Instruments Books

The item is great, but I paid for overnight delivery and didn't get it until a couple days later. Although I was refunded for the amount I paid for overnight, the problem was I needed it and so I ended up paying to have the music downloaded from musicnotes.com site. Thanks, Karen

I bought this book for my daughter after she unwillingly returned her borrowed copy to the library. If you love the music of "Hairspray", you won't regret adding this to your collection of piano music.

Bought this for my daughter for the vocal and she loved it. Has all the best songs and nice for even a casual vocalist!

As the saying goes, seen the movie, got the T shirt and now have a book of the sheet music. It's fab. I could not wait to play the music from the movie, that I just adore, and from the CD that I have on constantly in the car, and I was not disappointed. Twelve great songs that are really quite easy to play, lyrics too, to sing a long with. If you loved the music from the movie, and you are itching to recreate it a 'tad' from the comfort of your own home, you will love this book.

The vocal selections from HAIRSPRAY is an example of how vocal selections SHOULD be done. In fact, it's more than "selections": it's the whole damn score! (See my review of the vocal selections from LI'L ABNER for the other end of the spectrum.) And what a brilliant score it is, too. It's the finest musical score since the 60s, before rock operas invaded us. No Andrew Lloyd Webber-type one-hit score this: Every song is a gem. I haven't encountered that since GYPSY and WEST SIDE STORY. Some of this is probably too difficult for the average pianist...but it beats those made-easy folios that offer little in the way of flavor. I'm thrilled by the score and by this folio. VERY highly recommended!

Having now purchased both the Broadway and Movie songbooks for this musical, the movie version is more complete and therefore longer than the stage equivalent. There are still songs missing, however, such as "Big Dolls House". It is an opportunity missed by the publishers to include not only all the new material written for the film but to add in those songs missed out from the Broadway songbook. Here the arrangements are somewhat different and some keys changed. A very good songbook, though, of a terrific musical, and most definately recommended.

Being a musician, I wanted the most thourough piano arrangements I could find for this soundtrack. This book is a complete re-tooling of the broadway selections with several benifits, including EVERY song on the motion picture soundtrack and even EVERY INDIVIDUAL NOTE on the soundtrack CD! I love this is places where it was different from the broadway version, especially the new ending on "You Can't Stop The Beat" and the short extensions made in "Welcome To The 60's."

Most of these arrangements are very advanced, which works for me because they sound wonderful! Many incorporate the melody into the right hand, but it can be easily removed if you're just looking for accompniments to sing with.

Worth it!

This songbook contains a full 172 pages of sheet music, representing not only every single song on the Hairspray Soundtrack, but every single measure of each song. From what I can tell, there are NO cuts, no trimmed sections, no simplified keys... all of which sets this book apart from other Movie songbooks.

The book is written in Piano/Vocal format, with the piano doubling the melody for most sections of the book. The arrangers made sure, however, to include enough accompaniment so the songs stay true to the cd. There are guitar chords above the staff which are often helpful as well.

Another major feature of the book- all the songs include the relevant harmonies and vocal parts to supplement the melody if you have other singers available as you play the songs.

The arrangements are appropriately challenging at first glance, but seem to be playable enough as you try them a few times.

Even though I already own the great Piano/Vocal Selections of the Broadway Show, I don't mind saying this book is the better and more complete version in my opinion.

As an aspiring luthier this book encourages the explration of traditional as well as new and non traditional design..Nice to see what others are doing.

The first thing you notice is the elegant, artistic layout and spectacular photographs. Then you start to read a little here and there, soon finding that there is great research and writing to support the guitars. Although it is the sort of book that you usually flip through and read casually, I was so fascinated by the history and the philosophies of the guitar makers, I started reading every page from the beginning! It gives you a taste and makes you want to visit the shops and talk to the luthiers. I started fantasizing a road trip going from shop to shop, talking, playing, wishing I could buy... This is not a simple coffee table picture book - it is a beautiful celebration of guitars and their makers.

If you dig high-end guitars, this is a great book. Nice photos, and all contact info. Well worth it for the price. Surprised there wasn't a hard cover copy, but recommended.

This is an extraordinary book! More than 300 handcrafted guitars are discussed. Each guitar profile is at least a full page in length with museum quality photographs. The detail is fabulous! The building components for each and every guitar are listed. There is a bio on each craftsperson, including their building philosophy and desired outcome.

This book has been done with exquisite taste. High gloss pages, great typography and a full list of contributing luthier's websites. Guitars reviewed include acoustic, archtops, bass, electric, harp, electric bass, double necks, classical, flamenco, and some that honestly can't be categorized.

If you are a luthier, a want-to-be luthier or a player who is curious about the art and craft of guitar building, this fascinating testament of contemporary guitars will delight you for hours on end.

I have not perused the section on historical instruments in depth, so none of my comments apply to it. However, the section regarding modern instruments impresses me continuously each time I open the book to look for references. I am a bass trombone player as well as a composer, and although the section on the trombone is rather brief (although accurate enough; and the listing of trombone family members, i.e. soprano, alto, tenor, tenor-bass, bass, and various contrabasses, grossly underdeveloped), Everything Else offers unparalleled information for the modern composer or arranger. Particularly useful is the citation of examples in contemporary music of instrumental prominence (where although certain composers are favored, this is perhaps done out of necessity given the slew of living composers today; and Stiller's choices of examples are superlative).
Dr. Stiller may underestimate the availability of certain instruments, however. The market for contrabassoons and contrabass trombones has increased greatly in recent years, and more slightly so for bass and tenor trumpets. As a rule, orchestral principal trombonists almost ALL own alto trombones (in alto clef, overtone series based on the Eb2 fundamental), and as aforementioned, the alto trombone is erroneously omitted from this book.
To create an inpenetrable weapon of scholarship, combine this book with Samuel Adler's "Study of Orchestration" and Kurt Stone's "Music Notation in the Twentieth Century", which is available at NPCimaging.com.

Stiller has created a fabulous reference source for the contemporary composer. He accurately covers information on almost every instrument and gives both detailed information as well as quick chart summaries. He spends a great deal of time dealing with modern and experimental techniques for many instruments, something which is not often dealt with in these kind of volumes. Its easy to use indexing system also makes it a wonderful "quick reference" source for when you might quickly need to know a piece of information like instrumental ranges. In my opinion, this is one of the best books of its kind available today.

unlike other orchestration texts, this states pretty much the facts and just the facts. very handy for impatient young composers or arrangers who just need to read about an instrument and not dig through endless examples of an instrument's usage through the ages (although that's always nice too). the information is quick and easy to find for the most part, but does not skimp in the least on detail. my only disappointment (and this is for an older edition, it may have been corrected since) in is in the slightly skimpy coverage of electronics and electric guitar while instruments like the crumhorn get comparatively massive coverage given their relative modern importance. worth every penny, and then some.

This is simply the best book of its kind I have ever seen. Each family of instruments receives an exhaustive chapter on its features amd capabilities. Impeccably accurate line drawings (with rulers showing the scale) illuminate the text in ways that no photographs could. Precise range charts include extended ranges, with a percentage estimate of how frequently the extended range can be produced, and maximum and minimum dynamics for each portion of the range. Detailed fingering charts for woodwinds are provided, including alternate trill fingerings. The book is oriented strongly to the contemporary composer. All musical examples are from contemporary or late 20th century pieces, and extended techniques receive thorough examination. If I have any complaint at all, and this is quite minor, it is that sometimes the author is rather aggressive in stating instrumental possibilities. The given maximum or minimum ranges are occasionally not universally accepted by all professional players, or the charts showing the maximum reaches for string double-stops include reaches that some players with smaller hands will refuse to execute. These are minor points. In most cases the book clearly distinguishes mainstream practice from advanced or extended practice, and personally I prefer a book that errs on the aggressive side. If you need to know how orchestral instruments work, including a wide array of percussion, look no further. The author rarely mixes opinions or dogma with facts (a rare feature for this kind of book), and when he does he clearly delineates which is which.

This song book has made me feel good because I can play most of it. Double Trouble is fun to play because it also has the lyrics that you can sing with it. Hedwig's Theme is in there with more rhythm and they have Buckbeak's Flight which in my opinion is the best song in this book.

I'm a great Harry Potter fan and I think the soundtrack for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the best of all the Harry Potter series, along with the first one's. I bought the score right away when it came out. It is such a pleasure to discover the score of a piece of music you like and I wanted to know, to see what were the notes I heard in the music ! The music is so beautiful, so inventive, sometimes hard to play but worth the training ! A Winter's Spell doesn't appear in the soundtrack, but you can hear it in the film in the scene at Hogsmeade. My favourites ? I haven't any, they're all great !

I bought this music book a few years ago, and it is (so far) the only Harry Potter music book that I have. While some of the songs are a bit difficult to play, actually hearing what the pieces sound like when a really advanced person plays them is really beautiful. The book has some difficult parts in it, with sharps and flats, but other pieces are easier to play, such as A Window the Past, and A Winters Spell, which isn't really featured in the movie and is not on the soundtrack (in the movie, it where harry knocks down the carrolers in Hogsmead), and the Harry Potter theme (called Hedwigs Theme). The book itself is on good quality paper, but has staples holding the book together instead of the normal music book binding. If you are an intermediate player, then this book will be fun, and a little challenging, but very worth the effort once you can play through the pieces.

This book is a great piano book. The song selection is great, espescially if you have the first to piano books, beacuase it only has one song repeated. My favorite song in the book is Buckbeak's Flight.

The book is very helpful in his drum lessons with his instructor. He's learned a lot using these books.

Harr does a nice job following up book one with this one. With book one having 13 rudiments book two covers the next 13 with challenging solos and exercises. You play from these two books and you have a great start. I feel rudimentally these two books are tops. Great books to teach out of

GREAT!

This is the same book that I learned from as a child and it is still my favorite book to use as a teacher for the rudiments and all the foundational drumming stuff. It is excellent.

That being said, I use the Realistic Rock book by Carmine Appice for teaching the drum set in conjunction with this rudimental base because most drummers want to do more than play the snare drum. Using both books, they get the best of both worlds.

I have had so much fun with this book. I am a long time guitar player and new uke player. This book made the transition easy and a lot of fun. Having a CD to play along with is great. This is the book I would recommend to anyone wanting to play Hawaiian style uke.

This book and CD was well worth the price. The difficulty ranges from easy to intermediate. I love the songs and the singing on the CD. I highly recomend this book and CD.

IMHO, this is more of a repertoire book than a method book. However, the collection of Hawaiian songs of progressive difficulty (beginner to intermediate) is exactly what many folks are looking for after they fall in love with Hawaiian-style ukulele music. I haven't found anything else out there with this many pieces at the beginners' level. The CD is rather enjoyable as well.

Pair this book with a method book (like Hal Leonard's "Play Ukulele Today") or a method DVD (like "Learn to Play the Ukulele with Roy Sakuma") and you should have a very good starter set.

The songs are really beautiful with words to the songs in Hawaiian along with the English translation. The CD is fabulous - very professional and good vocals. This set is perfect if you do not know the Hawaiian songs because after you listen a few times you know the melody and can sing and play along. I'm just so glad I bought this. I am a beginner at ukulele but play a couple of other instruments. I can play a few songs - the slow ones - but I am progressing fast because I just love the music so I play it a lot.

I have been playing for three months. Iam taking lessons and nothing so far has compared to this product. If you want to learn how to play the blues or just the guitar in general, get it! I also would recommend the "Fretboard Logic" by Bill Edwards. Fretboard Logic will teach you how to know exactly where to play in Key without the guess. Both of these products together should advance anyone years beyond the average player.

I really like this blues guitar course, it's really nice how all the parts work together. You start by going through the book, first learning some chordshapes, if you're not fully comfortable with the result from the book, just put in the DVD and watch John show you the example. Then, when you think you got the stuff from the book and dvd nailed, play it along with the cd. The short blues solo's at the end of a few of the chapters sound really good btw. Really nice flow learning this way, and it keeps me interested. I have to say, I only just finished chapter 3, out of 10, and I've been using this course for a few weeks.
Good to know is that this IS the full course, so Level 1 and Level 2 combined, had me doubting for a while, but it's the real deal, 100 pages of tekst, 2 dvd's and 2 cd's. Another great feature that comes with this package is the access to the website of Rockhouse. Loads of info for guitarplayers and a lot of backingtracks, not only for this program, but for all products published by Rockhouse and House of Blues.

Bottom line:

Great product if you want to get started playing blues guitar!

This is actually the HOUSE OF BLUES course 1 & 2 combined.
So far I'm having a blast with just the book & CD's, haven't looked at the included DVD's and the free member access to the internet web site for additional instruction. I personally own five (5) different blues instructionals and this one is the most complete and best by far. As you can tell by now I STRONGLY RECOMMEND BUY THIS ONE. They take you through the basics, how to read tab, how to play the essential scales, and then go into the intermediate and more advanced chords & scales. Again, I'm still looking forward to browse though the 2 included DVD's and their membership web site (free). Great investment & Very well written - Luv it, BUY IT!! As always, THANKS for reading my reviews and be well. The WebbMan

I was a little worried about buying this product because for some reason there are no reviews on it anywhere on the internet - not on amazon, not music123, musicians friend, or guitar center. However after looking at the product descriptions on the sites just mentioned I realized that this dvd/book course is actually the combined courses of two earlier blues dvds, level 1 and level 2, also by house of blues. That makes this a great buy because the original lesson 1 sells for 20 bucks, and this is a combo of 1 and 2 selling for the same exact price!

The teacher, John McCarthy is pretty skilled and easy to learn from. I like the way the lessons progress, they are easy to follow and always interesting. The camera work is good, its always kept so that you can very clearly see what McCarthy is doing. He usually shows things a couple of times slowly and then will do it once or twice at full speed which is nice because you're not constantly rewinding.

One thing that I wasn't expecting to get from this course was a huge library of online backing tracks. Whenever you sign up online you get a couple of extra features such as additional resources that deal with the book (which are fairly minimal, but that's fine, the book has enough in it already), online forums, access to backing tracks and more. My favorite part is the access to backing tracks, which as it turns out you don't just get the backing tracks for this product but every other house of blues, and rock house production as well. That's a whole lot of backing tracks folks, and they can be fairly expensive themselves, so to find a pretty big lot of them for free, I was excited. Note, they aren't all blues tracks, most are going to be rock, and a couple are metal, but still it's a very nice resource to have. They are downloadable as well as streamable, so you can do what you want with them - put them on your ipod, or burn them to a cd.

Anyways, on to my actual playing progress. I've had this for just a couple of days and have learned some pretty cool riffs and some neat soloing techniques as well as some rhythm stuff. I will admit that I'm no where near finishing the course, but if the rest is as good as it has been up to this point its absolutely a great buy, It has made my playing in just a couple days a little more "soulful." At just 20 bucks, its not much of an investment, so I definitely recommend it, if nothing else just the backing tracks make it worth the price of admission.

Wow! This book is so easy to understand! I taught myself by using it at six, and now that my mom wants to learn, I'm getting it again. It gives you all the fundementals of recorder playing, and makes learning easy.

I recalled about 5 years ago feeling the urge to learn another instrument (I play Clarinet so I'm kinda ahead of some of the books concepts). I decided to try the simply made recorder and found this cheap sold by the register in a music store. I pick up on the simple instructions and was playing mid way to all the songs within a day.

Fast foward to a few months later, and I was giving a small group of kids informal music lessons.This group ranged in age from 7 to 11 years old. These kids did not have any music experience. They all voted on playing/learning the recorder, so I had them get this book...2 months later we had a mini recital and some played in a huge group, 2 of them did an awesome duet, and all from the simple laid out instructions of the book. Definitely good for all ages and easy to pick up!

The book's all "Greek" to me, but I'm working on it. I'm 62, my granddaughter is 11, and she's helping me with it. I wanted to exercise my mind and retain control of my arthritic fingers, and thought this might be a worth-while challenge for me. It is.

Wow! This book is so easy to understand! I taught myself by using it at six, and now that my mom wants to learn, I'm getting it again. It gives you all the fundementals of recorder playing, and makes learning easy.

This is a great book for the serious player. I would reccomend it for the player who has been playing the saxophone for minimum 2-3 years. It includes some great songs such as Minas Tirith and Into the West! Overall, its an excellent book!

This is a wonderful score book for violin with piano accompaniment. Inside there is a removable section with just the violin sheet music and it comes with a cd with a demo and back-up music to play along with. I truly recommend this for anyone who plays violin. I enjoy the Lord of the Rings, but I also feel that the music is beautiful on its own.

The best I ever played !! Very easy to play and original the film !!!!

Personally, I have really enjoyed this piano book. The pieces are meant to be accompaniments for instruments such as trumpet or clarinet, but they contain enough of the melody that they can be enjoyed on their own. "Concerning Hobbits" has to be the highlight of this collection. I have been playing piano for four years and am concidered intermediate to late intermediate, and this is exactly my level. If you are not that advanced, you can pick through the melody line written above the music. There are some very neat pictures in this book too. I would reccomend this selection very highly. (I would have given it 4.5 stars, but you can't give half stars.)