General Books

The Chord Wheel: The Ultimate Tool for All Musicians

Jim Fleser

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Hal Leonard Corporation Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $8.42

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

theif?!! 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Mr. Schulz, you invented nothing. This wheel was originally published at least 60 years ago, and probably invented well before that. In music, we all stand on the shoulders of our forebears.

Great Tool 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is a concise reference tool for a musician. Once you understand the concept this will save you hours of work !!

Editorial Review:

Master chord theory ... in minutes! The Chord Wheel is a revolutionary device that puts the most essential and practical applications of chord theory into your hands. This tool will help you: Improvise and Solo - Talk about chops! Comprehend key structure like never before; Transpose Keys - Instantly transpose any progression into each and every key; Compose Your Own Music - Watch your songwriting blossom! No music reading is necessary. "This is the kind of device that players of any instrument can use to enhance their musical understanding. Chord and key relationships are inseparable, and learning these relationships is a must in becoming a successful musician." - Alan Remington, Orange Coast College Music Dept.

The Eagles / Hell Freezes Over

Amazon Price: $22.95 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Alfred Publishing Company Amazon Marketplace: 10 new & used starting at $7.60

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 307 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Love this 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

For some reason I was never a big big fan of Eagles back in the 70's. Recently I started listening to them again and absolutely cannot stop playing this video. I have it on in between listening to CNN/MSNBC on the elections. It is a great reprieve from that. Love, love, love it.

A Cult 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This DVD is a cult and I buied it for a friend of mine.
He went to this Concert in 1994. A beautiful surprise for him.

Goooooooooooo!!!

Classic Must Have DVD 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The Eagles - Hell Freezes Over

If you like the Eagles at all then you must purchase this DVD. The sound and quality are excellent. Closest thing to being there in person.
You will not be disappointed with this purchase. If you have surround sound even better. Enjoy!

Felder's skills are unbeatable...! 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is a great performance. It shows Don Felder's amazing talent with a guitar. Joe Walsh is great too, though a little subdue - probably due to the rehabilitation he was newly emerging from. These two amazing guitarists play off each other perfectly and with the wonderful chemistry they used to have before the band's break-up.

Everyone else in great form, too; Henley's voice is out of this world - though I wish he would tone down the theatrical gestures and facial expressions of pretentious indifference - and Tim Schmit sings like an angel, as always! That speech from Henley, about 'how very glad he is they are all friends again' grated badly and the insincerity of this big-headed, gifted performer - I emphasize performer - is big-time CRINGE. Watch the expression on Felder's face here!

Just GET OVER IT and get on with it! We all know the real story already, even long before Felder's book; don't waste your breath and our patience, pushing your crap down our throats.

But yes, Eagles fans - get this DVD. You will love the sound, the songs and the extraordinary skills of Joe Walsh and Don Felder, especially in Hotel California! Flying fingers of Felder's!

Editorial Review:

Arranged for Piano/Vocal/Chords with Lyrics. All 15 songs from the band's comeback album.

Guitar for Dummies

Mark Phillips, Jon Chappell

List Price: $24.99 By: For Dummies Amazon Marketplace: 54 new & used starting at $1.59

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 80 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Let’s face it – in the music world, guitars set the standard for cool. Since the 1950s, many of the greatest performers in rock ‘n’ roll, blues, and country have played the guitar. Playing electric guitar can put you out in front of a band, where you’re free to roam, sing, and make eye contact with your adoring fans. Playing acoustic guitar can make you the star of the vacation campfire sing-along or allow you to serenade that special someone. And playing any kind of guitar can bring out the music in your soul and become a valued lifetime hobby.

Guitar For Dummies delivers everything the beginning to intermediate guitarist needs. The information has been carefully crafted so that you can find exactly what you want to know about the guitar. This clearly written guide is for anyone who wants to know how to

• Strum basic chords and simple melodies
• Expand your range with advanced techniques
• Play melodies without reading music
• Choose the right guitar
• Tune, change strings, and make simple repairs

Figure out how to play anything from simple chord progressions to smokin’ blues licks. Guitar For Dummies also covers the following topics and more:

• Hand position and posture
• Basic major and minor chords
• Adding spice with basic 7th chords and barre chords
• Playing melodies in position and in double-stops
• Different styles including rock, blues, folk, and classical
• Buying a guitar and accessories
• Taking care of your guitar

Guitar For Dummies also contains a play-along audio CD that contains all 97 songs and exercises from the book. Whether you’re contemplating a career as a heavy metal superstar or you just want to strum a few folk songs for your friends, this friendly book-and-CD package makes it easy to pick up the guitar and start playing.

The Jazz Theory Book

Mark Levine

Amazon Price: $28.90 List Price: $42.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Sher Music Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $22.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Top knotch book! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a MUST have for any jazz musician. Now, let me just warn you that if you don't play piano you might not enjoy the book as much considering a lot of the things written in the book by Levine are really being directed towards piano. There are also many jazz piano standard sample pieces that you will find through out the book. That being said though, Levine makes his points more than clear and explains the theory in a way that you will totally understand. If you read carefully and pay attention to what he wrote, you will without question become a better jazz musician. I hope this review has helped you, please feel free to leave comments!

Very simple and informative 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have only begun to focus on theory very recently, I'm 19 years old. This book is very simple to read and doesn't require a massive amount of knowledge of music theory. You have to be able to read music (not tabs), but if you're interested in Jazz you should already know how to. I like it a lot. I have been using the Real Book 5th edition and played some songs off it, but I never realized a lot of very technical things about the songs I have been practicing, and it helped me make more sense out of some those tunes the FIRST day I got it. I hope to keep studying this book and jazz for as long as I can, and I can already tell it's going to take A LOT of time but if you love jazz then it shouldn't be bad at all...

Editorial Review:

Endorsed by Jamey Aebersold, James Moody, Dave Liebman, and others, The Jazz Theory Book presents all the information any student of jazz needs in an easy-to-understand, yet thorough, manner. For intermediate to advanced players, and written by one of the acknowledged masters of jazz, it is used by universities around the world.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing the Harmonica, 2nd Edition (Complete Idiot's Guide to)

William Melton, Randy Weinstein

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Alpha Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $11.40

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Idiot's Guide for an Idiot. 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I have a keen interest in music but have no training. I bought the "Idiot's Guide..." hoping to gain some insight into harmonica playing. I was entirely pleased. The authors assume that the reader is intelligent but ignorant of the subject. This book was meant for people like me.

Editorial Review:

With photos, illustrations, and a new audio CD.

The harmonica is one of the most traditional musical instruments in America. Millions are sold each year, but there are few high quality, comprehensive instructional manuals for new harmonica players. This bestselling book has been completely updated, with dozens of new songs and a professionally mastered audio CD.
• Over 100 songs, both traditional and original to this book
• Detailed instructions on playing, including photos to illustrate positions and techniques
• Buying tips and interesting historical facts about famous players
• Authors are professional musicians
• The most comprehensive music lists featuring nearly every style of playing and category of song
• Over 80 riffs and songs performed on the special audio CD
• Comprehensive resource guides

I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie

Pamela Des Barres

List Price: $17.95 By: Beech Tree Books Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $6.75

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The literary equivalent of a bad hangover 2 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Reading this book reminded me of that enervating feeling I once felt, circa 1979 or so, during a midnight viewing of Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same." It was a flash of horror in which my excitement over the rock n' roll life (I was in a band at that time, my head filled with ambitions and pretensions) gave way to a feeling of aimlessness: What is with all this cheesy medeival imagery? How come these guys don't look cool, but just scrawny and strung-out? Do I really need to hear an eight-minute drum solo? What the hell have I been doing wasting my time with all this?

Des Barres' book left me with a similar feeling of the blahs: some books make it seem like there was more to the 1960s-70s rock culture than previously realized. This book makes one feel like there was a lot less.

I picked up the book hoping that it would bring the sights, sounds, and philosophy of a unique time back to life. It didn't. Despite having had dalliances with titanic figures ranging from Mick Jagger to Jimmy Page to Gram Parsons to Don Johnson, the author conveys very little of their artistry. In fact, she rarely tries to discuss or describe their music at all: passages on what makes a Mick Jagger or a Jim Morrison sexy sound as though they could have been written about any high school bad boy, musician or no.

And indeed, that adolescent attitude pervades this book. The book begins with the author entering a boy-crazy period in high school, and is related largely through excerpts from her diary, replete with CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation marks(!!!!!!) about how COOL this guy is and how WHEN HE KISSED ME I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO FAINT!! Blecch. Most of the remainder of the book has a similar tone, merely transplanted to a larger stage.

The effect is more trivializing than anything else. I had hoped this book would reveal something about this woman and her ability to connect with these creative figures. Instead, this book made it sound like her life was nothing more than a series of hedonistic distractions, draped over a nothingness. The book makes the reader feel not as though her generation was liberated from the hidebound ways of the previous ones, having moved on to higher, more exciting pleasures, but rather that no more original ideas existed in her life or in her head than finding the next naughty guy to sleep with.

That's perhaps a bit harsh: she does deliver a couple of winning passages in the book, one on the excitement of a Led Zeppelin performance, another on her less-than-stellar acting debut. She also managed to convince me that she had an aesthetic value or two, specifically in advocating for the Burrito Brothers' injection of folk/country influences into the psychadelic scene.

But the lingering images of the book are the downers: the poor three-year-old son of irresponsible substance-abusing-party-addicts who let him plummet to his death through a skylight -- barely interrupting their partying lifestyle for a few months. The look of scorn and contempt on John Lennon's face, when witnessing the author's pathetic attempts to put meaning in her life by flinging herself at the band. I didn't find myself judging the author so much as feeling badly for her. Well, I *did* judge her writing, I suppose, and not favorably.

It's not a terrible book; it's too light a read to be that. But if you are looking for a book to make you feel that the 1960s were a time fraught with meaning and revolutionary philosophy, you'd be well advised to avoid this one.

Editorial Review:

Pamela Des Barres was the "Sweetheart of Rock," the reigning queen of L.A.'s wild music scene. A hopeful romantic and the ultimate star-chaser, she lived life in the fast lane. She is one of the warmest, wittiest women ever to kiss and tell--and now she tells everything! HC: Morrow.

Piano for Dummies

Blake Neely

Amazon Price: $16.49 List Price: $24.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: For Dummies Amazon Marketplace: 79 new & used starting at $9.40

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

At first glance, a piano may seem like an intimidating instrument that would be very difficult to learn how to play, but despite what your seventh-grade piano teacher may say, playing piano isn't brain surgery. It just takes time, practice, and patience.

Piano For Dummies starts at the very beginning and walks you through everything you need to know to turn that oversized hunk of furniture into an instrument that can make beautiful music. If you don't know how to read music, this book explains in friendly, uncomplicated language all the basics of music theory and applying it to playing the piano. And if you've been playing piano for a while – or took piano lessons when you were a child but haven't played since – you can pick up some valuable tips to improve your playing or use the book as a refresher course.

Here are some of the topics you'll find in Piano For Dummies:

• Buying a piano: Acoustic versus electronic
• How a piano works, and how to care for one
• Left- and right-hand piano techniques
• Examining keys, scales, melodies, harmonies, and chords
• Plenty of musical examples to play
• The history of piano musical styles
• Advice for piano teachers
• A Top Ten list of pianists you should know about

Piano For Dummies also includes a glossary and a free CD, which includes audio of all of the examples in the book so that you can play along.

So if you've always wanted to learn to play piano, but you don't have the time to take piano lessons, you can pick up the basics in Piano For Dummies; you'll be tickling the ivories with ease in no time!

The Inner Game of Music

Barry Green, W. Timothy Gallwey

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Doubleday Amazon Marketplace: 71 new & used starting at $7.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Probably the best Inner Game book 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I've read 'The Inner Game of Tennis' which was great. Years later I read 'The Inner game of work' which I found a little harder to bring into practice. The great thing about this book is that Barry Green, a musician himself, rewrites the whole Inner Game from his standpoint as a musician. This makes it really 1 + 1 = 3.
It's full of exersizes, very practical.

Inner Game review 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Similar concepts of Gallaways other books ( I have read them all) with a good musical propective. I recommend it to musicians especially if they perform.

Not worth 5 stars but it is worth buying 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

It has some good philosphy and exercises to help you improve. It is not going to turn you into a virtuoso if you are an amateur, you have to practice and apply the principals. Most of it is commom sense, so if you totally lacked common sense you might be inclined to give it 5 stars. Probably good read for most levels of musicians excercises. A little pricy even with the discount.

Editorial Review:

By the best-selling co-author of Inner Tennis, here's a book designed to help  musicians overcome obstacles, help improve  concentration, and reduce nervousness, allowing them to  reach new levels of performing excellence and  musical artistry.

Carnival of the Animals: Classical Music for Kids

Camille Saint-Saens, Barrie C. Turner

Amazon Price: $14.93 List Price: $21.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $7.74

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Fun! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

My three year old and six year old both love hearing the animal sounds created by the music.It is so enjoyable to hear beautiful music while reading along and viewing the very colorful illustrations. This is one we will definitely read over and over again. A great introduction to classical music for little ones. Also, very enjoyable for the parent!

Editorial Review:

The animals are having a carnival, and the guests are arriving. There's the majestic lion, the braying mules, the dancing elephant, and the bouncy kangaroos. Even the fossils join in with a fast and rattly dance. Everyone is invited!Nearly 150 years ago, the composer Camille Saint-Saëns was asked by his pupils to write a musical joke for them. He wrote the Carnival of the Animals, a piece people enjoyed so much that it has now become one of Saint-Saëns's most famous works.This accessible commentary, in a picture-book format, helps children follow each section of Saint-Saëns's classic piece while they listen to the CD. Whimsical illustrations, a simple text, and evocative melodies create an ideal introduction for young children to the world of classical music.

Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga

Stephen Davis

List Price: $3.98 By: William Morrow & Co Amazon Marketplace: 13 new & used starting at $4.48

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

As Overblown as the Band Itself 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Davis' profile of Led Zepplin is probably a reliable protrait of the band. If you are like me and you don't care too much for Led Zep music, you will still find the book an interesting read as a slice of pop culture history and biography of at least one fairly interesting guy (Jimmy Page).

Davis' use of language is sometimes preposterously overblown. His diction is sometimes questionable, too, as when he describes Bonham flying into a rage. Bonham "apotheosized into the Beast." (Here you have an example of both hyperbole and poor diction.)

The book is filled with this type of writing, which makes it exciting to read while casting a shadow of doubt as to its veracity.

Davis doesn't call Page out on his affected interest in black magic and sorcery. Davis seems to take it all seriously. The other side of that story is Page was a young man, in his 20s, with excess cash and a deficit in maturity, dabbling in a silly hobby.

Overall, this was a good read for the uninitiated. A bit of a guilty pleasure really.

Editorial Review:

The members of Led Zeppelin are major deities in the pantheon of rock gods. The first and heaviest of the heavy metal monsters, they violently shook the foundations of rock music and took no prisoners on the road. Their tours were legendary, their lives were exalted—and in an era well known for sex and drugs, the mighty Zeppelin set an unattainable standard of excess and mythos for any band that tried to follow them. They were power, they were fantasy, they were black magic. No band ever flew as high as Led Zeppelin or suffered so disastrous a fall. And only some of them lived to tell the tale.

Hammer of the Gods is the New York Times bestselling epic saga of the hard reign of Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham—a spellbinding, electrifying, no-holds-barred classic of rock 'n' roll history that has now been updated to include the continuing adventures of the band.