Music

"A fascinating and genuinely accessible guide....Educating, enjoyable, and delightfully unscary."-Classical Music

Covering over 1500 singers from the origins of opera to the present day, this book is an essential resource for all serious opera lovers and an indispensable companion to the enormously successful Grove Book of Operas, with more than 40 specially commissioned articles on contemporary singers. The most comprehensive guide to opera singers ever produced.

Beautifully presented and intelligently paced, the Lesson Books combine unusually attractive music and lyrics. The books feature note reading, rhythm reading, sight-reading and technical workouts. Each piece on the CD was recorded at a performance tempo and a slower practice tempo.

"Aja" was the album that made Steely Dan a commercial force on the order of contemporaries like Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and Chicago. A double-platinum, Grammy-winning bestseller, it lingered on the Billboard charts for more than a year and spawned three hit singles. This book paints a detailed picture of the making of a masterpiece.

An insightful and imaginative study to deepen the performer's approach to music

National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids, Patti Smith writes of her childhood in this glittering memoir

Contains advice on equipment, instructions for an effective embouchure and comfortable posture, and an explanatory section on reading music. This book also includes music, including duets, rounds and ensemble pieces, tests to check progress and comprehension, and useful pull out chart giving all fingerings.

Teaching beginners is a huge responsibility and a challenge, but also reaps enormous rewards. This handbook for various instrumental and singing teachers offers a comprehensive advice and practical strategies on how to teach beginners. It also offers solutions to the challenges faced in music education. It discusses practice ideas for beginners.

Violin Playtime Studies is a first anthology of established and newly-composed studies for the young violinist. Taking as its starting point the one octave scale of D major, and remaining in first position throughout, it may be used in conjunction with the violin Playtime series. This combination of short, purposeful studies enlivened by delightful illustrations will ensure that 'study time' is never dull!

Essays by prominent scholars and organists examine the music of Franck and other nineteenth-century French organist-composers through stylistic analysis, study of compositional process, and exploration of how ideas about organ technique and performance-practice traditions developed and became codified.

The mesmerizing autobiography of one of the most revered soul, jazz, and blues divas of our time-the late Nina Simone

33 1/3 is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Each focuses on one album rather than an artist's entire output. Velvet Underground's first album - with the Andy Warhol banana cover - introduced, along with 'Sgt. Pepper', a new form of rock music: the artsy concept album.

This biography of Freddie Mercury is written by the man who was his personal assistant for the last 12 years of his life. It reveals the truth behind the scandalous rumours and describes the part played in Mercury's life by such famous names as Elton John, Kenny Everett and Elizabeth Taylor.

Quite possibly the most inspirational music biography ever written - essential. MUZIK

NOBODY NOTICED, YOU KNOW, WHEN THE G-STRING CAME UNDONE -- WELL, I NOTICED -- NOBODY NOTICED THE MONEY, LIKE, FLOATING AROUND. I WOKE UP AT SOME POINT AROUND DAWN, THE TWO OF THEM WERE ASLEEP, AND ALL THREE OF US WERE COVERED WITH MONEY, EVERY SQUARE INCH OF SKIN HAD A DOLLAR BILL PASTED TO IT -- THERE WAS NOTHING BUT.

"When The Paris Diary exploded on the scene in 1966 there had never been a book in English quite like it: Its intimate combination of personal, literary, and social insights was unprecedented. Rorem's"

Fundamentals of Musical Composition represents the culmination of more than forty years in Schoenberg's life devoted to the teaching of musical principles to students and composers in Europe and America.

The essence of the most celebrated book on counterpoint, Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum.

An autobiography of Woody Guthrie, founder of modern American folk music. This book presents a cynical, earthy and tragic account of his life in an Oklahoma oil-boom town, of the Depression that followed, and of his subsequent travels in, on, and under trains, in stolen cars and on his feet, round an America going rotten from the top downwards.

An album which distilled a genre from the musical, cultural, and social ether, Portishead's "Dummy" was such a complete artistic achievement that its ubiquitous successes threatened to exhaust its own potential. The author offers an impressionistic investigation of "Dummy" that imitates the cumulative structure of the album itself.

A new piano course by Keith Snell designed especially for adults! This new course is designed with adult capabilities in mind. It will navigate students through the process of becoming musically literate and technically proficient, with the ultimate goal of achieving the competence to play whatever music they like.The course is comprised of two books, divided into 10 units in each book. Each unit consists of three sections: Lessons for introducing concepts; Theory to reinforce concepts, and gain a deeper understanding of music; Technic for developing the coordination and fluency needed to play well.Through a variety of musical styles, students will learn about scales, chords, and key signatures, and how these elements are used as the building blocks of music. Combined with a solid foundation in reading notes and rhythms, the skills acquired from this course are fully transferable to many types of music and music making, and will ensure a lifetime of enjoyment at the piano.For added enjoyment and instruction each book includes FREE access to online resources such as audio accompaniments, YouTube demonstration videos, answer keys, and more!

The first English edition of acclaimed French biography of Leonard Cohen. Christophe Lebold unveils Leonard Cohen's enigmatic journey exploring love, faith and existentialism. Through meticulous research and personal encounters, Lebold transcends biography, delving into Cohen's mission to illuminate life's shadows. This book captivates and inspires, inviting readers into life's complexities and darkest corners.

From post punk Liverpool and Big in Japan to producing and working with acts like Echo & The Bunnymen and The Fall, Ian Broudie established a cult following early in his career.But in 1989, he returned to where it all began: his bedroom, tape recorder and guitar in hand. Out of necessity, with no record contract and no band in place, Ian sang and played everything on the tapes himself, recording in his "spare bedroom".The record took off and his next three records received huge critical acclaim. Released in 1994, Jollification sold over one million copies worldwide and the Lightning Seeds became one of the biggest bands of the '90s.Together with comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, Ian released the 1996 single 'Three Lions' to mark the England football team's participation in Euro 96, the first major football tournament to be held in England since they had won the World Cup in 1966. Three Lions is the only single in chart history to reach number one in the UK singles chart on four separate occasions.Now, following the release of the Lightning Seeds' long-awaited comeback album, Ian shares his memories of a life of musical adventures from 70s Liverpool and Eric's, to Echo & The Bunnymen and gigs across northern England with Big in Japan, to The Coral and The Zutons at the start of a new century, via a 90s rollercoaster of triumphs and mishaps, with the Lightning Seeds from "Pure" to "Three Lions" and beyond!