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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 11%
    - A Biography of Carlos Kleiber
    by Charles Barber
    £39.99

    Drawing heavily on their 15-year correspondence, this book is the first English-language biography of Carlos Kleiber ever written. Charles Barber offers unique insights into how Kleiber worked. This biography considers Kleiber's singular aesthetic, his playful and often erudite sense of humor, his reputation for perfectionism, his much-studied baton technique, and the famous concert and opera performances he conducted. It explores the great conductor's musical lineage and the contemporary contexts in which he worked, and it repudiates myths that inevitably crop up around genius and reflects on Kleiber's contribution to modern musical performance.

  • Save 13%
    by Andrew (Professor and Head of Postgraduate Studies at Leeds College of Music West
    £20.99

    How do you turn songwriting talent into a professional career? This essential guide tackles that question, alongside many others, taking songwriters through all the developmental phases and commercial experiences along the way in order to inspire and encourage the reader to find their own voice and write successfully within their chosen genre.Collating the best-available expertise with fresh ideas about the industry, Andrew West equips the reader with what every productive songwriter needs to know: how to write communicative songs that express meaning and convey individuality; how to develop songs into records; how the writer can function as a marketer and seller of original work; how domestic and international markets operate; and how to act and interact meaningfully within the culture of those market.Armed with this knowledge, the songwriter is able to engage creatively and financially to make the most of their potential.

  • Save 10%
    by Alan (Novelist Warner
    £8.99

    Finally, a brilliant exploration of the German rock band Can's 1971 album Tago Mago. This hugely unique and influential album deserves close analysis from a fan, rather than a musicologist. Novelist Alan Warner details the concrete music we hear on the album, how it was composed, executed and recorded--including the history of the album in terms of its release, promotion and art work. This tale of Tago Mago is also the tale of a young man obsessed with record collecting in the dark and mysterious period of pop music before Google. Warner includes a backtracking of the history of the band up to that point and also some description of Can's unique recording approach taking into account their home studio set up.Interviews with the two surviving members: drummer Jaki Liebezeit, keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and bassist Holger Czukay make this a hilariously personal and illuminating picture of Can.

  • Save 20%
    - The World According to Questlove
    by Ahmir Thompson
    £11.99

    Finally in paperback comes Mo' Meta Blues Questlove's New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed psychedelic, punch-drunk memoir

  • Save 23%
    - Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream
    by David McGowan
    £15.49

    Laurel Canyon in the ''60s and early ''70s was a magical place where musicians gathered to create much of the soundtrack to those times. The Doors, the Beach Boys, Frank Zappa, James Taylor, Carole King, Joni Mitchell and more lived and jammed together here. But the scene had a dark side. Many didn''t make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery. Far more integrated into the scene than most would like to admit was Charles Manson and his infamous Family. It also seems these colourful characters all coexisted alongside a covert military installation.

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    £104.49

    Through rap and hip hop, entertainers have provided a voice questioning and challenging the sanctioned view of society. Examining the moral and social implications of Kanye West's art in the context of Western civilization's preconceived ideas, the contributors consider how West both challenges religious and moral norms and propagates them.

  • by Hildegard of Bingen
    £18.99

    For this revised edition of Hildegard's liturgical song cycle, Barbara Newman has redone her prose translations of the songs, updated the bibliography and discography, and made other minor changes. Also included is an essay by Marianne Richert Pfau which delineates the connection between music and text in the Symphonia.Famous throughout Europe during her lifetime, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a composer and a poet, a writer on theological, scientific, and medical subjects, an abbess, and a visionary prophet. One of the very few female composers of the Middle Ages whose work has survived, Hildegard was neglected for centuries until her liturgical song cycle was rediscovered. Songs from it are now being performed regularly by early music groups, and more than twenty compact discs have been recorded.

  • Save 17%
    by Sex Pistols
    £14.99

    This is the guitar album songbook to accompany the iconic album Never Mind The Bollocks from seventies punk rockers The Sex Pistols. Featuring all the tracks from the album arranged in guitar tablature format and including the iconic singles God Save The Queen, Anarchy In The UK and Pretty Vacant.

  • Save 15%
    by Victoria Beckham
    £10.99

    From the time she saw the movie Fame, the author wanted to be a star. A line from the theme song stayed with her - 'I'm gonna live for ever, I'm gonna learn how to fly.' This book gives us the chance to fly alongside her on her journey from lonely teenager to international star.

  • Save 10%
    - The Passion of Pussy Riot
    by Masha Gessen
    £8.99

    The story of Pussy Riot, punk icons and Russian dissenters, and the untold story of their infamous trial and on-going global significance

  • Save 10%
    by Darran Anderson
    £8.99

    Outside his native France, the view of Serge Gainsbourg was once of a one-hit wonder lothario. This has been slowly replaced by an awareness of how talented and innovative a songwriter he was. Gainsbourg was an eclectic, protean figure; a Dadaist, poète maudit, Pop-Artist, libertine and anti-hero. An icon and iconoclast. His masterpiece is arguably Histoire de Melody Nelson, an album suite combining many of his signature themes; sex, taboo, provocation, humour, exoticism and ultimately tragedy. Composed and arranged with the great Jean-Claude Vannier, its score of lush cinematic strings and proto-hip hop beats, combined with Serge's spoken-word poetry, has become remarkably influential across a vast musical spectrum; inspiring soundtracks, indie groups and electronic artists. In recent years, the album's reputation has grown from cult status to that of a modern classic with the likes of Beck, Portishead, Mike Patton, Air and Pulp paying tribute. How did the son of Jewish Russian immigrants, hounded during the Nazi Occupation, rise to such notoriety and acclaim, being celebrated by President François Mitterand as "our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire"? How did the early chanson singer evolve into a musical visionary incorporating samples, breakbeats and dub into his music, decades ahead of the curve? And what are the roots and legacy of a concept album about a Rolls Royce, a red-haired Lolita muse, otherworldly mansions, plane crashes and Cargo Cults?

  • Save 28%
    - Vintage Rock Posters Remixed and Reimagined
    by Mike Joyce
    £31.49

    Swissted takes rock concert posters of the '70s, '80s, and '90s and remixes and reimagines them through a Swiss modernist lens. This book features 200 posters, all microperforated and ready to frame.

  • Save 10%
    - Centenary Edition
    by David (Oxford University Matthews
    £8.99

    Benjamin Britten was one of the outstanding British composers of 20th century. He shot to international fame with his operas, performed by his own English Opera Group, and a series of extraordinary instrumental works. His music won a central place in the repertoire and affection of successive generations of listeners. This title tells his story.

  • Save 14%
    - A History
    by Richard (University of Michigan) Crawford
    £23.99

    "A superb, all-encompassing survey of music in America." -Kirkus Reviews

  • Save 20%
    by Ian Svenonius
    £11.99

    Washington, D.C.-based rock 'n' roll antihero Ian F. Svenonius provides an unparalleled and exquisitely provocative how-to guide for rock bands.

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    £9.49

    Suitable for course work or for performance parts, this title presents a manuscript paper in an A4 portrait pad on plain white paper. It includes 200 pages with 12 staves per page, which are also hole-punched.

  • Save 17%
    - The New Jazz Studies
     
    £24.99

    Offers insights in jazz historiography, highlighting the political stakes in telling the story of the music and evaluating its cultural import in the United States. This book contains articles such as Salim Washington's meditation on Charles Mingus and the avant-garde or George Lipsitz's polemical juxtaposition of Ken Burns' documentary "Jazz".

  • Save 23%
    - The Book of Songs
    by Jon W. Finson
    £50.49

    Arguably no other 19th-century German composer was as literate or as finely attuned to setting verse as Robert Schumann. Finson challenges assumptions about Schumann's Lieder, engaging traditionally held interpretations. Arranged in part thematically, rather than by strict compositional chronology, this book speaks to the heart of Schumann's music.

  • Save 19%
     
    £36.49

    Camille Saint-Sans - perhaps the foremost French musical figure of the late nineteenth century and a composer who wrote in every musical genre, from opera and the symphony to film music - is now being rediscovered after a century of modernism overshadowed his importance. This book deconstructs the multiple realities behind the man and his music.

  • Save 24%
    - The Science of Learning to be Musical
    by Gary Marcus
    £18.99

    A renowned neuroscientist with no musical talent investigates what it takes to make musicOn the eve of his fortieth birthday, renowned cognitive scientist Gary Marcus decided to fulfil a lifelong dream and learn to play the guitar. He had tried many times before failing miserably. This time, he decided to use the tools of his trade to see if he might suceed. On his quest he jams with twelve-year-olds and takes master classes with guitar gods. A groundbreaking exploration of the allure of music, Guitar Zero is also an empowering case for the minds ability to grow throughout life.

  • Save 11%
    by John Cooper Clarke
    £7.99

    'Yes, it was be there or be square as, clad in the slum chic of the hipster, he issued the slang anthems of the zip age in the desperate esperanto of the bop. John Cooper Clarke: the name behind the hairstyle, the words walk in the grooves hacking through the hi-fi paradise of true luxury'Punk.

  • Save 12%
    - All the Stones' Instruments from Stage to Studio
    by Andy Babiuk
    £50.99

    ROLLING STONES GEAR ALL THE STONES' INSTRUMENTS FROM STAGE TO STUDIO

  • by Tim Wall
    £39.49

    A fully revised and updated edition of this widely adopted textbook. The First Edition was published in 2003 by Hodder.

  • Save 19%
    - The Life and Times of Muddy Waters
    by Robert Gordon
    £12.99

    The definitive biography, by a long way, of the most influential blues musician of them all. In a nutshell: no Muddy Waters, no Rolling Stones

  • Save 20%
    by Victor Bockris
    £11.99

    Victor Bockris's much admired biography of Keith Richards has been constantly revised since its original publication, now with an additional 12,000 words for a new edition of the Omnibus Press paperback that brings the story up to the present day.

  • Save 20%
    - A comprehensive guide to the electric guitar, with over 600 photographs, illustrations and exercises
    by Terry Burrows
    £11.99

    Updated new edition 2021. The electric guitar is arguably the most important musical instrument of the modern age. This book explains how to buy the right instrument and set it up, and how to play. It demonstrates basic techniques and chords, and introduces genres such as rock 'n' roll, jazz, heavy rock, metal and blues.

  • by Lang Lang
    £6.99

    Join the superhero world of Lang Lang and come on a piano adventure with The Lang Lang Piano Method Level 1. Level 1 introduces complete beginners to: *different five-finger positions *note reading *moving around the keyboard *developing both hands equally right from the start.

  • Save 20%
     
    £13.49

    David Buckley examines the cult enigma that is Kraftwerk. Updated to include details of the group's recent concerts under the direction of Ralf Hutter.

  • Save 10%
    by Phillip Crandall
    £8.99

    "It's Time To Party," the first track off of I Get Wet, opens with a rapid-fire guitar line - nothing fancy, just a couple crunchy power chords to acclimate the ears - repeated twice before a booming bass drum joins in to provide a quarter-note countdown. A faint, swirling effect intensifies with each bass kick and, by the eighth one, the ears have prepped themselves for the metal mayhem they are about to receive. When it all drops, and the joyous onslaught of a hundred guitars is finally realized, you'll have to forgive your ears for being duped into a false sense of security, because it's that second intensified drop a few seconds later - the one where yet more guitars manifest and Andrew W.K. slam-plants his vocal flag by screaming the song's titular line - that really floods the brain with endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and whatever else formulates invincibility.Polished to a bright overdubbed-to-oblivion sheen, the party-preaching I Get Wet didn't capture the zeitgeist of rock at the turn of the century; it captured the timelessness of youth, as energized, awesome, and unapologetically stupid as ever. With insights from friends and unprecedented help from the mythological maniac himself - whose sermon and pop sensibilities continue to polarize - this book chronicles the sound's evolution, uncovers the relevance of Steev Mike, and examines how Andrew W.K.'s inviting, inclusive lyrics create the ultimate shared experience between artist and audience.

  • Save 10%
    by Alex Niven
    £8.99

    Oasis's incendiary 1994 debut album Definitely Maybe managed to summarize almost the entire history of post-fifties guitar music from Chuck Berry to My Bloody Valentine in a way that seemed effortless. But this remarkable album was also a social document that came closer to narrating the collective hopes and dreams of a people than any other record of the last quarter century. In a Britain that had just undergone the most damaging period of social upheaval in a century under the Thatcher government, Noel Gallagher ventriloquized slogans of burning communitarian optimism through the mouth of his brother Liam and the playing of the other Oasis 'everymen': Paul McGuigan, Paul Arthurs and Tony McCarroll. On Definitely Maybe, Oasis communicated a timeworn message of idealism and hope against the odds, but one that had special resonance in a society where the widening gap between high and low demanded a newly superhuman kind of leaping. Alex Niven charts the astonishing rise of Oasis in the mid 1990s and celebrates the life-affirming, communal force of songs such as "Live Forever," "Supersonic," and "Cigarettes & Alcohol." In doing so, he seeks to reposition Oasis in relation to their Britpop peers and explore one of the most controversial pop-cultural narratives of the last thirty years.

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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