Showing titles in Instruction & Technique

Time is short. Ridiculously short. As songwriters, there are a million things that try to take us away from our precious time doing what we love doing - the beautiful craft of songwriting. The Organized Songwriter: How to Create Space to Write Your Best Songs offers fresh insights to help you be more productive. Just like a pro. Ultimately do you worry that life is moving way too fast for you to make the impact as the songwriter you are called to be? In The Organized Songwriter, award-winning songwriter Simon Hawkins gives you solutions to these issues and more.

A Framework for Jazz Mastery is a wealth of information from one of the great modern jazz piano voices, Richie Beirach. Richie lays out in the first of three sections ten essential tips for becoming the jazz player you have the full potential to become. His tips include how to develop the necessary technique, the value in transcribing solos and how to best use them, how to learn a tune, reharmonization, composition, and more.

The concept of work-life balance is anything but foreign in today's hyperconnected society. But what if finding the elusive balance lies not in tuning out but instead bringing one more key element into our lives? In his new book The Habit of Noticing: Using Creativity to Make a Life (and a Living), Austin-based singer-songwriter Darden Smith says the secret lies in embracing and using your creativity every day.

Larry S. Sherman, a neuroscientist and lifelong musician, and Dennis Plies, a professional musician and teacher, collaborate to show how our brains and music work in harmony. They consider music in all the ways we encounter it—teaching, learning, practicing, listening, composing, improvising, and performing—in terms of neuroscience as well as music pedagogy, showing how the brain functions and even changes in the process. Every Brain Needs Music draws on leading behavioral, cellular, and molecular neuroscience research as well as surveys of more than a hundred musical people.

Renowned master voice teacher Mary Setrakian is an inspirational and respected vocal coach to Oscar, Grammy, and Emmy Award-winning artists, Broadway stars, as well as singers, actors, and music lovers around the world who simply love to sing. The Mary Setrakian Method not only unlocks the potential of the voice, but also frees the human spirit.

In 1968, Vashti Bunyan gave up everything and everybody she knew in London to take to the road with a horse, wagon, dog, guitar and her then partner. They made the long journey up to the Outer Hebrides in an odyssey of discovery and heartbreak, full of the joy of freedom and the trudge of everyday reality, sleeping in the woods, fighting freezing winters and homelessness. Along the way, Vashti wrote the songs that would lead to the recording of her 1970s album Just Another Diamond Day.

Whether you’re a bathroom singer who’s happy to sing to bath fittings or someone who’d like to woo millions with your voice, you can sound your best if you know the right tricks. And no, singing is not just about having the right voice texture; it’s also about knowing what and how to sing. Armed with some practical strategies and the fire to find your own voice, you can unearth your unique voice and create magic with it.

Music, Lyrics, and Life is the songwriting class you always wish you'd taken, taught by the professor you always wish you'd had. It's a deep dive into the heart of questions asked by songwriters of all levels, from how to begin journaling to when you know that a song is finished. With humor and empathy, acclaimed singer-songwriter Mike Errico unravels both the mystery of songwriting and the logistics of life as a songwriter.

If you want to learn how to play the electric guitar, then get this step-by-step How to Play Electric Guitar guide.

Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life—even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last be- coming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology...

Think about your career as a writer...How would you want to put out great songs out there, without having to hire a writer and still remain satisfied with the results? How would you help them recognize bad decisions so they could prevent the same choices in the future? What would you do if your songs didn't have this unique touch? This book can provide you with the tools to change all of that and give you a positive outlook on writing good songs in a short delay.

Dive into the songwriting, musicianship, and production of some of the most influential popular music ever created. Kenneth Womack and Scott Freiman provide accessible, close readings of each song – based on cutting-edge Beatles research – and tackle hard-hitting questions: What were the song's origins, and how was it written? How was the song transformed in the studio? What instruments were used and how did that impact the song's arrangement?

You're about to discover how to craft great songs packed full of meaning. You'll learn how to stay focused, be productive, and get over writer's block. They'll be little exercises throughout that will challenge your ear, creativity and artistry.

It's Not Just A Song by GRAMMY and BRIT nominated Irish singer-songwriter RuthAnne Cunningham is the must-have guide to writing hit songs. RuthAnne explores the psychology of the writing room, building relationships, production, what makes a good (or bad) deal, royalties and revenue, and the art of staying inspired. Her experience navigating the traditional music industry "Boy's Club" offers young female artists, in particular, some invaluable tools to get a step ahead in their early career and be wary of the hidden pitfalls.

Whether you’re a student, hobbyist, or professional musician, String Theories provides a framework for lifelong growth on the guitar. This is a book you'll return to year after year as you evolve as a musician.

From movie and TV themes to video game soundscapes, this Piano by Ear box set will teach you how to play some of the most recognizable modern songs out there. There are also a couple of Singer Pro arrangements, where you learn the actual piano part the artist played on their original recording. This way, you can accompany a singer or lead instrument with the original piano accompaniment! You will learn all of these songs “by ear”, without the use of video or print.

Whether you're just starting out as a songwriter, you're an experienced songwriter or just looking for a new perspective on the beautiful craft of songwriting, Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics offers fresh insights to help you write your very best lyrics. In Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics, I deliver simple, logical, well-defined solutions to these issues and more: I give you seven well-developed professional templates for you to bring your lyrics to life.

Imagine having a song stuck in your head…that you want to compose…but you can’t, because you don’t know what to put on paper.... We understand that when it comes to following rules, guitarists are the first ones to rebel.... They think learning music theory will stifle their creativity. However, it is further from the truth. Understanding the vocabulary of music will help you articulate your musical ideas, improve your improvisation skills, and even land you high paying gigs.

This second edition of Rock the Dancefloor! is the essential one-stop handbook for new and experienced DJs. Completely updated with the latest developments in DJing and expanded with new chapters on sourcing and organising your music, using subscription services and creating DJ mixes, its proven five-step formula covers everything from getting your gear together to DJing success.

Ear training is one of the most rewarding skills you can develop, and it’s one that you can work on every day. Which makes total sense: Music is an aural experience, after all. Ear training helps you turn the music you hear into music you make on your guitar. This works for your own musical ideas, too: When you dream up a great riff or chord progression, you naturally want to sit down and play it right away. Ear training helps you do just that.