Writing Instruments Books

This book should be called "How to turn chords into chord progressions" because that's pretty much all there is. As a reference book it's pretty decent, but working through the whole book is a tedious process. Also there is no index in the back which makes it har do look up specific subjects.
As a whole, this book promises more than it delivers.

I've been playing guitar forever, and writing songs for years, but like most other writers I get stuck in ruts from time to time. Now, whenever I need some new ideas, whether an entire song, a verse, a chorus, a bridge, or a lift, I just look through this book. Even a basic I-IV-V can be made more interesting by advancing or delaying a change. I also like that he relates the CD examples to particular musical styles, which provides a good template for writing to that style.

As with Rooksby's other books, the material is presented with great clarity and is well edited. A songwriter could do a lot worse than build a library of his books.

man, this book has really really come in handy for me, expeically early chapter, good thing i have this. some of the think in here i have never seen or heard on the internet before, this book seems rare with its information.

I have over last two years developed into a real fan of Rikky's books. This one really surprised me for progressive depth in the structure of each chapter. Each chapter builds on the next. And sandwiched between the 'tips' are these gems of compositions that helps broaden and deepen the constructive elements of songwriting. The book is focused more on chord progression in songs and then the composition of the song's components, verse, chorus, bridge, etc. The great surprise, and I think, and real beauty of the book is the way he uses the CD with the last chapter. He records 12 or so songs, and then in that chapter, he breaks them down in to their component structure, and tells you why he made the choices he did. A really GREAT book. Worth the price!

This book taught me so much about songwriting, it's scary. I'm not a novice, either! It teaches you about chord theory better than any other book I've read.

This is a wonderful book. The writer knows the era and the songs inside and out. His analysis is incisive, thorough, and original. He is always fair. He comes up with some insights that will make you look at the music and the songwriters with fresh eyes and ears.

this is very well-researched and written. The author must have spent a long time on this book. This is a great reference book and you'll find that you use it much more often then you think.

This was a nice clean book in really good condition...just as advertised. I am pleased with it's condition and with the speedy delivery.

Collaboratively compiled and written by Tiffany experts and appraisers George A. Kemeny and Donald Miller, Tiffany Desk Treasures: A Collector's Guide is an informed and informative history of the wealthy American artist Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) and his especially crafted desk sets, as produced by Tiffany Studios and Tiffany Furnaces between the late 1890s and 1933. Full-color photographs showcase memorable works of art, while the "reader friendly" text accessibly describes the pieces' histories and subtle nuances of their creations. A superbly organized and presented history for Tiffany antique collectors (it also includes a Catalogue Raisonne of Tiffany Studies and Tiffany Furnaces Desk Accessories), as well as a gorgeous book for connoisseurs of fine art to simply page through, Tiffany Desk Treasures is far more inexpensive than (and the next best thing to) owning a personal Tiffany collection.

Highly recommend this book. Not only did it help my junior, I even learned alot in reviewing it.

Also, highly recommend the AIMS Math Book by Ed Anderson.

"Busoni and the piano" is the sort of title a Busoni fan would fall for, especially if he or she is a pianist. So I did. But aside from the hunger of specific Busoni-piano related subjects and details, I found that the author of this book is an interpreter of Busoni's personality, writing as if Busoni had been an old friend or relative of his. I must say that a lot of what Sitsky says is very inspiring, and I am grateful that many words have been spent on Busoni "and" the piano, rather than Busoni "at" the piano or Busoni' work as a transcriber, etc. It is quite obvious that Busoni carries along a hidden, almost esoteric quality and there is also a great deal af collective memory of past artistic treasures and styles in his complex musical style and idiom. Busoni can strike for his classical (in the Greek-Roman sense) redondances as well as for his modernisms, but the all-embracing knowledge that underlies his creative work is something that can certainly make a change in the artistic and aesthetic sensitivities of those that love and understand his music. It appears that Sitsky does understand it in an authoritative manner, conveying also the humanistic nature of the composer. I wish Sitsky had gome more into that mysterious realm of Busoni's aesthetics, I don mean what was written in the well known writings, but rather what was "said", or "stated" in his sound world. Maybe he will, and I will be an enthusiastic admirer of his new work. "Busoni and the Piano" can also serve as a fairly detailed catalogue of Busoni's piano works. Maybe an updated edition of it could present new recordings of Busoni's music, why not? Carlo Grante

This extraordinary book makes startling, illuminating, and elegant connections between what seem to be unrelated events and objects, and thereby shifts how we can understand changes in media from the mid nineteenth century into the present. It is beautifully written, and witty and erudite besides.

Gitelman has a great ability to synthesize without reducing complexity. Instead she encompasses disregarded aspects of a situation to open up unexpected connections. I loved the way connections she makes open up whole different ways of seeing things. So her examination of shorthand as a precursor to the phonograph allows us to understand the phonograph as Edison did, as a machine for writing and reading. Then she goes on to convincingly links this shorthand/phonograph discussion to larger and still current issues of standardization, both of technical devices and operating systems, and of spelling.

Other connections go further. The final section of the book, "Coda: The (Hyper)textualization of Everyday Life," for example, critiques the dominant accounts of hypertext and reading and writing associated with computing for ignoring a "prehistory of computing" beyond calculating devices. She suggests including the elaborate search and retrieval architecture of the New York Public Library or the "integrated structure and semiotics of Grand Central Station...with its routes and signals for trains, its routes and signals for passengers, and the tiny spiral staircase that connects an information booth on one level (suburban transit) with an information booth on the other (interurban)." Gitelman thinks both largely and in meticulously informed detail about important issues that are embedded in our everyday lives, the media we use, and in history. This book is an eyeopener and a lively read.

This book on orchestration is very well done. I have gone to it many times. It has some unique touches in the book in regards to suggestions to beginning composers that help get the imagination going. It is unique in other areas such as how long can a certain player hold a note for a given instrument. Gives an insight into the amount of breath that the instrument requires. Has special techniques for each instrument as well. Warns you of using them that will damage an instrument or that are difficult technically. Full of hints like this. Also gets into notational issues where needed. Its a good thorough book written by someone who has been in the orchestra his entire adult life as a composer, conductor and primarily a principle violinist. Recommend it.

I borrowed this from my son's school library and just had to have a copy for our family. I'm a wanna-be author and found this book utterly captivating. I hope that my son and daughter will catch my fervor for writing, with the aid of tools like this wonderful little book.

This books goes beyond the didactic and gets hands-on. You can actually make your own paper! It's a beautiful way to engage children in the world of writing and making books.

this book is absolute garbage. the author has no concept of history and completely disregards the archaeological and historical record. If you you want to know more about ancient history, go to the experts. heck, even Livy is better than this guy!

Looking through this book reminded me of the movie "A Beautiful Mind". A brilliant mathematician constructs a fantasy world complete in every detail. The only problem is that it doesn't exist, and that he's as mad as a hatter.

Just two examples of the many "possibilities" suggested by our schizoid author:

(1) The Biblical flood and the Trojan War were the same event because Noah was Aeneas, who fled Troy to found Rome. (Noah and Aeneas had names that sound alike. Thus it is proven.)

(2) Nine kings fled the fall of the Tower of Babel and seven kings founded Rome. Therefore, Rome was founded by the kings who fled the fall of the Tower of Babel. (In the author's words, the Biblical figure of nine is "close enough" to the Roman figure of seven.)

Need I go on?

The professional historians faint as prominent mathematician Doctor Fomenko et al research the known historical data and come to fairly controversial conclusions.

For example, the English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. As the sign of recognition of the special role of the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Russian historians brand it as pseudoscience because Dr Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by over two centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called `Tartars and Mongols' were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a trilingual state and aspiring Global Empire with Arabic and Turkic spoken as freely as Russian.

The ancient proto-Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities and the hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called `blood tax'). Their `invasions' were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion.

Fomenko proves for a fact that official Russian history is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scholars brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs. Their ascension to the throne was the result of conspiracy, so they charged these German historians-imports with the noble mission of making Romanov's reign look legitimate.

Dr Fomenko et al prove Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. These rulers represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate Godounovs and the ambitious Romanov upstarts.

The European historians fume not only because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History but for asserting that all medieval European Kings and Princes were but breakaway vice-regents and vassals of the Global Empire who badly needed glorious and very `ancient' past in order to legitimize their new independence from the Empire.

Dr Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one: the Ancient Rome: the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the 14th century A. D., the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, the Ancient Egypt: the pyramids of Giza become dated to the 11th to 14th century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global Empire, no less.

The civilization of the `ancient'' Egypt is irrefutably dated to the 11th to 15th century A. D. following the breakthrough in decoding of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone and painted on the temple walls.

Arabic historians may find some consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire as a part of the Global empire in the 15th - 17th century. The trouble is that this Empire was initially a proto-Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, but built in 1550-1557 A.D. by Sultan Suleiman according to Fomenko and Islam with all its key figures is datable to 15th 16th century A. D.!

The Chinese historians are also an unhappy lot because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such history. Period. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the 17th 18th century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation.

The Divinity excommunicates Dr Fomenko because the history of religions according to Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the 11th century and Jesus Christ ), Bacchic Christianity (11th to 12th century, before and after Jesus Christ), Jesus Christ Christianity (12th to 14th century) and its subsequent mutations (15th to 17th cy) into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on..; and The Old Testament written after the New Testament in xiv-xvi cy A.D., if you please! Everybody served? Saint Augustine was quite prescient when he said: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RAZQNMXM4M9CL Has history been tampered with? Yes, it has! Did events and eras such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire , the Dark Ages, and the Renaissance, actually occur within a very different chronology from what we've been told? Yes, they certainly did!

The history of humankind is both drastically shorter and dramatically different than generally presumed.

Why is it so? On one hand, it was usual custom to justify the claims to title and land by age and ancestry, and on the other the court historians knew only too well how to please their masters. The so called universal classic world history is a pack of intricate lies for all events prior to the 16th century. World history as we learn it today was entirely fabricated in the 16th-18th centuries. It's likely that nobody told you before, but

there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artefact that is reliably and independently dated prior to the 11th century.

Naturally, after what you've learned in school and university, you will not easily believe that the classical history of ancient Rome, Greece, Asia, Egypt, China, Japan, India, etc., is manifestly false.

You will point accusing finger to the pyramids in Egypt, to the Coliseum in Rome and Great Wall of China etc., and claim, aren't they really ancient, thousands of years ancient? Well, there is no valid scientific proof that they are older than 1000 years!

The oldest original written document that can be reliably dated belongs to the 11th century!

New research asserts that Homo sapiens invented writing (including hieroglyphics) only 1000 years ago. Once invented, writing skills were immediately and irreversibly put to the use of ruling powers and science.

The consensual chronology we live with was essentially crafted in the 16th century by the Jesuits.

The world history was compiled from contradictory mix of innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts and other irrefutable proofs delivered by late mediaeval astronomers that were cemented by the authority of writings of the Church Fathers.

Early in life, we learn about ancient history. Children love the magical lessons of history - they are like fairy tales. Teachers recite breathtaking stories; very soon We learn by heart the names and deeds of brave warriors, wise philosophers, fabulous pharaohs, cunning high priests and greedy scribes.

We learn of gigantic pyramids and sinister castles, kings and queens, dukes and barons, powerful heroes and beautiful ladies, emaciated saints and low-life traitors.

Ancient history is based documents, manuscripts, printed books, paintings, monuments and artefacts - called primary sources.

The problem is that neither these ancient documents, nor events described therein can be irrefutably dated, moreover they contradict each other for the most part.

When a school textbook tells us that Genghis Khan in year X or Alexander in year Y, have each conquered half of the world, it means only that it is so said in some of the written sources.

There are no answers to simple questions:

When were these primary sources written?

Where and by whom were these sources found?

It is wrongly presumed that ancient and medieval chronicles, written by Genghis Khan's or Alexander the Great contemporaries and eyewitnesses, are readily available. Actually, only sources written hundreds or even thousands of years after the events are there, compiled mostly in the 16th 18th centuries, or even later.

As a rule, these sources suffered considerable multiple manipulations, falsifications and distortions by editing. At the same time,

innumerable originals of ancient documents under various pretexts were destroyed in Europe under various pretexts.

The names of persons and geographical sites often changed meaning and location during the course of the centuries.

Geographical locations became clearly defined on maps only with the advent of printing.

This made possible the circulation of identical copies of the same map for purposes of the military, navigation, education and governance tasks.

Historians from Oxford say: "hey, everybody knows that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C.

`Julius Caesar' statement is only a point of view as

there is simply no irrefutable documentary proof that Julius Caesar or any other great name of antiquity ever existed.

Better than that - extremely rare sources that can be reliably dated back to the 10th-14th centuries A D, do not show the polished picture of classical history.

They show a picture both contradictory and confusing.

All methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts are erroneous:

Radio-carbon C14 method produces dating with exactitude of plus minus 1500 years, therefore it is too crude for dating of events in historical timeframe!

The Almagest tractate, which lies as corner stone contemporary chronology, compiled in the 2nd century A D by Ptolemy, the founding father of astronomy, contains astronomical data of 9th to 16th century!

The Bronze Age,that has supposedly began 5000 years ago. Bronze is made of 90% copper and 10% tin, but the technology for tin extraction dates back to 14th century A D!.

All eclipses contained in manuscripts, like Thucydides one, relating 'ancient' events have exclusively medieval dating. All horoscopes cut in stone or painted in Egyptian temples, like Dendera have exclusively early medieval dating solutions.

Not quite what you have learned in school? Open your eyes, and, you will find sufficient proof to reach step by step the inevitable conclusion that the classical chronology is false and therefore, that the history of ancient and medieval world universally accepted today, is also false. Have a fresh outlook on everything said or printed about "ancient" and "enigmatic" Roman, Greek and Egyptian, medieval as well as all other "lost and found" civilizations.

Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th and polished in 19th 20thcenturies. Human civilization is in fact barely 1000 years old!

This book will change your perception of History forever!
What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
Sounds Unbelievable?
Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

This work takes you WAY beyond the techniques of songwriting and qualifies more as the be-all, end-all work for guitar I have ever seen. Starting with the musical basics, this book covers evey aspect of guitar. It's a solid must have for anyone who ever even thought about picking up the instrument. Written in clear terms, the work covers tricks and tips that have taken me over fifty years to discover and master. Better than having a know-it-all best friend to coach your every move. If your serious about guitar and you don't own this book,...well, good luck!

chord progressions, rhythms, melodies, lyrics are covered. A great resource for chord progressions. would like more thoughts covered on melodies. I am a novice guirtarist and this is perfect.

Very detailed book about every aspect. Tons of examples and chord diagrams. Just get it!

I checked this book out of the library so many times that I finally decided to buy it. The chord progressions and examples are what make this book great, and they apply to all types of musical instruments. I use this book to compose on the computer, then sequence the songs into synthesizers.

As for the negative reviews, my guess is that they don't understand what a chord progression is. But if you do, and especially if you've ever gotten stuck as a songwriter, get this book.

A lot of technical issues covered. The outstanding thing about this book (& by outstanding I mean the thing that stands out, not the thing that is excellent) is that the author wants to tell you every song that fits into each and every category that he mentions. Example: for the chord sequence I, IV, VI, V there are ten examples in contemporay music and He wants to name each and every one of them, then he will do the same thing for chord sequence I, VI, IV, V. Etcetera ad nauseum! This is a thin book; It could be a lot thinner and convey the same amount of (interesting) information.