In Mastering the Art of Performance: A Primer for Musicians, Stewart Gordon offers seasoned advice to musicians intent on meeting the challenges of performance. Through real-life examples and pre-performance exercises, this accessible manual gives musicians and other performers practical insights into every aspect of performance. While other books merely identify and describe the problems associated with performance, this book offers detailed suggestions for solving them.
First, Gordon tackles the critical planning and preparatory stages, helping performers to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. The book's easy-to-follow exercises address the self-doubt and anxiety many musicians contend with, helping them to analyze why they perform, set goals and assess the level of energy needed to achieve them, and develop a performance philosophy. The book also offers techniques that will help musicians deal with some of the classic pitfalls of performance preparation, including repetition and drill, changing bad habits, and developing memory.
For the performance itself, Gordon's insights help musicians with pacing and managing stage fright. For the aftermath, Gordon arms performers with strategies for dealing with criticism and conducting a constructive self-evaluation, equipping them to face the challenges of a lifetime of performances, including career plateaus and burnout.
Gordon draws from more than forty years of experience in front of audiences to offer readers invaluable tips and personal reflections. While aimed primarily at musicians, the book will be useful to anyone facing the pressures of performance, such as actors, dancers, and even public speakers.

Endorsed by Kenny Barron, Jamey Aebersold, Richie Beirach, and more, this book presents all the information a student of jazz piano needs in an easy-to-understand, yet thorough, manner. For intermediate to advanced pianists, written by one of the acknowledged masters of jazz piano playing.

Learning to play an instrument can be fund and, at times, frustrating. This lively, accessible book helps young people cope with the difficulties involved in learning a new instrument and remaining dedicated to playing and practicing. Teens from renowned music programs - including the Juilliard School's Pre-College Program and Boston University's Tanglewood Institute - join pro musicians such as Wynton Marsalis, Paula Robison, and James Galway in offering practical answers to questions from what instrument to play to where the musical road may lead.
In this revised and expanded edition, Amy Nathan has updated the book to address today's more technologically-minded young musician. Expanded sections cover the various ways students can use technology to assist in mastering an instrument and in making practice time more productive, from using the Internet to download pieces to be learned and playing along with downloaded tunes to practicing with computer-based practice programs, CDs, and videos/DVDs of musical performances. She also addresses concerns of young composers and conductors, two groups not mentioned in the original edition. The book's updated Resource Guide suggests where to get additional help, both online and off.

This delightful spoof of the classic horror tale is an unparalleled romp from start to finish.

The story of a thirty-nine-year-old songwriter who is making a comeback, throwing out "the crap of the past" - her commercial sex kitten image - in order to forge a new identity, writing songs that express how she really feels and who she really is. Her manager (a former lover) is appalled. He likes her the way she used to be and says he can't sell this "new woman." They battle it out to a bittersweet, triumphant conclusion.

A time-honored tradition just got better! The John W. Schaum Piano Course has been newly revised with 100 percent new engravings and typesetting, color highlighting for concept emphasis, updated song titles and lyrics, and full-color illustrations. This is the Primer level.

Position Pieces for Cello is designed to give students a logical and fun way to learn their way around the fingerboard. Each hand position is introduced with exercises called "Target Practice," "Geography Quiz," and "Names and Numbers." Following these exercises are tuneful cello duets which have been specifically composed to require students to play in that hand position. In this way, students gain a thorough knowledge of how to find the hand positions and, once there, which notes are possible to play. Using these pieces (with names like "I Was a Teenage Monster," "The Irish Tenor," and "I've Got the Blues, Baby"), position study on the cello has never been so much fun!

You can now teach yourself to play the piano, even though you have never taken a lesson. Teach yourself to play the piano and progress at your own pace! Covers the basic fundamentals of piano playing in a concise and logical fashion. Its appealing music will encourage you to play every day. Features: Rhythms made simple; How to form the most important chords; Finger aerobics help to make playing easier; Techniques of playing with feeling and expression; Step-by-step approach to learning the entire keyboard; Letter-notes provide and easy introduction to reading music. The Enhanced CD for this book contains great audio accompaniments you can play on your stereo and doubles as an interactive and fun multimedia learning tool that works on any Windows-compatible PC. The song player shows you exactly how each song should be played, lets you customize the audio levels, adjust playback tempo, and even record your own performance! CD-ROM is for Windows & Macintosh.

As the movie and music industries have changed, film scoring has become an overwhelmingly independent process. Film composers have more responsibilities than ever before, and they must fulfill them with smaller budgets and shorter schedules. As a result, composers are increasingly becoming armies of one. In Guerrilla Film Scoring: Practical Advice from Hollywood Composers, Jeremy Borum provides valuable guidance on how to make a good film score both quickly and inexpensively. This handbook encompasses the entire film scoring process including education, preparation, writing and recording a score, editing, mixing and mastering, finding work, career development, and sample contracts. Offering strategic tools and techniques, this insider's guide draws on the expertise from a number of prominent composers in movies, television, and video gaming, including Stewart Copeland, Bruce Broughton, and Jack Wall. A straightforward do-it-yourself manual, this book will help composers at all levels create the best-sounding scores quickly and cost effectively-without jeopardizing their art. With access to rare and extremely useful input from the best in the business, Guerrilla Film Scoring will benefit not only students but also professionals looking to update their game.

The Ultimate Breathing Workout, from Raise Your Voice author, Jaime Vendera, is THE program for singers who wish to develop lungs of steel This compact 80 page book features the most intense breathing program ever created for vocalists. Based on a nine step breathing program designed to increase breath capacity, strengthen the lungs, diaphragm, back, and abdominal muscles will turn you into a breathing machine, and enable you to hold out notes for over a minute. As well, The Ultimate Breathing Workout features advance breathing exercises, including the Breath Builders and Applied Breathing Isometrics. This book contains one illustration and ten audio examples accessible through jaimevendera.com via link within the book.

Music Engineering is a hands-on guide to the practical aspects of electric and electronic music. It is both a compelling read and an essential reference guide for anyone using, choosing, designing or studying the technology of modern music. The technology and underpinning science are introduced through the real life demands of playing and recording, and illustrated with references to well known classic recordings to show how a particular effect is obtained thanks to the ingenuity of the engineer as well as the musician. In addition, an accompanying companion website containing over 50 specially chosen tracks for download, provides practical demonstrations of the effects and techniques described in the book.
Written by a music enthusiast and electronic engineer, this book covers the electronics and physics of the subject as well as the more subjective aspects. The second edition includes an updated Digital section including MPEG3 and fact sheets at the end of each chapter to summarise the key electronics and science. In addition to instruments and recording technology, this book covers essential kit such as microphones, sequencers, amplifiers and loudspeakers.
Discover the potential of electronics and computers to transform your performances and recordings
Develop an understanding of the engineering behind state of the art instruments, amplifiers and recording equipment
An accompanying companion website completes the package with over 50 tracks providing practical demonstrations of the effects and techniques described in the book

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.