Craft and Business of Songwriting 3rd Edition (Craft & Business of Songwriting) for $10.71

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If you're keen to get into the game of songwriting, it's a good book to read. It tries to provide details about the entire process involved in songwriting - from idea generation to marketing your songs. However, like any one book that tries to cover all bases in a very large and complex undertaking like the songwriting business it ends up lacking in detail in every area. Lots of topics are summarily treated, especially areas on writing lyrics and composing melodies.

The plus to the book are that it's got lots of great insights into the music business and is very matter of fact and brutally honest about the music industry and how it works and that helps in dispelling any rosy myths one might have when thinking of getting into it. That pushes you to realistically assess your talents and work harder to step up your game or decide if this career is one you really want to get into.

My advice though is that this one book will not be enough if you really want to learn everything you need to know about songwriting, especially the musical aspects of composing and writing great lyrics.

Some other books I found very very helpful as a companion to this were:

Shortcuts to Hit songwriting - Robin Frederick

My review for this book is functionally the same as my review for another book "6 steps to Songwriting Success" by Jason Blume.

Essentially both books try to do the same thing, but in my opinion this one does a better job, and that's the reason I gave it 4 stars and gave the other 3 stars. If you're evaluating the two books and have cash for only one, go for this one instead.

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Piano Adventures Performance Book, Level 2A (Faber Piano Adventures®) for $5.02

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This is the series our Britsh-based piano teacher recommended. Our three children have used it and continue to progress with it. I'd like to see more theory practices and minuets for finger fluidity. However, this is not a book to be used for self-teaching.
The series is divided into 1) theory and practice, 2) performance for songs.

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Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life: A Book by and for the Fanatics Among Us

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I picked up "Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life" after hearing author Steve Almond on some NPR show giving a hilarious interview about the lifespan of, in his words, a rock and rolling "drooling fanatic," and how one becomes one, lives as one, and eventually writes about being one. The salient points of the interview readily established him as a man roughly my age (likely younger) and his on-air self profile rang eerily close to my own musical maniac ism. Indeed, he was a fellow traveller! I had to have this book.

Which makes it hard to recommend it to anyone but a middle aged fellow traveller. On a personal scale, I give it 5 stars, but for those for whom musical hero worship is utterly alien, "Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life" is more a 3 star book, so I rate it 4 to split the difference. Almond's musical journey is intensely personal and oft-times extremely snarky (and even for a lefty like me, the constant Bush-slaps got in the way when they should have been edited away).

His snark occasionally turns back on himself, and that gives the book a few of its best moments. His exegesis on why Toto's "Africa" is genius is a riot, and the secret confession of being a Styx addict and loving "Paradise Theater" in spite of his older brother is almost worth the price of the book. On the other hand, Almond falls into the trap most rock writers fall into, and that is believing your favorite obscurity is Godhead.

In this case, the object of his desires is one Bob Schneider, a Texas singer songwriter. Almond takes this to an extreme, tracking the man down at his home and engaging him in a sadly painful dialogue, revealing another pitfall of artist worship, when your idols break your heart. Sadder still, they break your heart because you've jammed them into a corner that they can never work out of. I actually felt sorry for both Schneider and Almond by the end of the chapter. (And just as geekifically, I promptly went out and bought Schneider's "Lonely Creatures" after. Very Sneaky, Mr Almond.)

Which underlies the attraction and distraction of "Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life." Unless you're the kind of "DF" who would be naturally stoked to find out what Bob Schneider (or Joe Henry, Aimee Mann, Nil Lara and a series of other artists Almond is hot for) does to merit such magnificent praise in this book, you might wonder what the commotion is all about. Not me. Because as Almond himself accurately predicted, as soon as I saw the words "free CD" in the introduction, I put the book down and hit his website as fast as I could. Because I am that kind of person.

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Critical Listening Skills for Audio Professionals Book/CD for $30.49

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This book/cd is amazing. With specific exercises to help you identify frequency ranges, shelving and hi/lo pass filters, thd and lots more. College level work book and exercises to get you thinking about your audio from a solid foundation.
I wish I'd found this book 15 years ago! Excellent. Highly recommended to anyone looking to get into recording/audio as a hobby or career.

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Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video, Second Edition for $7.00

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This book should have been a required text book for school (in any film production course)! I really could have used this when we shot our student short film (,000 budget) on Super 16 film; the whole experience itself was a great learning experience, but if I had this book for support, I would have felt more comfortable on what I needed to do and to expect from other crew members.

This book breaks down everything in detail from start to finish; getting the idea, budget (has humor about catering of not just offering pizza because it would end up being a "pizza film" and definitely have salad -- very true! need to keep the crew happy), getting crew members, what each crew member specifically needs to do, figuring out the whole production and style of the film, the audio, workflow, etc. It's organized and it has samples, templates, some black and white pictures, and many great advices/quotes.

The book may be a little too overwhelming to a total beginner -- there is a lot of information -- but if filmmaking is your passion, you'll love it. For me, it is currently the Bible of how to make films.

It's imperative to have good teamwork and communication in filmmaking; even if you're not going to be the director/producer, it's very beneficial to know what every department does.

It's definitely a must have for students planning on making a film. It's more guidance than my professors ever really explained in my years of taking film classes (sad, but true).

I don't know if this was a mistake, but I was a little confused here:
on page XIX, it says "(see Figure 1.1 for producer's responsibilities)" but I don't see any other 1.1 figure besides on page 4 of "two hungry diners, from The Lunch Date."



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The Film Director Prepares: A Practical Guide to Directing for Film and TV for $12.66

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If you've never directed a film before or need to brush up on your technique, The Film Director Prepares will provide you with the confidence that it can be done. Myrl A. Schreibman is a veteran in the field, and the experience he shares can be summed up as 'directing is an intuitive and creative process'. The only bizarre characteristic of this book is that Myrl A. Schreibman advises against relying heavily on storyboards when directing, and yet the book includes a storyboard software.

In a nutshell, this is essential reading. As a new director who is in the process of directing my first feature film 'Six Lovers' - [...] - Myrl A. Schreibman's book is guiding me through the process. I also teach scriptwriting and script adaptation at university and now make reference to this book when advising my postgraduate students on the relationship between script writing, storyboards and directing.

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Theatre Histories: An Introduction for $108.58

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An amazing theatre textbook. It covered a wide range and was set up chronologically rather than by culture, which made more sense to me than any other theatre history text I've used. It also covered cultures and types of theatre that I had never heard of before, rather than focusing on Western cultures. The writing style was approachable and held my interest easily. There were many photos, drawings, and diagrams, which all served to augment the reading.

I highly recommend it. Especially because it is an entertaining textbook while still being vastly informative.

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