Singers must equip themselves with enough knowledge to clearly convey specific sensations and difficulties with their instrument. Understanding of potential dangers and disorders, familiarity with a variety of medical procedures, and comprehension in various facets of diagnosis and treatments empower singers to "own," just like other musicians, their instrument. The Owner's Manual to the Voice provides singers with the knowledge necessary to communicate effectively and in intelligent terms about their instrument, especially when conversing with medical professionals. Beginning with an overview of the vocal anatomy, lead author Rachel Gates, and co-authors L. Arrick Forest, M.D. and Kerri Obert, M.A., C.C.C/S.L.P, proceed through detailed discussions of caring for the voice and common causes of vocal changes and problems before guiding the reader through the process of choosing, talking to, and working with an ENT. In so doing, they give insights that any professional voice user - whether singer, actor, broadcaster, politician, teacher, preacher, lawyer, salesperson or telemarketer - will find helpful if not essential.

For Guitar Players Only is one of the most unique books ever written for guitar. Legendary studio guitarist Tommy Tedesco shares his personal hints and exercises for improving picking technique and sight reading abilities, while offering countless other inside tips that will further your guitar career. The book includes actual parts that have been recorded for movies, television, albums, and commercials.

Tedesco, and the story of his legendary studio sessions, has been featured in screenings around the country in the critically acclaimed film, The Wrecking Crew. See the film, buy the book, and learn the lessons from a true legend!

Prosody as a system of suprasegmental linguistic information such as rhythm and intonation is a prime candidate for looking at the relation between language and music in a principled way. This claim is based on several aspects: First, prosody is concerned with acoustic correlates of language and music that are directly comparable with each other by their physical properties such as duration and pitch. Second, prosodic accounts suggest a hierarchical organization of prosodic units that not only resembles a syntactic hierarchy, but is viewed as (part of) an interface to syntax. Third, prosody provides a very promising ground for evolutionary accounts of language and music. Fourth, bilateral transfer effects between language and music are best illustrated on the level of prosody. Highlighting the first two aspects, this book shows that it is a fruitful endeavor to use prosody for a principled comparison of language and music. In its broader sense, prosody as sound structure of communicative systems may be considered a "meta"-language that formalizes the way of "how music speaks to language and vice versa". Prosody is firmly established within linguistic theory, but is also applied in the musical domain. Therefore, prosody is not just a field of inquiry that shares elements or features between music and language, but can additionally provide a common conceptual ground.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). Book B of the Fabers' method for the young beginner moves the student into staff-reading. Music notation is explored through stepwise directional reading, pattern recognition, and changing hand positions, all in the context of engaging songs, games and creative exploration at the piano. Maintaining the child-centered philosophy of the series, the "friends at the piano" from the A Books introduce students to the music of two new composer friends Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Classic themes share the stage with contemporary pop and jazz sounds for young ears to absorb and enjoy. The Book B CD presents a vibrant mix of sounds, from boogie to Beethoven. It serves as a listening CD which educates and as an accompaniment CD for play-along.

Author and voice teacher Gloria Bennett has taught Axl Rose of Guns N'Roses, Vince Neil of Motley Crue, Exene Cervenka of X, Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate, Dexter Holland of The Offspring, and Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, among others. Her comprehensive and practical book, now in its second edition, offers a clear explanation of the voice as an instrument and proper vocal technique. Through examples, anecdotes and exercises, Breaking Through provides for both the novice and professional vocalist a vital sourcebook for maintaining and enhancing the quality of the voice. Topics covered include: pitch problems and solutions, evening your range, projection without strain, how to stay vocally healthy on the road, how to find a good vocal coach, and much more.

In The Positive Pianist: How Flow Can Bring Passion to Practice and Performance, author Thomas J. Parente applies the concept of flow to the practice of piano playing, demonstrating how student musicians can experience enjoyment and confidence from succeeding at something that challenges them to an engaging level. By using Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theory of flow to musical performance, Parente shows that linking productivity and enjoyment in piano playing has a positive impact on students, motivating them to practice more in order to experience flow again; this creates optimal learning conditions for piano practicing. As the chapters progress, Parente shows students how to evaluate their own progress and offers teachers the tools to impart on their students an optimal practice method: one informed by flow. Parente argues for an objective, goal-oriented backdrop that will lead piano students to achieve greater confidence, accuracy, and musicality. The Positive Pianist draws on the author's forty years of teaching experience and research to show piano students and their teachers how to develop a productive, focused mental state when practicing the piano.

Gerard Behague presents five culture-, process-, and community-specific case studies of performance that challenge the assumption that contextual differences in performance and performance practice matter little in overall effect. Within the diverse performance contexts evaluated--Hindustani, Karantak, Mali, Berber, American, and Latin American music--the concept of performance practice as the integrated study of sound and context is self-evident although the nature of the empirical data gathered and the perspective and theorectical framework of each study varies significantly.

This practical guide treats the mechanics and evolution of the instrument and offers a survey of its literature. The author discusses touch and technique, including articulation and fingering, and the issues involved in historical performance practices. She also provides suggestions on selecting and maintaining a harpsichord.

Originally published in 1867, this book is a collection of songs of African-American slaves. A few of the songs were written after the emancipation, but all were inspired by slavery. The wild, sad strains tell, as the sufferers themselves could, of crushed hopes, keen sorrow, and a dull, daily misery, which covered them as hopelessly as the fog from the rice swamps. On the other hand, the words breathe a trusting faith in the life after, to which their eyes seem constantly turned.

(Amadeus). Score reading provides insights into the musical structure of a work that are difficult to obtain from merely listening. Many listeners and amateurs derive great pleasure from following a performance with score in hand to help them better understand the intricacies of what they are hearing. This guide includes practice examples of increasing difficulty taken from scores of well-known works from various periods.

Music listening is likely to be the predominant musical activity in which students will be engaged throughout their lives, and Music Across the Senses is an ideal resources that provides teachers with practical ideas for facilitating student music listening skill development. Written both for inservice music educators as well as collegiate music education student, Music Across the Senses shows how music educators can facilitate PK-12 students' develop listening skills using multisensory means-mapping, movement, and verbal descriptions-in general music and performance ensemble classes. The book presents multisensory strategies and tools that invite teachers to adapt them to fit their own unique music learning communities. This approach gives teachers the flexibility to choose their own musical selections, genres, and styles. Specifically, this book includes: 1) Multisensory pedagogical tools and procedures for PK-12 music listening skill development that will help transform students' internal musical impressions into external expressions; 2) Sample lesson ideas, movement sequences, and listening maps adaptable to teachers' individual teaching environments, including multi-age general music and ensemble settings; 3) a companion website that depicts teachers using these multisensory tools in real-life, PK-12 general music and ensemble classrooms; 4)suggestions for objective assessment of students' music listening development. As a whole, Music Across the Senses helps teachers enable students to learn how to devise independent strategies for listening that they can employ and enjoy long after their formal education is completed.

The Oxford Handbook of Children's Musical Cultures is a compendium of perspectives on children and their musical engagements as singers, dancers, players, and avid listeners. Over the course of 35 chapters, contributors from around the world provide an interdisciplinary enquiry into the musical lives of children in a variety of cultures, and their role as both preservers and innovators of music. Drawing on a wide array of fields from ethnomusicology and folklore to education and developmental psychology, the chapters presented in this handbook provide windows into the musical enculturation, education, and training of children, and the ways in which they learn, express, invent, and preserve music. Offering an understanding of the nature, structures, and styles of music preferred and used by children from toddlerhood through childhood and into adolescence, The Oxford Handbook of Children's Musical Cultures is an important step forward in the study of children and music.

In music, students are often force-fed scales, without ever really being told why these scales are important. By the end of this book you'll understand not only the relation between scales and chords, but also other basics that will get you understanding and playing music better. For all levels of musicians, and all instruments

The Dozen a Day books are universally recognized as one of the most remarkable technique series on the market for all ages! Each book in this series contains short warm-up exercises to be played at the beginning of each practice session, providing excellent day-to-day training for the student.