In the final installment of The Comeback Trial trilogy, Jimmy Wayne has set off on his major tour of Europe, selling out the likes of the Royal Albert Hall and Zenith, Paris. While Jimmy's fame is reaching dizzying heights, behind the scenes crime bosses Jack Lantern and George Digbeth are scheming ways to bring him crashing back down to earth. But it's not just these two he should be worried about. Jimmy's adventures in Europe have drawn the attention of crime families across London, Paris, southern Italy and Madrid and everyone is battling for a piece of the action. From recovering valuable stolen artwork to his mother's romantic escapades, will Jimmy survive the mayhem of this whirlwind tour or will the dubious, murderous circumstances to which he owes all his success be exposed, for once and for all...?

Achieving Peak Performance in Music: Psychological Strategies for Optimal Flow is a unique and comprehensive exploration of flow in music performance. It describes the optimal performance experiences of great musicians and outlines ten psychological steps that can be implemented to facilitate and enhance optimal experience. Achieving Peak Performance in Music reveals strategies used by experts to prepare themselves emotionally, cognitively, and physically for performance. Combining this information with research carried out amongst professional performers and knowledge gained from decades of study and research by psychologists on how to achieve a positive experience, the book guides readers on a pathway towards optimal performance. Using everyday language, it presents invaluable practical guidance and a toolbox of strategies to help with all aspects of performance, including memorisation, visualisation, focus, performance anxiety, thought management, motivation, and pre-performance routines. Based on psychological research, the book shares practical knowledge invaluable to music students, parents, and amateur and professional musicians. The strategies on performance provided are applicable to every type of performance, from a student exam to a gig or a concert, making Achieving Peak Performance in Music a significant resource for anyone looking to achieve peak performance.

For many Beatles fans, the group's two-disc set from November 1968 is their favorite Beatles album. It was titled "The Beatles," but became known as "The White Album" for its pure white cover. At over 90 minutes long, it is filled with 30 incredible songs that range from rock 'n' roll to folk to heavy metal to calypso to country & western to raunchy rockers to lush ballads. There are parodies of the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan, along with a long sound collage unlike anything most listeners had ever heard before. The Beatles White Album and the Launch of Apple covers not only the group's remarkable double album, but also the birth of their Apple business venture and Apple Records' stunning debut with "Hey Jude," "Revolution" and Mary Hopkin's nostalgic classic "Those Were The Days.

Nigel Kennedy changed the course of classical music in the late 1980s with his interpretation of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’. He was revolutionary: in his performance and presentation; in his technique and his open-minded attitude. A natural boundary-pusher and musical adventurer, Nigel Kennedy blew minds - and sales records - as he became the best-selling violinist of all time. Instead of an Introduction, Nigel opens with a tongue-in-cheek ‘Warning’: readers should beware of his politically incorrect writing style and his frank take on the BBC, record companies, the Bavarian Police and any other ‘self-appointed wielders of power.’ It sets the tone for a truly original memoir that is as playful, unconventional and carefully executed as his music. The book is structured like a musical performance, with ‘Interludes’, ‘Outros’ and an ‘Encore’ separating the regular chapters which cover Nigel’s life story, from his humble beginnings and scholarship to the newly created Yehudi Menuhin School - and then New York at The Juilliard School - to his flourishing career and break-through as a world-class superstar. ‘Interludes’ cover subjects varying from Nigel’s best and worst gigs (“It might seem strange that shit gigs stick in the mind so much more than the good ones but I suppose it makes sense…”), to run-ins with rock stars and Police forces around the world. His anecdote on the London Metropolitan Police’s handling of a noise complaint at an after-show all-star jam is particularly funny: “These guys (the Met) were cheerful, they dealt with the situation and didn’t escalate the problem when there wasn’t one. 10/10” ‘Outros’ cover Nigel’s thoughts on classical music today - fascinating reading from the perspective of a virtuoso - to Brexit, where the spelling of the word alone leaves the reader in little doubt as to which side of the fence the author sits. ‘Encores’ is a comprehensive section on Nigel’s recorded output, covering his early classical work, the Four Seasons and later albums. There are insights into his work with rock musicians including Robert Plant, the late drummer Michael Lee, Killing Joke singer Jaz Coleman, and producers Eddie Kramer (Jimmy Hendrix) and John Leckie (Stone Roses). Nigel’s writing on Gershwin, Yehudi Menuhin, Stephan Grappelli (‘my biggest inspiration’), Jimi Hendrix and the Doors is compelling. Nigel writes of his interests outside music - boxing and football - which provide inspiration and balance to his creative output (on Aston Villa - “a true blessing for me to have an outlet in which I was surrounded by normal, honest, hard-working people who did ‘proper jobs’”). There is a splendid chapter on ‘Kitchen Golf’, a not-without-risk variation of the game, conjured up with close friend and mischief-maker Gary Lineker, during a messy late night kitchen session. “My whole life has been spent breaking down barriers between people and this book is proof of that.” states Nigel in his ‘Warning’. It’s a Mission Statement borne out in ‘Uncensored’ with aplomb.

- One-stop resource explains culturally responsive teaching conceptually and offers practical ways to apply in the classroom - Specifically addresses culturally responsive teaching in music education context, with vivid first-person examples from music educators - Single-authored narrative makes this book clear and accessible for students

- One-stop resource explains culturally responsive teaching conceptually and offers practical ways to apply in the classroom - Specifically addresses culturally responsive teaching in music education context, with vivid first-person examples from music educators - Single-authored narrative makes this book clear and accessible for students

This book examines the performance of Bauls, 'folk' performers from Bengal, in the context of a rapidly globalizing Indian economy and against the backdrop of extreme nationalistic discourses. Recognizing their scope beyond the musical and cultural realm, Sukanya Chakrabarti engages in discussing the subversive and transformational potency of Bauls and their performances. In-Between Worlds argues that the Bauls through their musical, spiritual, and cultural performances offer 'joy' and 'spirituality,' thus making space for what Dr. Ambedkar in his famous 1942 speech had identified as 'reclamation of human personality'. Chakrabarti destabilizes the category of 'folk' as a fixed classification or an origin point, and fractures homogeneous historical representations of the Baul as a 'folk' performer and a wandering mendicant exposing the complex heterogeneity that characterizes this group. Establishing 'folk-ness' as a performance category, and 'folk festivals' as sites of performing 'folk-ness,' contributing to a heritage industry that thrives on imagined and recreated nostalgia, Chakrabarti examines different sites that produce varied performative identities of Bauls, probing the limits of such categories while simultaneously advocating for polyvocality and multifocality. While this project has grounded itself firmly in performance studies, it has borrowed extensively from fields of postcolonial studies and subaltern histories, literature, ethnography and ethnomusicology, and cosmopolitan studies.

This is the brand new edition of Paul Harris' very popular Improve Your Sight-Reading Piano series The covers now contain US levels
Now more than ever, the ability to sight-read fluently is an essential part of the pianist's training, whether playing alone, as an accompanist or with ensemble. This workbook is designed to help overcome the nerves that can cause sight-reading problems. Step by step it helps the player to create a complete picture of each piece, first through rhythmic and melodic exercises related to specific problems, then by the study of prepared pieces with associated questions for the student to answer, then finally to the real, unprepared sight-reading test itself. Check-boxes for each stage allow both teacher and pupil to keep a record of progress.

Broadway has body issues. What is a Broadway Body? Broadway has long preserved the ideology of the "Broadway Body": the hyper-fit, exceptionally able, triple-threat performer who represents how Broadway musicals favor certain kinds of bodies. Casting is always a political act, situated within a power structure that gives preference to the Broadway Body. In Broadway Bodies, author Ryan Donovan explores how ability, sexuality, and size intersect with gender, race, and ethnicity in casting and performance. To understand these intersectional relationships, he poses a series of questions: Why did A Chorus Line, a show that sought to individuate dancers, inevitably make dancers indistinguishable? How does the use of fat suits in musicals like Dreamgirls and Hairspray stigmatize fatness? What were the political implications of casting two straight actors as the gay couple in La Cage aux Folles in 1983? How did deaf actors change the sound of musicals in Deaf West's Broadway revivals? Whose bodies does Broadway cast and whose does it cast aside? In answering these questions, Broadway Bodies tells a history of Broadway's inclusion of various forms of embodied difference while revealing its simultaneous ambivalence toward non-conforming bodies.

The first comprehensive biography of an extraordinary English poet and composer whose life was haunted by fighting in the First World War and, later, confinement in a mental asylum Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) wrote some of the most anthologized poems of the First World War and composed some of the greatest works in the English song repertoire, such as "Sleep." Yet his life was shadowed by the trauma of the war and mental illness, and he spent his last fifteen years confined to a mental asylum. In Dweller in Shadows, Kate Kennedy presents the first comprehensive biography of this extraordinary and misunderstood artist. A promising student at the Royal College of Music, Gurney enlisted as a private with the Gloucestershire regiment in 1915 and spent two years in the trenches of the Western Front. Wounded in the arm and subsequently gassed during the Battle of Passchendaele, Gurney was recovering in hospital when his first collection of poems, Severn and Somme, was published. Despite episodes of depression, he resumed his music studies after the war until he was committed to an asylum in 1922. At times believing he was Shakespeare and that the "machines under the floor" were torturing him, he nevertheless continued to write and compose, leaving behind a vast body of unpublished work when he died of tuberculosis. Drawing on extensive archival research and spanning literary criticism, history, psychiatry and musicology, this compelling narrative sets Gurney's life and work against the backdrop of the war and his institutionalisation, probing the links between madness, suffering and creativity. Facing death in the trenches, Gurney hoped that history might not "forget me quite." This definitive account of his life and work helps ensure that he will indeed be remembered.

In a definitive and “excellent homage to a star who left this planet too soon” (Questlove), the life, career, tragic death, and evolution of Aaliyah into a music legend are explored—now updated with new material featuring in-depth research and exclusive interviews. By twenty-two years old, Aaliyah had already accomplished a staggering amount: hit records, acclaimed acting roles, and fame that was just about to cross over into superstardom. Like her song, she was already “more than a woman” but her shocking death in a plane crash prevented her from fully growing into one. Now, two decades later, the full story of Aaliyah’s life and cultural impact is finally and lovingly revealed. Baby Girl features never-before-told stories, including studio anecdotes, personal tales, and eyewitness accounts on the events leading up to her untimely passing. Her enduring influence on today’s artists—such as Rihanna, Drake, Normani, and many more—is also celebrated, providing Aaliyah’s discography a cultural critique that is long overdue. “There’s no better way to pay your respect to R&B’s true angel than to lose yourself in the pages” (Kim Osorio, journalist and author of Straight from the Source) of this “dazzling biography” (Publishers Weekly) that is as unforgettable as its subject. This book was written without the participation of Aaliyah’s family/estate.

PRE:FAB! is the captivating memoir of Colin Hanton, telling of his early years as a musician and his career with John Lennon's Quarry Men. Colin drummed with the band for three years between 1956-1959, during which time both Paul McCartney and George Harrison joined the group. In 1958, Colin played on the very first single that John, Paul and George ever recorded-their versions of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day" and a Paul and George composition: "In Spite Of All The Danger". Co-written over a two-year period by Colin Hanton and Colin Hall, custodian for Mendips (John Lennon's childhood home), PRE:FAB! tells the story of these history-in-the-making days . Colin Hanton's memories serve as an insight not only into his early musical adventures with John, but also into the social history of war-time and post-war Liverpool. PRE:FAB! has also been made into a feature-length, documentary film that is COMING SOON!

Along with its long-lasting influence on music, art, fashion and culture, the punk explosion in the late 1970s also fuelled a thriving underground press. A physical representation of punk's DIY attitude, fanzines rebelled against established forms of expression, surviving outside of the mainstream media and providing a voice for a generation. Punkzines features interviews with leading figures from the scene, including fanzine editors, bands, DJs, promoters and journalists, to provide exclusive anecdotes from this momentous period. Fully illustrated throughout, the book showcases original and rare artwork from celebrated fanzines such as Sniffin' Glue, Bondage, 48 Thrills, Punk, Jamming!, London's Burning, Ripped & Torn and many more. Punkzines is the definitive visual guide to a crucial part of British and global subculture.

Collects some of the most visually stunning and evocative album covers from the 20th Century Features homages to numerous important designers and artists, such as Damien Hirst, Yoko Ono and Raymond Pettibon Up until the 1940s, records were sold in plain, uniform jackets. In the post-war years, musicians and record companies discovered that graphically designed record covers had the potential to boost sales. Significantly, in the 1960s contemporary artists began to create record jackets that became an inspiration for others on account of their radical, groundbreaking designs. Many of them have become symbols recognized not only by fans but by the wider public, symbols of an era where artistic freedom, experimentation, and innovation were encouraged. This book is the first-ever comprehensive introduction to these resplendent album covers. They have been taken from the extensive archive of the Dutch designer Jan van Toorn, one of the most active collectors and a leading expert in the field. The book includes surrealist designs by Salvador Dali; covers by famous pop artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and Jean-Michel Basquiat; works by the Vienna-based group 'Wiener Aktionismus'; and contemporary designs by Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Banksy, and Ai Weiwei. Special importance is given to the designs from the circle of Fluxus artists, a radical sixties group who often produced music during their multimedia performances. The Fluxus artists frequently published their artwork on records, as did John Cage and Yoko Ono. Another focus of the book is Raymond Pettibon, who shot to fame when his legendary cover for the punk band Black Flag exploded into the record stores. Full of famous names and artists deserving of greater recognition, this book is the perfect gift for any vinyl-lover."

In the late 80s, three self-described "total freak" high school girls from Brooklyn found salvation in the sisterhood of friendship, refuge in the East Village. Soon after graduation, The Lunachicks signed with Blast First Records; Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore whisked them into the studio (it did not go well). And yet the Lunachicks fought for their space in the virtually boys-only world of punk and rock throughout the 90s. Their unforgettable costume-critiques of pop culture were as loud as their "Marsha[ll]" amps, the ferocity of their feminism as lasting as their pre-internet mythology. They toured with bands like Marilyn Manson, No Doubt, Rancid, and The Offspring. The played the Reading Festival with Nirvana and did the testosterone-fueled Warped tour (twice). Lauded by critics and feared by men, The Lunachicks annihilated social conventions from Brooklyn to Tokyo and somehow managed to survive, but not unscathed. Fallopian Rhapsody chronicles becoming an established band and hearing industry dudes say, "We're not booking you because we already had a girl band play here this month," or "We're not playing your song on our radio show because we already have No Doubt in the rotation." Their group memoir will also recount their collapse, drug abuse and intervention, survival and reinvention. Filled with never-before-seen photos, illustrations, and ephemera from the band's private archive, this book will be a must-have for new and old fans alike. For readers of Carrie Brownstein's Hunger Makes me a Modern Girl, Kim Gordon's Girl in a Band, and Chrissie Hynde's Reckless, Fallopian Rhapsody is the literary equivalent of diving headfirst into a moshpit and, slowly but surely, venturing up to the front of the stage.

With over thirty years as a record company sales rep, Graham has collected a vast number of funny stories and anecdotes. He relates the best of them here, as told to him by those behind the record shop counter. This unique collection of "I'll-hum-it-have-you-got-it?" and similar stories is an engrossing memorial to an increasingly bygone age.

Since the turn of the 21st century, there have been several genres birthed from or nurtured in Black Britain: funky & tribal House, Afrobeats, Grime, Afro Swing, UK Drill, Road Rap, Trap etc. This pioneering book brings together diverse diasporan sounds in conversation. A valuable resource for those interested in the study of 21st century Black music and related cultures in Britain, this book goes incorporates the significant Black Atlantean, global interactions within Black music across time and space. It examines and proposes theoretical approaches, contributing to building a holistic appreciation of 21st century Black British music and its multidimensional nature. This book proffers an academically curated, rigorous, holistic view of Black British music in the 21st century. Drawing from pioneering academics in the emerging field and industry professionals, the book will serve academic theory, as well as the views, debates and experiences of industry professionals in a complementary style that shows the synergies between diasporas and interdisciplinary conversations. The book is interdisciplinary. It draws from sociology, musicology and the emerging digital humanities fields, to make its arguments and develop a multi-disciplinary perspective about Black British music in the 21st century.

- The book uses globally recognized films as a basis for analysis. - Studies on digital culture and digital spaces are becoming increasingly relevant in today's world (particularly in light of the pandemic), so demand for books exploring this subject is growing for both research and teaching markets. - Includes examples from a diverse range of film genres: science fiction, horror, comedy, European art films.

The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance is an outstanding collection of specially written essays that charts the emergence, development, and diversity of African American Theatre and Performance-from the nineteenth-century African Grove Theatre to Afrofuturism. Alongside chapters from scholars are contributions from theatre makers, including producers, theatre managers, choreographers, directors, designers, and critics. This ambitious Companion includes: A "Timeline of African American theatre and performance." Part I "Seeing ourselves onstage" explores the important experience of Black theatrical self-representation. Analyses of diverse topics including historical dramas, Broadway musicals, and experimental theatre allow readers to discover expansive articulations of Blackness. Part II "Institution building" highlights institutions that have nurtured Black people both on stage and behind the scenes. Topics include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), festivals, and black actor training. Part III "Theatre and social change" surveys key moments when Black people harnessed the power of theatre to affirm community realities and posit new representations for themselves and the nation as a whole. Topics include Du Bois and African Muslims, women of the Black Arts Movement, Afro-Latinx theatre, youth theatre, and operatic sustenance for an Afro future. Part IV "Expanding the traditional stage" examines Black performance traditions that privilege Black worldviews, sense-making, rituals, and innovation in everyday life. This section explores performances that prefer the space of the kitchen, classroom, club, or field. This book engages a wide audience of scholars, students, and theatre practitioners with its unprecedented breadth. More than anything, these invaluable insights not only offer a window onto the processes of producing work, but also the labour and economic issues that have shaped and enabled African American theatre.

Urban Sensographies views the human body as a highly nuanced sensor to explore how various performance-based methods can be implemented to gather usable 'felt data' about the environment of the city as the basis for creating embodied mappings. The contributors to this fascinating volume seek to draw conclusions about the constitution, character and morphology of urban space as public, habitable and sustainable by monitoring the reactions of the human body as a form of urban sensor. This co-authored book is centrally concerned, as a symptom of the degree to which cities are evolving in the 21st century, to examine the effects of this change on the practices and behaviours of urban dwellers. This takes into account such factors as: defensible, retail and consumer space; legacies of modernist design in the built environment; the effects of surveillance technologies, motorised traffic and smart phone use; the integration of 'wild' as well as 'domesticated' nature in urban planning and living; and the effects of urban pollution on the earth's climate. Drawing on three years of funded practical research carried out by a multi-medial team of researchers and artists, this book analyses the presence and movement of the human body in urban space, which is essential reading for academics and practitioners in the fields of dance, film, visual art, sound technology, digital media and performance studies.

When a musician dies, it is rarely the end of their story. While death can propel megastars to even further success, artists overlooked in their lifetime might also find a new type of fame. But a badly timed move or the wrong deal can see the artist die all over again. Colonel Tom Parker, the former carnival huckster, understood this high-wire act implicitly and the posthumous career of Elvis Presley has provided a template for everyone else. Estates have two jobs: keeping the artist's name alive and ensuring they continue to make money. These can sometimes be compatible goals, but often they spark a tension that is unique in the music business. Drawing on interviews with those running music estates as well as music lawyers, record company executives and archivists, Leaving the Building reveals how the music industry is constantly striving to perfect the business of death.

This book addresses the need to rethink the concept and enactment of professionalism in music, and how such concepts underpin professional higher music education. There is an urgent imperative to enable the potential of professional musicians in our contemporary societies to be more fully realised, recognising both intense challenges that are currently threatening some traditional music practices, and significant scope for new practices to be imagined in response to deep veins of societal need. Professionalism encompasses the conduct, aims, values, responsibilities and ongoing development of a practising professional in the field. Professional higher music education engages both with providing future professionals with relevant education in particular craft skills, and with nurturing their visions for their work as artists in future societies. The major focus of the book is on performance traditions that have dominated professional higher education, notably western classical music.

This book is an investigation into church music through the lens of performance theory, both as a discipline and as a theoretical framework. Scholars who address religious music making in general, and Christian church music in particular, use "performance" in a variety of ways, creating confusion around the term. A systematized performance vocabulary for the study of church music can support interdisciplinary investigations of Christian congregational music making in today's complex, interconnected world. From the perspective of performance theory, all those involved in church musicking are performing, be it from platform or pew. The book employs a hybrid methodology that combines ethnographic research and theory from ritual studies, ethnomusicology, theology, and church music scholarship to establish performance studies as a possible "next step" in church music studies. It demonstrates the feasibility of studying church music as performance by analyzing ethnographic case studies using a developmental framework based on the concepts of ritual, embodiment, and play/change. This book offers a fresh perspective on Christian congregational music making. It will, therefore, be a key reference work for scholars working in Congregational Music Studies, Ethnomusicology, Ritual Studies and Performance Studies, as well as practitioners interested in examining their own church music practices.