Appreciation Books - Page 12

Music of Life

Hazrat I. Khan

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

Wonderful exposition of the voice, breath, and music 5 out of 5 stars.
23 of 24 people found this review helpful.

Hazrat Khan a Sufi master and musician wrote a clear, simple, and fascinating read of music, the voice, breath, and healing from the point of view of a mystic, but encompassing scientific aspects as well.

Great for Musicians, Appliable to All. 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

This is a book that contains so much wisdom that it must be read more than once. For any musician who feels there is a spiritual component to what they do, this book is inspirational, thought-provoking, and illuminating. Ultimately, the concepts are universal and can be applied by anyone. It seems that Khan's concept of Sufi mysticism eschews specific religious orientation and instead utilizes the common threads between all of the world's spiritual traditions to illustrate his points. This is a must-read for anyone looking to broaden their perspective, challenge their long-held beliefs, prioritize their lives and understand their true nature. I'm not a New Ager or self-improvement junkie. I just think this is an excellent book.

Editorial Review:

This is the definitive collection of Hazrat Inayat Khan's teachings on sound, presenting the Sufi Master's vision of the harmony which underlies and infuses every aspect of our lives. With deep insight and wisdom, he explores the science of breath, the law of rhythm, the creative process, and both the healing power and psychological influence of music and sound.

The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music

W.A. Mathieu

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Your ears will thank you 5 out of 5 stars.
30 of 30 people found this review helpful.

W.A. Mathieu is utterly in love with vibrating air molecules, and this thoughtful, warm, and fun collection of short essays is bound to impart some of that to you. This is not a book about composition, about developing your own personal style or anything of that sort. It is a way of focusing on and developing your relationship with your ears, with sound, with what sounds good to you in music and in nature and in all of the world, both inside and outside of your head. In playful exercises for musicians and non-musicians alike, we examine the nature of a single note played on an instrument, or sung alound, or even just a series of spoken or drawn-out syllables. There are ways to bring music into a group of people; there are ways to draw it out of inanimate objects; there are ways to find it in silence. He's not trying to convince anybody that traffic, barking dogs, and 3 AM garbage trucks are as beautiful as a Bach piece; some things will sound better to you than others. But practice makes perfect: if you practice hearing, you will hear more, and you will hear better, and you will find more things that sound good, and you will get a richer enjoyment of them. This is "Discovering Your Own Music."

Editorial Review:

This book is about rediscovering the power of listening as an instrument of self-discovery and personal transformation. By exploring our capacity for listening to sounds and for making music, we can awaken and release our full creative powers. Includes suggestions, encouragement, and playful exercises for music-making.

The Joy Of First-Year Piano (Joy Of...Series)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Young Student and Adult Student Piano Method Book 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

The 'Joy Of First Year Piano' is an exceptional first year piano method that captures the interest of adults as well as young students. The songs and melodies are substantial in variety as well as content and composition. A new concept or technique is introduced with each new tune which enables students to progress rapidly.

Excellent Starting Book 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I teach piano and have found this book to be superior to numbered method books. The tunes are good and the gradual increase in difficulty is easy to teach. The second accompaniment to be played by the teacher is always interesting and supportive. These are very musical beginning pieces. I recommend this book without hesitation

My Review 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Good book for neophyte pianists. I found it challenging but easy enough to work with.

Editorial Review:

Designed for use as a method book, this book allows the teacher to vary the approach according to the needs of the student. The book can also be used as a source of carefully graded pieces, for use with any first-year method.

The Robert Shaw Reader

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

R. Shaw Reader 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

What an inspiring book. This man did it all and was successful at it. I recommend this to all future and current teachers looking at teaching music of any kind. Rehearsal techniques, great stories, letters, etc.

Editorial Review:

Robert Shaw is considered to be the most influential choral conductor in American history. This is the first collection of his letters and notes about music ever published—at another time, it is the book Shaw would have written himself.
The letters are an invigorating mix of music history and analysis, philosophy, inspiration, and practical advice. Shaw examines technique, but only as a means to an end—he moves beyond that, delving into the essence of what music is and what it has to say to us. The heart of the book is composed of Shaw’s previously unpublished notes on fifteen major choral works, ranging from Bach’s B Minor Mass to Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms.
Often inspiring and sometime hilarious, these writings reveal the full breadth of Shaw’s knowledge, intensity, and humor.

Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course, All-In-One, Level 2 w/CD [STUDENT EDITION] (Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course)

Willard Palmer; Morton Manus; Amanda Vick Lethco

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Pretty good as piano instruction books go. 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Not much to say. I went through about ten beginner books when I was learning how to play the piano and I believe this series is probably the best organized and easiest to understand. It is best if you start at the beginning and do the entire series. Have fun makin' music!!

Pretty Good, 3 1/2 Stars 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The book is fine, although it has a few too many cheesy songs like "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." The CD that comes with it is the main reason for the star deductions. I thought it would be someone simply playing the piano as a demonstration on how to play the music with perfection. Instead, it is synthesized music done on some kind of digital keyboard and it has other synthesized instruments and percussion. It's not enjoyable to listen to and not particularly instructive either. Unless you need the CD to help you hear the basic melodies of the songs contained in this book, I would buy the non-CD version.

Editorial Review:

The All-in-One Adult Course is designed for adult beginners looking for a comprehensive piano course that includes lesson, theory, technic and popular repertoire in one convenient, all-in-one format. The course is now available for Levels 1, 2 and 3. Pupils will develop agility and flexibility of the hands to keep pace with their musical comprehension. At the completion of this course, students will have learned to play some of the great masterworks of piano literature and will have gained a thorough understanding of the basic concept of music. General MIDI disks provide a valuable opportunity to play along with professional-sounding accompaniments of every piece from all three books.

Rhythm, Music, and the Brain: Scientific Foundations and Clinical Applications (Studies on New Music Research)

Michael Thaut

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Editorial Review:

With the advent of modern cognitive neuroscience and its new tools of studying the human brain "live," music as a highly complex, temporally ordered and rule-based sensory language quickly became a fascinating topic of study. By studying the physiology and neurology of brain function in music, we can obtain a great deal of knowledge about the perception of complex auditory sound stimuli; time perception and rhythm processing; the differential processing of music and language of two aural communication systems; biological substrates of learning versus innate talent in the arts; and processing of higher cognitive functions related to temporality and emotion. The main goal of the book is to bring the knowledge in the arts and the sciences together and review systematically our current state of study about the brain and music, specifically in rhythm. This book will be of interest for the lay and professional reader in the sciences and arts as well as the professionals in the fields of neuroscientific research, medicine, and rehabilitation.

The Enjoyment of Music, Essentials Edition

Kristine Forney, Joseph Machlis

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Editorial Review:

Used by more than 3.5 million students, The Enjoyment of Music has been the most trusted introduction to music for over five decades.

Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music (Oxford Studies in Music Theory)

Kofi Agawu

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Editorial Review:

The question of whether music has meaning has been the subject of sustained debate ever since music became a subject of academic inquiry. Is music a language? Does it communicate specific ideas and emotions? What does music mean, and how does this meaning occur?
Kofi Agawu's Music as Discourse promises to quickly become a standard and definitive work in musical semiotics. Working at the nexus of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music philosophy and aesthetics, Agawu presents a synthetic and innovative approach to musical meaning which argues deftly for the thinking of music as a discourse in itself--composed not only of sequences of gestures, phrases, or progressions, but rather also of the very philosophical and linguistic props that enable the analytical formulations made about music as an object of study. The book provides extensive demonstration of the pertinence of a semiological approach to understanding the fully-freighted language of romantic music, stresses the importance of a generative approach to tonal understanding, and provides further insight into the analogy between music and language. Music as Discourse will be eagerly read by all who are interested in the theory, analysis and semiotics of music of the romantic period.

Music and the Creative Spirit: Innovators in Jazz, Improvisation, and the Avant Garde (Studies in Jazz Series)

Lloyd Peterson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent resource 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This book is very inspiring. The words of these phenomenol musicians speaks to inspiration and muse, cultural influences, and living in general. Most of the musicians here are jazz players, but their life experiences speak to improvisation, ideas, and the heart of music in any genre. Any contemporary musician especially would find this a rich resource.

Their words resonate 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The words of these great musicians/innovators/players really ring true and will both inspire you and get you thinking. Highly recommended. I am probably going to buy a few and give them as gifts.

Editorial Review:

Music and the Creative Spirit is a book of interviews with today's innovators in Jazz, Improvisation, and the Avant Garde, including Pat Metheny, Regina Carter, Fred Anderson, John Zorn, Joshua Redman, and others.

Verdi With a Vengeance: An Energetic Guide to the Life and Complete Works of the King of Opera

William Berger

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Vivid and Genial Guide to Genius 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

William Beger's "Verdi with a Vengeance" is a triumph of music writing: accessible, informed and passionate. For the newcomer to the breadth of works by the great composer, this guide is a godsend, as Mr. Berger lays out the history of each opera, the story behind its plot and, most important, what makes each one special. He doesn't preach, but his enthusiasm makes a reader -- and a potential listener -- hungry to hear and see the works he so vividly describes. Mr. Berger is a master of the telling detail: he lets you know what to look and listen for in particular arias, and how these moments affect the drama. "Verdi with a Vengeance" should also delight Verdi aficionados, since Mr. Berger is so familiar with all aspects of the composer's art, his research is so deep, that he reveals new aspects of the operas (and the Requiem). His prose is free of musicological jargon, though conversant with the language of music. Mr. Berger can describe economically the emotion music can convey, and he can give a sense of the intellect behind the notes. He is a writer of wit and nuance, masterfully evoking a mise-en-scene within an opera or limning the characteristics of hammy singers. This is a book both to be savored at length and dipped into for fresh insights before attending any performance of Verdi. It is a rare book that manages to be learned as well as breezy, humorous and deeply felt.

Editorial Review:

Everything you could possibly know about Verdi and his operas, from the brilliant and humorous author of Wagner Without Fear.

If you want to know why La traviata was actually a flop at its premiere in 1853, it's in here. If you want to know why claiming to have heard Bjorling's Chicago performance of Il trovatore is the classic opera fan faux pas, it's in here. Even if you just want to know how to pronounce Aida, or what the plot of Rigoletto is all about, this is the place to look. From the composer's intense hatred of priests to synopses of the operas and a detailed discography of the best recordings to buy, it can all be found in Verdi with a Vengeance. William Berger has given another improbable performance, serving up a book as thorough as it is funny and as original as it is astute, an utterly indispensable guide for novice and expert alike.