? * For the First Time in Forever * Friend like Me * Hakuna Matata * How Far I'll Go * I've Got No Strings * The Incredits * Into the Unknown * Lava * Let It Go * The Place Where Lost Things Go * Reflection * Remember Me (Ernesto de la Cruz) * Seize the Day * Speechless * A Spoonful of Sugar * Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious * That's How You Know * Under the Sea * We Don't Talk About Bruno * We're All in This Together * Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? * Wild Uncharted Waters * Winnie the Pooh * You'll Be in My Heart (Pop Version)* * You've Got a Friend in Me * and more!

  • Save 24%
    by Tristan Clark
    £17.49

    With appeal to more than just punk history obsessives, Orstralia offers an unprecedented snapshot of an underacknowledged segment of Australian life and history.Far from punk’s more modish North Atlantic core in the late 1970s, discontented youth in Australia were enacting similar musical and cultural reckonings. Yet in spite of the Australia's purported “laid-back” national demeanour, punks there were routinely met with insult, fist, or the police baton.More subterranean than the national scandal that was punk back in “homeland” Britain, Australia’s own bands nonetheless came to be heralded internationally. Orstralia represents the first definitive account of the country’s initial years, from progenitors the Saints and Radio Birdman in the mid-70s, through the emergence of hardcore in the 1980s, to the stylistic diffusion that accompanied transition to the 1990s.Based on over 130 interviews, Orstralia documents the most renowned to the most fleeting and obscure acts the nation produced. Included are equally engrossing and shocking personal narratives befitting such a passionate and intemperate cultural form, as well as punk’s placement within broader Australian society at the time.

  • Save 21%
    by Karl Bartos
    £13.49

  • Save 24%
    by Daryl Easlea
    £18.99

    This unique and intimate collection contains a variety of never-before-seen images, telling the story of Tina's career through a mixture of live photos, video shoots, promo shots, candid images and sessions in the recording studio, as well as a few featuring some such high-profile names as David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams and many more.

  • Save 15%
    by Michael Francis Taylor
    £16.99

    "Life isn't how to survive the storm, it's about how to dance in the rain" This is the definitive story of Taylor Swift and her incredible rise to success from being just a smalltown girl with a dream to becoming one of the most influential and successful artists of her generation. Ever since she was 14-years-old Taylor has never known any other world than showbusiness, and we follow her journey through the good times and the times not so good, none more heartbreaking than losing the rights to her own music - her "stolen lullabies." In her own words and those who have played major parts in her career, we look back at how she turned failures into unbelievable success and chart the creation of a wonderful legacy by one of music's undoubted masterminds. There is no doubt that with her words of inspiration and the powerhouse lyrics to her songs, the world is a far better place thanks to the unstoppable force that is TAYLOR SWIFT.

  • by Jane Savidge
    £10.49

    This Is Hardcore is Pulp's cry for help. A giant, sprawling, flawed masterpiece of a record, the 1998 album manages to tackle some of the most inappropriately grown-up issues of the day - fame, ageing, mortality, drugs, and pornography - and still come out crying and laughing on the other side. The subject of pornography dominates the record - from its controversial artwork to the images conjured up by songs like "Seductive Barry" and the title track - after Pulp's main man, Jarvis Cocker - who'd spent most of his teenage and adult life chasing celebrity, only to be cruelly disappointed when it finally arrived in spades - hit upon the grand notion of using pornography as a metaphor for fame. The album's commercial failure as a follow-up to the band's Britpop-defining, Different Class, also symbolizes a death knell for Britpop itself. Dark, right? Except just like Pulp themselves, Jane Savidge's book is playful and sometimes very funny indeed. Kicking off with an imaginary conversation between Jarvis Cocker and the people who run the Total Fame Solutions helpline, Savidge expertly guides us through the trials and tribulations of an album that begins with the so-called Michael Jackson Incident, when Cocker got up on stage at the 1996 Brit Awards and waggled his fully-clothed bum at the King of Pop. Pulp's This Is Hardcore may be a sleazy run through porn and mental demise, and an album that chronicles Cocker's continuing disillusionment with his newfound lot in life, but Savidge's book assesses the cultural and historical context of the album with insider knowledge and a sharp modern lens, ultimately making a case for it as one of the most important albums of the 1990s.

  • Save 21%
    by Fleet Foxes
    £13.49

  • Save 21%
    by Arlo Parks
    £13.49

  • Save 28%
    by Martin Popoff
    £26.49

    Nazareth's whole career documented by Martin Popoff and crammed full of live and off-stage shots and memorabilia that portray the band's journey through the decades. This is an updated version of Loud 'n' Proud: Fifty Years of Nazareth.

  • by record producer, WA, Consultant, et al.
    £39.99 - 128.49

  • Save 24%
    by Cliff Richard
    £18.99

  • by David Wyn (Cardiff University) Jones
    £29.49

    "Placing the Strauss dynasty firmly within the shifting context of social, political and cultural life in Habsburg Vienna, this zesty new biography reveals the four composers as never before, re-evaluating their music and musical achievements in Viennese society across a hundred years"--

  • Save 29%
    by Giorgio Moroder, Alessandro Benedetti & Peter Bastine
    £35.49

  • Save 20%
    by Mark Angelo Harrison
    £11.99

    At the time, it was unclear why the UK government targeted the Spiral Tribe travelling sound system. Even after arresting many key members and launching one of Britain's biggest court cases against them. Was it really because they were a marauding horde of anarcho-techno-pirates, their outlandish music calling a generation to rebel against conservatism, convention, and even consensus reality? Or was it because, as pioneers of the 1990s free party movement, championing the new British breakbeat and European techno sound, they were reclaiming social space in warehouses and out under the stars? Each weekend they pulled ever bigger crowds away from consumer culture. No superstar DJs, no door policy and everyone dancing together as equals. An inspiring, unifying force of creativity. As Spiral Tribe's co-founder and visual artist (or as the Crown prosecutor described him, 'the criminal ringleader' who'd helped 'mastermind' Britain's 'biggest ever illegal rave' at Castlemorton), Mark Angelo Harrison has a unique perspective to tell their inside story. He vividly charts their nomadic journey and the rapid escalation of their popularity - and notoriety. From small squat-scene parties in London to enormous warehouse raves and free festivals. From one little overloaded van to the mighty convoy of matt-black military vehicles that instigated the teknivals of Europe.

  • by Joseph Alexander
    £15.99

    Learn Authentic Rhythm & Lead Parts for Reggae, Ska, Rocksteady, Dub and MoreIt's no understatement to say that reggae music forever changed the world. A compelling mix of soul, jazz, R&B and Jamaican mento, it's the ultimate feel good music with its hypnotic, laidback grooves.The Reggae & Ska Guitar Book is a one-of-a-kind guide to the guitar styles at the heart of reggae. In fact, it's is a chronological guide to the development of reggae through the decades and shows how to play its many sub-genres with authentic, stylistically accurate guitar parts. Your journey includes scheduled stops at:Ska, the early years - how American R&B combined with elements of calypso and mentoRocksteady - the bridge between the original ska and later reggae erasReggae - the emergence of seminal groups including Bob Marley & The WailersDub - how versions or "doubles" creatively expanded the sound of reggaeSka revival - an offshoot of the punk/mod eras, explore the sounds of The Specials, Madness, The Selecter and moreThe Third Wave - how ska burst upon the US from a California-based revival, with bands like Reel Big Fish, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and SublimeLovers Rock - reggae surfaces again, this time combining the sweet melodic soul of Motown with laidback Jamaican groovesGoing Full Circle - how reggae influenced world music and artists such as Paul Simon, Eric Clapton and The PoliceDancehall and Beyond - fusing island musical sensibilities with hip-hop, dancehall adopted a new type of reggae drum groove that has influenced countless contemporary pop records ever sinceLearn the Essential Techniques of Reggae GuitarWith each sub-genre of reggae and ska came refinements and changes to the role of the guitar. There is so much more to it than hitting chord stabs on the up-beats! You'll learn...The skank groove that forms the backbone of the ska soundStylistically accurate major and minor chord voicingsHow to introduce double-stops, triplet ideas and sliding articulationsSingle-note pentatonic riffs and fillsHow to play the chicken scratch technique pioneered by Hux BrownUsing delay pedal effects to expand your sonic arsenalAdding jazz, rock 'n' roll licks, and even modal scales to spice up single-note accompaniments in the style of the greatsThe rhythms and approach of the ska-punk movement of the Third Wave

  • Save 20%
    by Shawn Reynaldo
    £11.99

    First Floor started small. At first it was just a newsletter, an outlet where veteran electronic music journalist Shawn Reynaldo could write and share his ideas without having to contend with outside editors or cater to social media algorithms. It was a blank canvas, and Reynaldo began to fill it with his extended thoughts on not just electronic music itself but the culture and industry that surrounded it. His first few missives went out to only a handful of people, but as the months went by and his writings increasingly became a focal point of discussions within the wider electronic music world, Reynaldo came to a surprising realization: people were actually reading this thing. Just a few years later, First Floor now stands as one of electronic music's most influential platforms, particularly as Reynaldo continues to put many of the genre's thorniest issues under the microscope. First Floor Volume 1 collects his most thought-provoking pieces and provides a nuanced, wide-ranging look at contemporary electronic music culture as it comes to grips with systemic challenges and a time of profound transformation. Whether he's taking a hard look at the genre's futurist ethos, questioning the practices of the modern music press or mapping out what motivates dance music's newest generation, Reynaldo applies an undeniably critical lens, but his words are informed by decades of experience, a genuine passion for the subject matter and an open-minded outlook toward whatever changes lie ahead.

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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