Product Description
Whatever your level of experience, the Dance Music Manual is packed with sound advice, techniques and practical examples to help you achieve professional results. Written by a professional producer and remixer, this book offers a comprehensive approach to music production, including knowledge of the tools, equipment and different dance genres.
Get more advice and resources from the books official website, www.dancemusicproduction.com.

* Included in the new edition are sections on recording instruments alongside new chapters covering more dance music genres.
* Examines all aspects of music production, from sound design, compression & effect to mixing & mastering to publishing & promoting, to help you become a better producer.
* The companion CD provides sample and example tracks, demonstrating the techniques used in the book.

Customer Reviews (15)

Good Book
I haven't had enough time to fully delve into this book, but on first inspection, it seems like a winner.It breaks down for you the skeleton of each genre of electronic music and shows you how to program the beats into a sequencer.I'll come back and comment on this after I've had more time to read into this work.

A Great Introduction to EDM Music Production
The Dance Music Manual is required reading for anyone who wants start producing dance music and doesn't know where to start.Snoman attempts to cover several genres and many overarching techniques that could be applied to several genres, so anyone looking for particulars of their genre or specific advanced techniques would probably have better luck elsewhere.

Invaluable informaiton for the serious electronic musician
Being a producer and DJ I'm always trying to keep my skills sharp and competitive. This and the first edition are on my studio desk at all times. If not for accurate and reliable reference material just to flip through and gain a little inspiration from. Thank you Rick. You have no doubt had an effect on my music career.

Must have
I have been producing electronic dance music for over 20 years and this is the best book ever written on the topic. It's comprehensive, well written, well illustrated, and well thought out.

This is a great book for the beginner thru expert, though I think those with intermediate to advanced knowledge will benefit the most. I bought volume 1, 2 and the ebook of this.

Highly highly recommend it.

very helpful
i've read only 2 sections and i must say, this is VERY helpful! i believe everything you need to know is here. its pretty much organized like a textbook but you dont need to read everything to learn what ur looking for. so start with the chapter that most interests you. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (10)

An implausible slog
As in previous volumes, things in this volume "just happen."Perhaps Powell's frequent allusions to myth and legend, both in literature and in art, are intended to elevate his work to the status of contemporary myth.But the mode is realism.Time and again, even more so than in previous volumes, events stain credibility, as the narrative, such as it is, limps along.Powell has absolutely no sense of pace either between or within scenes.Dramatic situations are set up but are allowed to fizzle, often because the narrator interrupts reporting in order to ruminate or to make arcane allusions.There is altogether too much shop talk about literature and art, so much, in fact, as to invite the charge of pedantry.
Having read the first three volumes, I felt obliged to see how everything turned out.Virtually without exception, the deaths or fates of characters are presented in the form of a brusque checklist. "So much for so-and-so."The exception is the demise of Widmerpool, Main Gargoyle amongst many ( the work might have been called "A Convention of Gargoyles" ), which is risible for all the wrong reasons. It is tortured, literally, and torturous.One is led to wonder who this monster was based upon, as is likely the case, since this "chronicle" is transparently autobiographical, save that we learn next to nothing about the protagonist himself, apart from his cerebral excursions, and only that his wife, in brief verbal entrees, is sardonic.
The style in this volume has deteriorated into something like a parody of ornate prose.But there are good moments and an occasional snappy epigram.Thus the volume escapes even a lower score.

Now is the Winter of Our Discontent
To arrive at the 4th movement of 20th Century British author Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time," is, of course, to arrive at the season of winter, as we can see from the front of the soft-cover volume, a reprint of the painting by the 16th century French artist Nicolas Poussin, from which title Powell's masterwork, initially a 12-book series, takes its own.The series'1st movement, chronicling the schooldays of Powell's narrator, Nick Jenkins, was spring; the second movement, chronicling the palmy young adulthood in London of the narrator, his friends and acquaintances, was summer. World War II was fall.We now arrive at winter, melancholy; discontented, to quote Shakespeare's Richard III; and shot through with death.Powell's language is frequently more Latinate and pompous than in his earlier books; his plots and characters are less dense, and less funny.Our narrator, Jenkins, becomes less an actor in the tale than a bystander; the books read almost as a prolonged afterword as loose ends are tied up.

"Books Do Furnish a Room," first in the final trilogy, is set in the immediate post-war years of the late 1940's.Mention is made of the many people Jenkins knew who were lost in the war: his closest friends from schooldays, Peter Templer and Charles Stringham; his friend from young London salad days, Barnby.Several of his wife Isobel's many siblings have also been lost: as well as her aunt Molly Jeavons. Our narrator Jenkins is working on a study of Robert Burton, sixteenth-century author of The Essential Anatomy of Melancholy (Dover Books on Literature & Drama), and the mood is melancholy indeed.Mention is made of the difficulty and expense of getting clothing ration coupons, flowers, alcoholic beverages, gas."Books Do Furnish a Room" is the nickname of a literary compere of Jenkins'; but he does not dominate this volume.Instead, we see quite a lot of Kenneth Widmerpool, the boys'bete noir from schooldays, and the woman he's married, Charles Stringham's universally-acknowledged to be difficult niece, Pamela Flitton.However, the book largely centers on X.Trapnel, mysterious author, whom I've always thought was based on the mysterious real-life 20th century German-American writer B. Traven, author of the 1927 novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, among other works - it was made into a famous movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston, directed by Huston's famous son John: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Two-Disc Special Edition).And then, of course, there's Trevanian, pen named author of The Eiger Sanction: A Novel; also made into a well-known movie, starring Clint Eastwood:The Eiger Sanction.

The second book, "Temporary Kings," centers on an international literary convention in Venice.We meet some new characters, principally American academic Russell Gwinnett.But the action really centers on Lord Widmerpool, as he has been named a life peer, and his wife, Lady Pamela.More of Jenkins' friends and relations are lost.

In "Hearing Secret Harmonies," the last book, set in the 1960's, we meet and will see a lot of one Scorpio Murtlock, youthful guru extraordinaire and leader of his own cult.But once again, Widmerpool, now Lord Widmerpool, chancellor of a red-brick university, will dominate, as he is first caught up in the student unrest that characterized that long-gone era; and then delivers himself and his goods to Murtlock.And yet more of Jenkins' friends, relations, and acquaintances are lost.

It's rather a glum volume, all told, and not nearly as entertaining as its brilliant predecessors.But if, you've read your way through this lengthy series, and,like some of us, you want to know what happened then --- well, you might as well read it.

Annabel Lee - Redux
About this fourth movement, two salient features strike me: 1) If you are not deeply steeped in literature or, perhaps, to put a finer point on it, the history of literature, if you don't understand this remark, made by Nick in The Temporary Kings, the second of these three final efforts, that, "It is often pointed out that one form of Romanticism is to be self-consciously Classical.", you are going to miss out on much of the work's depth.Indeed, if you have not read one particular book, Burton's delightful, age-old, rambling The Anatomy of Melancholy, you will miss out on much.So much is seen through a literary lens. 2.) This movement is indeed a departure from the other three, in that, were I asked to sum up its theme in one word, that word would be: Necrophilia

I'm not going to delve into the psychology of Pamela Widmerpool nee Flitton or into that of Russell Gwinnett here.But let's just say that, primarily through these two characters, this movement plumbs the depths of sadism and masochism (particularly the latter) so subtly and deftly, and yet so uncompromisingly that it makes just about anything else written on these themes seem exhibitionist and superficial by comparison.

Also, a word on the opus as a whole, now that I've read all four movements:It does not measure up to the standard of Proust, as is often claimed.Really, it's an entirely different sort of work than Proust's.Proust is solipsistic (in a profound sense) and poetic.Powell is gregarious and deeply prosaic.His style of writing reminds me of the Latin I had to construe as a youth.

Near the end of the third movement, our narrator Jenkins confesses to a weakness for Poe.Here, that "weakness" blossoms improbably like a rose in a charnel house.After completing this fourth movement and meditating on the entire "Dance" for some time, I discovered that the overall affect on me was that it was extremely weird, weird in a way that I find impossible to put into exact wording, weird, no doubt, in the way that critic Harold Bloom uses the word when he avers that all great literature strikes the reader in this way, as weird.

As odd as this recommendation may sound, one could do worse, far worse, than to return to Poe's poem Annabel Lee after completing this massive opus in order to gain a sort of perspective, whether one likes the poem or not, perhaps particularly if one does not.

The greatest novel in 20th century English litterature
Anthony Powell has been dubbed "the English Proust". Having read both Proust and Powell, I think it would be more accurate to say that Proust is the French Anthony Powell, A.P. being, in my opinion, by far the more accomplished writer. I remember reading a caption to the effect that after reading Powell's works, returning to other writers's required an effort of the will. This is exactly how I felt after enjoying Dance. The manyfold characters of Dance have now become more real to me than most people I've know in my life and it is fair to say that A.P. belongs to that category of rare writers who can change your outlook on life. An abridged audio version of Dance is available (read by Simon Callow) but it is on audiocassette and out of stock. I hope this or another audio version will be made available in more modern form (CD etc.) for those who like the spoken word too. I can't get enough of Dance, whether it be text, sound or TV series.

I agree with a previous reviewer that the later volumes of Dance are weaker than the earlier, and I wish Powell had chosen something more mainstream than necrophilia to pepper his tale of the fifties. But as A.P. himself wrote in his memoirs: with every writer there's something to put up with. "Dance" is too good to deserve less than five stars on account of a somewhat bizarre last part.

A BAD END to a DELIGHTFUL SERIES
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Dance series for a graduate level course over the summer of 2003....until I got to the last volume.In my opinion the books peaked with the sixth, "The Kindly Ones" and finshed delightfully at book nine "The Military Philosophers".Most major character lines were completed and the story had reached a logical and chronological end.For this reason Volume Four reads like a long and arduous addendum.The new characters are unappealing and the loss of the most interesting personalities from the prior three volumes is immense.Further, a personal irritation of mine is the continued use of archaic verse lifted from often bad and lugubrious poetry.Powell is indiscrimant in adding pages from irrelevant works while not advancing the story line. Did he write these last three novels to augment his income as he approached his later years? Regardless they alloy this otherwise delightful series.DO YOURSELF A FAVOR, END AT BOOK 9, DON'T BOTHER WITH THIS VOLUME. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (7)

The dance continues.
The reader who picks up the Second Movement of A Dance to the Music of Time might be initially overwhelmed with the fourth novel of the series (At Lady Molly's).Whereas the three novels of the First Movement progressed in a fairly sequential manner and focused on four major characters, At Lady Molly's, the fourth novel of the series, introduces literally dozens of new characters and alludes to old ones probably forgotten by the reader.To complicate matters, the novel begins with a flashback involving characters never encountered before; in the hands of most novelists, this would create a barrier that could never be overcome and ultimately result in a failed work.But Anthony Powell is no average writer and the meticulous care he expended in creating his characters in the First Movement served him well, so that with only the barest character descriptions these shadowy figures slowly re-emerge in the reader's consciousness.

And whereas Powell did a masterful job in the First Movement of bringing to life the supporting characters (particularly Kenneth Widmerpool) who interacted with the narrator, Nick Jenkins; he paid only passing attention to Jenkins as a character, using him primarily as a somewhat impartial observer.Recognizing this defect, the author now focuses on Jenkins, providing the reader with background information on his life and family and allowing the reader finally to get to know this character.In the three novels that make up the Second Movement - At Lady Molly's, Casanova's Chinese Restaurant, and The Kindly Ones - it is Jenkins around whom the action spins.We are introduced to his in-laws, the prodigious Tolland family, as well as to the composer, Hugh Moreland, and the music critic, McClintick, as well as witnessing his marriage (although taking place "off stage" between the fourth and fifth novels) and the birth of a child.

As with the First Movement, Powell is more interested in personal interrelations than he is with political matters.The war in Spain and the ominous maneuverings in Germany are mentioned, but only act as background to the spate of failed marriages and relationships, sexual indiscretions, and economic intrigues that make up the majority of the story line.Powell does a fine job of describing the malaise that affected British society prior to the outbreak of war, and gives flesh to some of the absurdity that predominated British pre-war planning in the person of Widmerpool, who now appears in the role of a Territorial officer who is more interested in the practical effects of a military uniform and his own self-aggrandizement, than he is motivated by any powerful patriotic drive.

Some readers will be put off by Powell's overly contrived meetings between his characters.It seems that Nick Jenkins cannot go anywhere unless he happens to run into an acquaintance or two with whom he carries on lenghty conversations.The best example of this is the meeting between Jenkins, Widmerpool and Hugh Moreland at the maternity hospital in which Jenkins' wife is recovering from a miscarriage, a meeting void of genuineness and contrived solely for the author's convenience.However, Powell can be forgiven these indiscretions as it is through these conversations that the reader becomes intimately acquainted with each of the characters; so acquainted, in fact, that by the end of Powell's sixth novel, one is unsure whether or not these characters actually existed.

Having Fun Fun Fun in the Frantic Gaiety of Pre-War London
"A Dance to the Music of Time" is one of the great glories of twentieth century English literature, a sharply observed, highly literate, disturbingly entertaining series, originally published in twelve volumes, by British author Anthony Powell.It has since been collected intofour mega-volumes, called movements, by its publisher.The second movement consists of three of the original novels: "At Lady Molly's," "Casanova's Chinese Restaurant," and "The Kindly Ones."

"At Lady Molly's" is set in the ferment that was pre World War II London.The war was noticeably casting its shadow forward: people were concerned about happenings in Germany and Spain, and were highly-politicized - never before or since has London seen so many self-proclaimed Communists.But Nick Jenkins, our narrator, is young and handsome, working as a screen writer in the nascent British film industry, and having a good time, as are most of his friends.Their lives are highly sexualized: in the frantic gaiety of the time, they're busy running off with other people's husbands, wives, and sheep, for all I know.Nick will meet the girl of his dreams at Lady Molly's.Widmerpool is continuing his irresistible climb to fame and power.It's one of the funniest of the books, and has some of its author's best-known witticisms, as when one character says to another, "Women may show some discrimination about whom they sleep with, but they'll marry anybody."

"Casanova's Chinese Restaurant," finds Jenkins mingling with London's artistic and musical crowds, enjoying the life of a young married.People are off to fight in Spain and see firsthand what the Japanese are up to in China.And Widmerpool: well, in "Lady Molly's," Jenkins muses, "I had always felt an interest in what might be called the theoretical side of Widmerpool's life: the reaction of his own emotions to the severe rule of ambition that he had from the beginning imposed upon himself: the determination that existence must be governed by the will." He rises, still.

In "The Kindly Ones," the war has begun, but is yet still phony, as they called it: people have hung blackout curtains, but are still arguing about the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact. One character muses, "The Kaiser went to war for shame of his withered arm.Hitler will go to war because at official receptions the tails of his evening coat sweep the floor like a clown's."The book opens on a flashback to Jenkins' pre World War I army childhood, and a glance at the extraordinary number of British lives claimed by that particularly bloodthirsty war.It also gives us an often-quoted discussion of "the kindly ones:" "....the Greeks, because they so greatly feared the Furies, had named them the Eumenides - the Kindly Ones - flattery intended to appease their terrible wrath."The attentive reader must assume we will see the Furies - the Eumenides, if you prefer --at work in the third movement of the series, devoted to life during the very real war to come.

Enter The Furies
I shall begin this review with employing the caveat with which I embarked upon my review of the First Movement: This is only a review of this movement, not the entire opus.That's the way they were printed, and that's the way I shall review it.....Amen....Ahem, more to the point, I haven't read the other two yet.

Thank whatever powers that be for the third book in this movement, The Kindly Ones---a translation of the Greek Eumenides, a euphemism, as related to us by Nicholas Jenkins in his recollections of Stonehurst, the home where he lived as a boy until the advent of WWI, used by the Greeks for The Furies, so terrified were they of naming them properly aloud.The significance of this particular book is not, to my mind, that the outer world starts to obtrude into the "hermetically sealed" life of the characters, as one reviewer has put it. It's rather that Nicholas Jenkins, our narrator, finally starts to display feelings of his own.He is no longer the detached cypher of the first movement.

In retrospect, one can see that this "coming out" as it were of Jenkins has been slowly developing through all three books of this movement.But it is only in The Kindly Ones that he emerges from his chrysalis.

Deeper themes abound, of course. Upon taking leave of General Conyers during a private tête-à-tête in which the General provides a quite rum venture into the psychoanalysis of Widmerpool, Jenkins describes it thus:

"The change in his voice announced that our fantasy life together was over.We had returned to the world of everyday things.Perhaps it would be truer to say that our real life together was over, and we returned to the world of fantasy.Who can say?"

Who indeed?

I shall ponder such things as I begin to turn the pages of the third movement and The Furies descend across Europe.

Reserve-the Pole Position
Quite a nice series. If one desires to understand the English qualities of reserve, humor, and understatement this the book to read. They are embedded in the story and most importantly in the author's approach.

It would be a bit Widmerpool of me to say much more. Please give it a try.

Hazardous reading
There are two hazards in reading Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time (12 books in 4 volumes or "Movements). First, you may be too bored to continue (so buy only the first volume to start). "Nothing" happens in the first two volumes I've read. Fans of action, suspense, romance, light, or even historical novels may be most unhappy with this series. For the many characters living through the 1920's and '30's described in the first two movements, life is an endless round of parties and conversations over food, through which the characters, in ever mutating combinations, driftwhile insightfully discussing each other. In a sense this is high-brow and high-toned soap opera. Only in Book 6, as World War II impinges on the characters, does an outside structure of events impose itself on the actions and reactions of the characters. Previously they have seemed largely to float in an hermetically sealed world of university-educated gentlemen and their women (mothers, wives, and ex-wives). In this upper class void no chronological dates are supplied, although if you are an octogenerian the names dropped may supply a framework to the intricate sets of flashbacks and occasional anticipations Powell employs. We learn much about the main characters, but rarely see them at work or play, and never domestically or with children.

The second hazard is that you may be forever spoiled for reading anything less well crafted. The next author you read after Powell may seem shallow, simplistic, juvenile, obvious, crude, banal, overheated, or even vulgar. Powell's writing is objective, distanced, understated, intricate, subtle, acute, and highly precise; the apotheosis of ordinary detail. Powell's strength lies in closely observed and particularized character development, our understanding of each person altering slightly from one vignette, glimpse, or reference to the next. Allegedly a masterpiece of comedic writing, "Dance" is not, however, funny, farcical, or obviously, satirical. I really think it takes an English person to see and enjoy fully the comedy of manners I sense behind the prose. I felt I was always on the outside, vaguely aware that people might be not quite right, or "dotty," except for one passage in Book 5 where I laughed out loud. I probably need an "Annotated Powell."

You can see I'm deeply conflicted about this series: it is marvelously well-written yet I am not well entertained. An honest reviewer admitted that Powell "evokes a wry poetry from drabness and boredom." It took me 5 years to finish the first Movement, and dogged determination to read the next, and still I want to read one more! Just not immediately. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (43)

acquired taste 2
Readers new to Powell should be forewarned that they will find no sympathetic characters in the first movement, not even the narrator, who is mainly known in this volume by his disquisitions on myriad topics and by his emotional distance from other characters until, near the end, he starts an affair that itself appears to lack emotional depth.The other characters are treated more like specimens than people.This characteristic is notunusual in a comedy of manners, especially a British one, in which even the sexualla ronde is not animated by passion.It's all rather mechanical.Even for readers who do not demand steamy bedroom antics, the "love affairs" in this volume will likely come across as dismal.Granted, that they are dismal may be Powell's point, but that treatment of "romance" is not to everyone's taste.Nor is fiction that repels identification with at least one character.The overall tone is rather chilly.
That said, Powell does what he set out to do rather well on the whole.My point is that he's a specialized taste.

Move in Intricate Measure
Anthony Powell published twelve volumes of a wonderful novel from 1951 to 1975.He divided this continuing series into four musical movements depicted in a Nicolas Poussin 1639-40 painting. The painting and the novel are entitled, A Dance to the Music of Time.The first movement includes three volumes: A Question of Upbringing, A Buyer's Market, and The Acceptance World. These volumes introduce and describe four male characters as they progress through British schools and university, enter the professional world of work, and accept a loss of illusions as they interact with others in the real world.

The first three parts of the story take place in the post World War I era of the 1920s and early 1930s.The characters are associated with British socioeconomic levels that include very wealthy (Templeton), wealthy (Stringham), upper middle class (Jenkins) and middle class (Widmerpool). After university, the characters go their separate ways determined by their economic classes but end up meeting in London while pursuing different individual goals.

Nicolas Jenkins, the narrator of the novel, gets a job at a firm that publishes "art books" and uses free time offered by his relatively unstructured job to write novels.Like Robert Musil's character in A Man Without Qualities, Nick is a keen observer who seems to be continually on the edge of the social dance, jumping in on occasion but content to ruminate about the motives and behaviors of others. As he focuses on his three school acquaintances, Nick's commentary becomes increasingly reliable as he compares current incidents to reinterpret collective experiences of the past.He learns to abandon simplistic rules for understanding of the choices of his friends and others. He also learns his station in life and the limits of his ability as observer to discover immutable standards of acceptable social actions. Life is just too complex and changeable to maintain superficial andimmature interpretations of the dance of life.

Each volume of the first movement is self-contained as Powell gives readers descriptive reminders of characters and events that preceded the current action. The writing style is simple and direct and the pace is slow and deliberate.Powell presents many allusions to art, philosophy, and history like James Joyce in Ulysses with much less tangential writing. Using the Kindle dictionary and an iPhone, I enjoyed looking up each reference.

The tone of the first three works is humorous and satirical without being overly cynical (except for the spoof of John Galsworthy).Readers can visualize Poussin's painting and observe the dance of the four main characters. Economic, political and social parallels can be seen with our own turn of the century culture.

I highly recommend the first movement of Powell's omnibus work to readers who love to observe the dance of life.I have not encountered a contemporary writer who is such a good chronicler and analyst of the unfolding and interacting lives of realistic rather than stereotyped characters.I feel fortunate to have 9 more volumes in 3 more movements to read in the 4 paperback edition published by the University of Chicago press (1995). Though life is beautiful and upsetting, comical and tragic, expected and catastrophic, Powell shows readers the worst action they can take is to drop out of the dance. As in Proust's In Search of Lost Time, the social isolate is irrevocably self-centered forever missing the chances of a lifetime to listen to the music of time and in Powell's words move "hand in hand in intricate measure" with others.

Applause for this Dance volume
This edition of Volume I, aka the First Movement, of A Dance To The Music Of Time is in pristine condition and was delivered in timely fashion.

If you like Dickens, Hardy, Waugh and Snow ...
"A Dance to the Music of Time" is to Modern British Literature what Ben & Jerry's is to ice cream -- fabulous fare to be savored, appreciated and remembered. If you enjoy Charles Dickens (especially "David Copperfield" and "Great Expectations"), Thomas Hardy ("Return of the Native," "Tess of the D'Urbervilles"), Evelyn Waugh ("Decline and Fall," "A Handful of Dust"),and C.P. Snow ("The Light and The Dark", "The Masters"), you will love Powell's amazing tour de force. And if you enjoy Powell, you will probably also enjoy the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian! Great writing, memorable characters, convoluted plots -- what more can a reader ask?

If You Always Wanted to Climb into a Debutante Dance
"A Dance to the Music of Time," an engrossing, highly-literate, highly comic 12-book series by British author Anthony Powell, had to have been one of the highlights of latter 20th century writing to those who appreciate a good, funny book.And it had to have been of riveting interest to some, those who can never get enough of Public Broadcasting Systems' "Masterpiece Theatre/Upstairs Downstairs" entertainments.In fact, it was of riveting interest to me: I remember, in real time, eagerly awaiting the appearance of each next book.I felt more or less like those 19th Century Dickens fans, so eager to learn what had become of Little Nell that they climbed the cliffs of Montauk, New York, to be the first to shout their inquiries to incoming British sailors.So, now that the series is complete, it has been collected into four movements, each including three of the original novels.The first starts with "A Question of Upbringing," "A Buyer's Market," and "The Acceptance World."

If you are reading this review, "A Question of Upbringing" may be as close as you'll ever get to Eton, the legendary English public school - for which, to us, read private school - experience.It is set shortly after World War I.We meet our narrator, Nick Jenkins, and his two closest friends. Peter Templer, already a ladies' man, whose unfortunate incident will hint at much to come.Charles Stringham, already rich and reckless.Then there is the headmaster, LeBas, a great comic creation.Also Kenneth Widmerpool, an even greater, more resonant comic creation, known at school for the wrong sort of overcoat, and his overwhelming desire to succeed.We will continue to meet him in future. We meet Templer's famously rich and beautiful mother, Mrs. Foxe, her latest husband, Buster, a navy man, and see Jenkins' first crush on Jean, Peter's sister.Then we go briefly to France, where Widmerpool pops up again, and onto Oxford and the great world of London.

At Oxford we meet another great comic creation, one of the dons, Sillery, known as Sillers, who's busy giving Sunday afternoon teas, enabling him to keep a finger in every possible pie.We also meet Mark Members and J.G.Quiggin; who, according to Sillers, live quite near each other at home, and are possibly related, and who, like Jenkins our narrator, have literary ambitions.

"A Buyer's Market" takes our characters to London, where those wishing to begin to establish literary careers.We see quite a lot of Deacon, an elderly, homosexual, not so talented artist, and of his tenant, Barnby, a more talented, third generation artist, with an eye for the ladies. And we meet quite a few ladies, several of them beautiful: Gypsy Jones, Baby Wentworth, Bijou Ardglass.Widmerpool pops up again.And, we see more of those famous debutante dances, and the dinners thrown before them, than you're likely to find anywhere else.Finally, we are introduced to one of the abiding passions of the thirties: Communism, in its Stalinist and Trotskyite embodiments.

"The Acceptance World," set as the world approaches the Great Depression, gives us an even larger gallery of entertaining, larger than life characters.Templer and Stringham have married, unsuccessfully, as has Jean Templer: Jenkins will find himself falling in love with her again, as a grown-up this time.We meet Dicky Umfraville, an older man who will take away Stringham's former sister-in-law, Ann Stepney, from Barnby, and marry her himself. Further, Peter Templer's wife Mona, whom we initially met as an artist's model, will suddenly find the literary/political worlds more interesting than that of the just plain rich.

Mind you, Powell is no mere stenographer; he creates the rhythmic beat of "A Dance to the Music of Time," with thought, care, philosophy, perception, irony and wit.If you always wished you could climb into "Masterpiece Theatre" and live there, this series is for you.

... Read more

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Customer Reviews (12)

Sluggish and Dessicated
When E. M. Forster minimized the importance of plot ( both A Passage to India and Howard's End are well plotted ), he did not intend to absolve novelists of all responsibility for narrative craft.In this movement, even more than in the first two, Powell resorts to blatant coincidences and contrivances ( a couple not on good termsare killed on the same night in separate locations by German bombs )that destroy the structural integrity of the text and introduce a distracting implausibilitythat smothers a fiction reader's desire to suspend disbelief.It's all, as the Brits would say, rather, too much.
Within this shaky framework, Powell is able to bring off some funny and tense scenes, but too many others are tediously protracted, too many are obvious set-ups for disquisitions by the narrator or by another character, and too many lead nowhere or are picked up later when Powell wants to double-back to pick up a thread that had best been abandoned.He is an inserter, not a developer.For all the psychological attention Powell seems to give characters, in Nick's voice, they are specimens, flat, in Foster's terms. In fact, the "psychology" moves quickly from the level of individual character to a general plane to allow Nick/Powell to make broad observations about Life.
This flatness includes the narrator.Readers learn more about his life than in the first two movements, but next to nothing about his inner life.He is, for the most part, arch, droll, and detached, even when reporting a meeting with his wife, the birth of his daughter, deaths of friends, suicides, and the usual la ronde of sexual entanglements, none of which seem to have involved even a hint of romance.Readers don't even know why he married Isobel or she married him, only that he knew he would marry her the moment he set eyes on her. Maybe all of this dryness is the point, Powell's comment on the social class that is the object of his literary anthropology.
Nonetheless, it refuses engagement with anyone in the cast to the point where one might well be reading case studies. Indeed, if that is the point, Powell could done it in memoirs ( the books are closely autobiographical ) or in another form of non-fiction.Perhaps these volumes are a way of getting at people whose real names he chose not to use, for one reason other.Whatever Powell's motive, the tone is off-puttingly arid.
Powell gets two stars for a style that is precise and nuanced at its best, but when forced becomes precious and almost but not quite flamboyant.
Powell is compared with Waugh and Proust and Meredith.In my judgment, the resemblances are at best superficial.

Nick and Friends in Wartime
Part 3 continues a story I've been reading to please a dear friend enmeshed in all things British!As critic
I still don't feel particularly confident or competent, though the rewards of patient and concentrated reading
have been considerable.Taken altogether, it is a kind of history of the British upper-class from World War I up

to 1970 (I'm told), and this is the World War II section, where we begin to feel the decline of that class.It
is nostalgic in the way that Chekhov and even Gone With the Wind are nostalgic, and we feel for these people
even as we know their day is--rightly--over.I've often wished it were not S0 understated or so VERY British or
that the author were just a bit interested in illuminating us outsiders about his own cultural milieu. His most
slippery character, a man called Widmerpool, is also his most memorable.

To lessen confusion, the reader should by all means begin with Part I ("First Movement").

A Dance to the Music of Time:Third Movement
If you're a fan of Anthony Powell, you will surely want to move through the music of time clear to the end so when you've finished this, go on to the Fourth Movement.

Invaluable Tale Based on Lived Experience
The so-called Third Movement of British author Anthony Powell's master twentieth-century opus, "A Dance to the Music of Time," comprises the three novels in which it was initially published:" The Valley of Bones," "The Soldier's Art," and "The Military Philosophers." It covers the military career of our narrator, Nick Jenkins, during the Second World War, opening during the period when hostilities had not yet completely begun, the period known as the "phony war," which Jenkins' friend and brother-in-law Chips Lovett, who will not survive, describes as a "tailors' war."Jenkins, whose father was a career military officer, has mused that his family has served in the military for centuries, always without distinction.He begins the war as a line officer, without distinction; he will finish it in a London staff position.The book is probably more easily read by those with a bit of military knowledge, particularly of pay grades and awards, but it will gift any reader with its undeniable lived experience of that great worldwide conflagration.

"The Valley of Bones" opens with Jenkins, who has managed to get into the army, as a mediocre, older than usual, regimental line officer, during the phony war.It mentions the British evacuation at Dunkirk and the fall of Norway, and closes with the Germans about to take Paris. It introduces us to characters we'll see more of later, Odo Stevens, David Pennistone, and Bithel: Widmerpool's not around.Pennistone's a literary type - he and Jenkins discuss the views of war of French philosopher Descartes and poet-soldier Alfred de Vigny, and the doings of English poet Lord Byron, and his friend Caroline Lamb.It's pretty strictly about army life: it's quite funny in spots, but some readers may find it dry.

"The Soldier's Art" opens as Jenkins has been called to a staff position, serving under his old nemesis from school days, Kenneth Widmerpool,while that former schoolmate continues his irresistible rise to money and power, fueled, Jenkins is now in a position to see, by his prodigious ability to work.The story also centers on the character arcs of two more former schoolmates, Charles Stringham and Peter Templer, Jenkins's closest friends from that time.We are kept in suspense as to their fates, but we come to see that Widmerpool does not mean them well.Stringham remarks early on that "it's awfully chic to be killed," and several relatives of Jenkins's wife will die: brothers at the front, others in the London bombing blitz.Jenkins will lose several more old friends and acquaintances.The book gives the impression of having been written in a white heat.

"The Military Philosophers" opens with Jenkins at London's Whitehall, in his final posting of the war, a staff position providing liaison to England's allies.We see the fates Widmerpool has arranged for Stringham and Templer, as we meet Stringham's niece Pamela Flitton.She's introduced while working as a military driver; a beautiful girl, but considered difficult from childhood.She fascinates many men, Widmerpool among them.Surprisingly, to me, at least, the author mentions the findings at Katyn, where evidence emerges of a massacre of Polish military officers by the Soviet, thus predicting the shape of the postwar world.This volume ends with the war; it certainly has its funny bits, but is sometimes written in a more difficult style.

The vast majority of people who read this volume can have had no first hand experience of England at war at this time, nor will any future readers.It's an invaluable telling of the way it was, well worth reading despite its sometimes somber tone.

War and Loss
One feels somehow quite melancholy in turning the last page to Powell's Third Movement.There are several reasons for this emotion, not the least of which is the gradual manifestation of a reflection Nick makes about halfway through The Soldier's Art, the second book in the movement:

"That is one of the conceptions most difficult for stupid people to grasp.They always suppose some ponderable alteration will make the human condition more bearable.The only hope of survival is the realisation that no such thing could possibly happen."

Then, too, there is Stringham's demise: From the first of these movements my favourite character, his witty, dashing, insightful bravura, even when reduced to the lowliest of ranks, always added poetic sparkle to the pages.When last seen taking his leave of Nick with a book of Browning's poems in his hand, I felt this tremendous deflation in that I'd seen the last of the most prodigally heroic of Powell's characters (a suspicion borne out later in the text, unless reports of his death turn out to be greatly exaggerated in the fourth movement.).Perhaps his niece, introduced in these pages, will turn out to be his avenging, well, not angel, but more than capable of doing damage to the loathsome Widmerpool all the same.

If there were any doubters of Proust's influence on Powell, the third book here, The Military Philosophers, should put their doubts to rest.Proust is quoted at length, reflected upon, and, in his capacity as foreign Attaché, Nick manages to convince a high-ranking official that he should be included in the French curriculum.

This is turning out to be a lovely work of literature indeed, though I find myself in sad agreement with another reviewer here that it's probably, like Proust, "not everyone's cup of tea."As Nick reflects in The Valley of Bones, the first book herein:

"I was impressed for the ten thousandth time by the fact that literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.Books are inconvertible assets, to be passed on only to those who possess them already."----Powell's opus is that sort of book.

A curious Widmerpoolian point: What Jenkins calls General Liddament's whimsical recourse to "Old English" at times, such as in his dispatch to Widmerpool, "The General bade me discourse fair words to you, sir, anent traffic circles." is not Old English at all.It's Elizabethan or Shakespearean English.Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is the language Beowulf was written in.It's so completely different from anything approaching modern English that it has to be translated by specialists to make any sense at all to the modern reader.It would have been just as alien to the Elizabethan ear, come to that. ----This sort of slip just won't do when there's a war on. ---I wonder Widmerpool didn't catch him out on it.

... Read more

Product Description
Stylized dance music and music based on dance rhythms pervade Bach's compositions.The original edition of this addressed works that bore the names of dances--a considerable corpus.In this expanded version of their practical and insightful study, Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne apply the same principals to the study of a great number of Bach's works that use identifiable dance rhythms but do not bear dance-specific titles. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Now all we need
Very well reseacrhed, clearly written and well organized. All we need now is an accompanying DVD that demonstrates the dances in period costume and with a reasonable company of dancers.

Dance and the Music of J.S. Bach, Expanded Ed.
Only book of its kind - especially for the serious musician and performer.

Dance rhythms and Bach's music
This book provides a fine survey of the rhythms associated with the most prevalant Baroque dances.Although stylized dance pieces and other instrumental works beyond the dance hall might not strictly follow the rhythm of the original dance, this book provides a solid grounding for any person interested in the topic and wishing to flexibly apply dance rhythms to their own interpretations of Bach's music.Thus, this book is important to any performers serious about playing Baroque music and especially Bach's.

I recommend the book for its information but also because it is so easy to read.

Interesting background for musicians, but be careful
It certainly broadens one's knowledge and appreciation to study the physical dances that so much of Bach's instrumental music was based on. But there's a difference between music written to literallyaccompany dance and music stylized in the form of dances, meant primarily for listening. Bach did not play Saturday night dance gigs in Leipsig nor did Chopin play his waltzes in Parisian ballrooms. Tempos (and flexibility within those tempos) need not be based on realistic assumptions of how people may have actually danced bourees and minuets. There were enough differences in style among Italian, French and German strains of late Baroque music (and dance) that one should be cautious about any definitive rules here. That being said, the book is well written, illustrated and an interesting read.

Bach and Baroque dance
This book is a must for all serious performers of Bach's music.It is the only book that details not only of most of the dances that appear in Bach's works, but provides a fundamental vocabulary for a discussion of rhythm. After that has been provided, dances are discussed with clarity and precision, with a wealth of original sources for the reader.There is nothing on the market like it. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (15)

A must have
This book covers everything you need to know about Cuban music;from the instruments to the African and Spanish influence, it covers the history of Cuba and priceless list of Cuban musicians. I love it and plan to buy a copy for family and friends.

Overrated and Unfocused
Some have noted that the subject of the book isn't really Cuban music per se, and unfortunately, they are right.Sublette's work as an evangelist for the music is commendable and essential, but this book truly does make up in length what it lacks not just in depth, but in focus, tone, and execution as well.

The most glaring weakness is the lack of a proper discography.In its place there is a catologue of recommended listening that is barely a page long and highly disorganized, focusing on "availability" and lacking discographical information, even though "availability" changes from week to week and discography stays constant.

Indeed, there is a surprising inattention to detail throughout this book.Sublette accepts that Ignacio Pineiro is one of the most important figures in Cuban music and perhaps the single greatest figure of the early Trova-Son, yet all of the references to Pineiro combined probably take up slightly more than a page, and once again, there is no discography.The same could be said about Miguel Matamoros.Rita Montanier and Miguelito Valdez, among others, get more face time, but discographical information is haphazard and scarce for even these figures, and even for Chano Pozo and Arsenio.

Sublette seems to bridge these gaps with an historical account of Cuba and Cuban society, but this dualist approach comes off as more of a distraction than an account of Cuban music that is truly integrated into a greater historical framework.Truly, the interplay between the music and the general history is clumsy and at times forced.

This is made all the worse by the fact that Sublette is not and does not claim to be a reliable historian.Basically, what this means is that would have could have been a fascinating history of Cuban music told by a devotee of the subject falls short of the mark by being constantly interrupted by a superficial political history told by a dilettante.The author seems to possess standard Left-Wing historical biases, in particular the steady stream of passionate denunciations of American "imperialist" interventions in Latin America, while presenting facts that, when looked at coldly, do not merit these vituperations, even accepting Sublette's account on face value.Also, by Sublette's account, it seems like every black person in Cuba was an Afro-spiritist who was constantly enduring oppression at every turn by Whites.Thus, when Celia Cruz appears on the scene: a black woman of vintage working-class Christian stock who barely drank or smoked and proceeded to become immensely popular, the reader can't help but wonder where whence that strange bird could have come.Shouldn't she have been a pagan prostitute who was always one step away from being lynched?

This is not to say that Sublette is a tubthumper but he makes no attempt to reconcile these various historical strands to produce a balanced narrative of Cuban society, and his work thus comes off as a White-Boy dilettante who reads The Nation too much.He makes elementary mistakes, such as crediting the invention of the arabic numeral system to the Arabs, when in truth this numeral system has been all but renamed the Indian numeral system and was an invention of the Indians that the Arab Muslims stored and transmitted to the West.An inordinate number of citations come from two sources, Ortiz and Cabrera. which is another sign of diletantism.

Throughout the book, you never get the sense that this story is going anywhere.The flow from Africa to Cuba is interrupted buy an account of the Mann Act, which is in turn interrupted by an account of the Congo in Cuba.The Changui is barely (if ever) mentioned.And so it goes.

This book is good for a beginners intro to Cuban music and a flawed account of Cuban history.There was little reason for it to be more than 200 pages long.At most.

Masterpiece
From the dawn of human speech to the contemporary era, Sublette covers every force in history converging to create the modern latin sound.Here are some things I learned reading this book;
1)Cuban music is as much a story of the fusion of Congolese and Nigerian elements as it is a story of African and Spanish fusion.
2) Why African culture forces remained predominant in Cuba while dissipating in other colonies.
3) All about the Abakua, Palo, Ekue, and all that.

No dry history text, this is a fascinating read, well researched and crafted as a labor of love.

what a fun read
informative and fun to read,this is a loving tribute to the music of Cuba and from whence it came.It's historical without being tedious and a real page turner.I love it and recommend it to anyone who digs this kind of music and culture.

There should be a Nobel Prize for musical scholarship!
It's a first for me to review a book I haven't finished reading. I've been reading Cuba and Its Music for about a year, off and on, as I've read other books and material. What's prompting me to review it now is that this is simply a terrific, wonderful book and the word needs to get out. Full disclosure: despite being a musician all my life, I discovered Cuban music only about twenty years ago. The more I learned about it the more it took me over.This is not the place to go into the reasons, but I will make an outrageous blanket statement and say that what Bach is to classical music, Cuban music is to popular music.

Ned Sublette explains why in his marvelous book. I find myself pouring over passages, rereading and underlining and making notes to myself in the back. I can't take a lot of this at one time. I'll put the book down to pick it up a week later and end up rereading what I'd already read. The prospect of getting all the way to the end of it fills me with joy and dread at the same time. It's not that it's densely written: on the contrary, it's some of the clearest, easiest to read scholarly writing I've ever run across (and that's a lot, by the way).

The book is not for everyone. You have to like music, for starters. Then, it would be good if you enjoy learning about how musical styles originate, travel, and influence other styles. Cuba has been a true melting pot for many of the world's musical traditions, and most have made their way to this country, through New Orleans, through New York, and by other means, to the point that its influence is discernible in almost every popular American genre today. Sublette has traced these influences in the most careful and understandable way, and the result is enlightenment on every single page.

Now I hear that Sublette has another book out on the musical cultures and history of New Orleans. This is wonderful news even if it means I'll spend the next five years finishing both volumes. Amazon won't let me review a book twice, so I won't be able to comment on the latter parts of Cuba and Its Music here. Maybe I'll be able to mention it when I finally report on The World that Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square. ... Read more

Product Description
Careers profiled: Arts Administrator; Booking Agent; Choir Director; Composer; Costume Designer; Dance Instructor; Dancer; Disc Jockey; Grips, Gaffes, and Lighting Technicians; Music Teacher; Music Therapist; Music Video Producer; Recording Executive; and Sound Engineer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Nice...but okay
This is a really good book. It shows different kinds of jobs and what the people do step through step. Although some of the websites don't work. You know that the author should make updated books.

Great book!
This is a really great book for kids and frankly it's better than most adult career guides in that it features a wider range of careers and interviews with people in each type of job.It's a great starting point for researching careers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good introduction to Fibonacci Numbers for younger readers
This book is well-crafted and interesting. It should hold the interest of all beginners in this topic.

It is not without its faults, however. As discussed in my book Fractals in Music, the analysis of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as based on Fibonacci numbers is not correct.

Great book!
I found this book full of very interesting data for a math report.I loved the bit on the comparison between the piano and Fibonacci numbers.Truly amazig.It has a lot of cool facts..

This was a pleasant surprise as a gift to me.
I received this unexpectantly.I enjoyed this thoroughly.I would recommend this to any one who is new to the concept of Math and Music being related and needing a rather easy and non complex explanation.The authordiagrams nicely the examples with the explanations.I really think thisbook would be good a text book in either a high school music or math coursein the history of the subject.Thank you to the person who knew me wellenough to give this to me. I like this book so much that I almost read itcover to cover in one sitting.

A real eye opener on how math affects more than you thought.
This book was one of the handiest and dandiest things I've ever read.It's extremely interesting, so long as you know what you're talking about.If you're not in a high level of mathematic capabilities, a lot of thiswill seem like junk that is interesting, but you have no clue how it works. It reveals some of the most interesting phonomena I've ever heard of, suchas the flicker noise.Scaling fractals, harmonies of the worlds.This iswhat got me interested in astrophisics.It's a great book.Read it, liveit, love it.

Excellet
When you read a book like this, You spect to find out answers. And that exactly what you fell when you read the last page. The lenguage is accesible.The size of leters and the graphics make it very easy to read. I fully recomend it ... Read more

Album Description
Love triangles, glitz, melodrama, music and tragi-comedy areall part of the hugely successful musical-movie genre known as Bollywood.The Rough Guide To Bollywood Gold showcases the leading singers andrevisits some of the most glamorous movies from this vast and everexpanding scene.

Artists include:Jolly Mukherjee & Sridevi, Kishore Kumar, Rahul DevBurman, Asha Bhosle, Mohd. Rafi, Mukesh, Lata Mangeshkar, Mahendra Kapoorand Shailendra Singh ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Why is Aishwarya Rai on the cover of this classics CD?
I like this CD just fine, but I have a picky issue with the packaging. It confused me to find that the "Gold" refers to a classic Bollywood era roughly 1960-1980. I was expecting a more contemporary collection because World Music slapped Aishwarya on the cover as an obvious marketing ploy. Why not one of the heartthrobs of the era?

The songs all have great character; the info in the booklet about performers and careers is nice; the extra data track interview with DJ Ritu is half good (she is interesting - the interviewer, unfortunately, is a dork who seems prepared only with superficial questions); some of the songs make me want to seek out the movies, and it was nice to hear the live, very rare version of R.D. Burman singing his own Mehbooba Mehbooba (though I think I like the version in Sholay better).

Bollywood at Its Beautiful and Bombastic Best
If you're looking for a fix of Indian pop culture, this CD will definitely do the trick! "Bollywood Gold" is full of wonderfully vibrant music, all of it overflowing with powerful emotion spiced up with a healthy dash of sentimentality and melodrama.The instrumentation is good, of course, but in this genre vocals are the main thing, and so this CD features some of the classic voices of Indian film--beautiful and charismatic voices either feminine or masculine (and highly distinct in that regard) that tell a story in their own right, that are able to evoke a wide range of feelings in the listener regardless of whether the latter understands the lyrics or not. If you've seen these movies, you'll relive them here for sure. If you haven't, like me, then the enchantment of this music might trick you into thinking you have--or else inspire you to go looking for them afterwards.

As with most "Rough Guide" CDs, this one excels in giving the listener a fine range of tracks both listenable and representative, all lovingly handpicked by an expert aficionado of that specific musical form. "Bollywood Gold" comes to us courtesy of DJ Ritu, who in the liner notes does a wonderful job of introducing the different singers (Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Jolly Mukherjee, and Mahendra Kapoor) as well as giving a crash course in the social history of playback singing in Indian film, after which each track (in order) is explained in good, relevant detail (including but not limited to what movie the song comes from). All of this comes after a movingly personal reflection on what this wonderful music meant to Indian immigrant families in England, of how important it was in their lives--making this quite a bit more meaningful than the average "greatest hits" album. And, as this listener found out, some of that enthusiasm is definitely contagious. ... Read more

Product Description
Lavishly illustrated, this book introduces the most commonly seen traditional performing arts in Bali. The gamelan music, dance, drama and puppetry covered here are sure to mesmerize Western readers. Ideal reading for visitors to the island as well as for anyone interested in Balinese culture, the book fully explains the history and function of each performance genre. The book is enhanced with a bibliography, a discography, and over 150 specially prepared watercolors of Balinese performers and performances.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A good, well rounded book.
This book touches on many aspects of the performing arts in Bali.

It is a very good overview and place to start as one delves into the music and dance traditions of Bali.

I even appreciate the chapters that cover makeup as well as specific attention to certain dances.

Balinese Dance, Drama & Music
Wonderful book. Very nicely put together. Offers an intelligent introduction to all aspects of Balinese artistic life with gorgeous illustrations throughout.

Excellent book
Excellent book for both those who are Bali newbies and those who already know about it, although it might be a little too detailed for some novices. Informative, with fantastic photos and drawings.

A captivating tour of the history, style, and function
Extensively illustrated with over 200 full-color photographs, Balinese Dance, Drama and Music: A Guide to the Performing Arts of Bali takes the reader on a captivating tour of the history, style, and function of Balinese gamelan music, dance, drama, and puppetry. Suitable for all ages, Balinese Dance, Drama and Music covers how performing arts are learned in Bali, the principal Balinese values that artistic media passes on, and discussion of individual forms of performing arts, such as Gameland Gong Kebyar, Lgong Keraton, Baris, Wayang Kulit, and the relatively recent phenomenon of women's and children's performing groups. A bibliography and discography round out this superbly captivating survey, written by expert dancers and choreographers.

CAPTURES THE MAGIC AND BEAUTY OF BALINESE CULTURE
This excellent book provides an extensive, reader-friendly overview of Balinese dance, music, drama and culture.It's the book we've all been waiting for.Written in an informal and high accessible style with wonderful pictures and illustrations it will no doubt be treasured by academics, Baliopihiles or anyone wanting to visit Bali and more deeply experience it's powerful culture.Rucina and Dibia (I know them both) are extraordinary and passionate lovers of all things Bali and have written and taught extensively for decades.If anyone was to write this book, they were the obvious choice.

There are dozens of books on this subject - most far too academic and inaccessible - including some of the classics.They got the information right, found the right expressive tone, and the layout is stunning.

A wonderful experience throughout!

Michael Wiese, filmmaker, publisher and Baliophile ... Read more

Product Description

This book Will

1 teach the notation of music to those who have never known it before
2 serve as a systematic reminder for those who once knew how to read music but have forgotten most of it
3 serve as a practical classroom text book in the rudiments of music
4 serve as a helpful reference book for the student in music appreciation and related courses

This book Will Not

1 teach you to sing like Tebaldi
2 make you a wizard at the piano or any other instrument
3 turn you into an Irving Berlin or a Beethoven

But it will teach Anyone -- even the tone-deaf -- to read melodies and pick them out on the piano ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Very helpful, easy to use.
Well done book for a beginner.I've learned a lot and can use it for review/reference.

Just ok......
This book was not easy to navigate, making its use as a reference book less than ideal.
There are better books on the market for this subject.

Extraordinarily readable book!
I have read many books on music theory and have never and I mean NEVER found a book that teaches so much, so well, in so little space. His language is succinct and to the point. Even though it was written about 50 years ago I consider this the best book on learning musical notation, especially rhythm which he spends a great deal of time on because of its importance and difficulty. After you the book, it won't be difficult. A must for all piano teachers or just anyone who wants to learn how to read music with the least waste of time.

Simply Great
I already had a very simple understanding of music theory, so some of this stuff I skimmed over, but within the first few pages I learned things that immediately opened my eyes and my mouth in amazement.I found myself several times saying aloud, "So that's what that means!" I was ready to give up on singing in my church choir, but now I feel much more confident and am ready to resume with more vigor.

Learning notation
This product helped me to identify and read musical notes in the simplest form. I have learned to identify a whole note from a half and quarter notes,etc.This product is good to have if your serious in your quest to learn how to read musical notations. ... Read more

Product Description
In the summer of 1972, a group of young people in Bloomington, Indiana, began a weekly gathering with the purpose of reviving traditional American old-time music and dance. In time, the group became a kind of accidental utopia, a community bound by celebration and deliberately void of structure and authority. In this joyful and engaging book, John Bealle tells the lively history of the Bloomington Old-Time Music and Dance Group--how it was formed, how it evolved its unique culture, and how it grew to shape and influence new waves of traditional music and dance. Broader questions about the folk revival movement, social resistance, counter culture, authenticity, and identity intersect this delightful history. More than a story about the people who forged the group or an extraordinary convergence of talent and creativity, Old-Time Music and Dance follows the threads of American folk culture and the social experience generated by this living tradition of music and dance. ... Read more

Product Description
Salsa and merengue are now so popular that they are household words for Americans of all ethnic backgrounds. Recent media attention is helping other Caribbean music styles like bachata to attain a similar status.Yet popular Mexican American dances remain unknown and invisible to most non-Latinos. Quebradita, meaning “little break,” is a modern Mexican American dance style that became hugely popular in Los Angeles and across the southwestern United States during the early to mid 1990s. Over the decade of its popularity, this dance craze offered insights into the social and cultural experience of Mexican American youth. Accompanied by banda, an energetic brass band music style, quebradita is recognizable by its western clothing, hat tricks, and daring flips. The dance’s combination of Mexican, Anglo, and African American influences represented a new sensibility that appealed to thousands of young people. Hutchinson argues that, though short-lived, the dance filled political and sociocultural functions, emerging as it did in response to the anti-immigrant and English-only legislation that was then being enacted in California. Her fieldwork and interviews yield rich personal testimony as to the inner workings of the quebradita’s aesthetic development and social significance. The emergence of pasito duranguense, a related yet distinct style originating in Chicago, marks the evolution of the Mexican American youth dance scene.Like the quebradita before it, pasito duranguense has picked up the task of demonstrating the relevance of regional Mexican music and dance within the U.S. context. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

good methods, cultura studies read for undergraduates

Great book. It was definitely well written. Liked the ethnographic description of dance with lots of references to movement in its physical and metaphorical senses.The author's expertise a dancer made the book even more rich in description.The authenticity and illustration of the multiple layers and meanings of "insider" knowledge are appealing to students as is the the emphasis on kinetic/kinesthetic subjectivities.

From genius to brilliance
This book is fun! And interesting!
Shocking how fast a dance can travel.
If you like music and dance, you'll love this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Making Music Videos, written by industry insider Lara M. Schwartz, reveals the nuts and bolts of making videos, including all the technical and managerial skills that producers and directors must have. From development, to writing a treatment, to budgeting, assembling a crew, and preproduction, to the shoot, postproduction, and wrapping out, clear step-by-steps show exactly what moves to make when.
Comments from some of the biggest names in music-video production today, including Brett Ratner, Marcos Siega, Sanaa Hamri, Roman Coppola, McG, Dave Meyers, Little X, Samuel Bayer, and others, offer inspiration to aspiring creatives everywhere. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good for industry overview
This book offers a good overview of how music videos and the music biz.It's good if you have a big budget but not necessarily for low-budget directors.

For big budget, large crew productions only
Who this book is for:

* Major record company executives who want to learn more about the entire process of making a video.

* Bands who have $10,000 or more to make a video.

* Anyone who is interested in learning how major productions (not just music videos, but ANY kind) are conceived, budgeted, shot, and edited.

This book is NOT for:

* do-it-yourselfers or for people who know how already to shoot a dramatic short or feature film. there are some great tidbits specific to music videos, but not what you could get from other sources which focus specifically on music videos.

* YouTubers, small camera crews, friends-of-the-band who have a working knowledge of film production and want to make music video.

* anyone looking for the technical solution to lip syncing, including methods of how to shoot a music video from beginning to end so the audio syncs with the performance; editing techniques specific to music videos. (layering each full synced take on top of one another and cutting away)

It's an excellent book for what it is: how to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a music video using union professionals.

Birds Eye View of Music Video Film making
I had no clue about music videos until I found this book !
It is complete and covers every asspect of making music video including
the legal issues one needs to know.

I have only started reading this book, and Im sure by the end of it
its gona create a Great Platform for me to start of my carrier

however it could have covered the treatment writing part and other creative topics more elaborately otherwise this book belongs in every shelf !

MAKING MUSIC VIDEOS is packed with eye-opening insights
MAKING MUSIC VIDEOS: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW FROM THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS comes from a veteran music director, producer and teacher whose book provides a one-stop source of information for any who would learn the behind-the-scenes methods of turning a visual concept for a song into a professional quality video. From understanding directors and key players behind music videos and how such are financed within a record label to working with production companies and compiling a cinematography team, MAKING MUSIC VIDEOS is packed with eye-opening insights perfect for any music or video production library holding.

Making Music Videos
I never write reviews, but I am writing this one for those like me who are trying to get more exposure for their music.We are planning on making our first video(s) and putting it on UTube, and this book pretty much tells you exactly how to make a video.It is really detailed, has a good table of contents so you're not wasting time, and gives advice from big people in the industry. ... Read more

Product Description
New York's trendy magazines are a source of peril when a killer enacts a bizarre dance of death, using the personal ads to lure his victims...

After college, best friends Erin Kelley and Darcy Scott move to the city to pursue exciting careers; Erin is a promising jewelry designer, Darcy finds success as a decorator. On a lark, Darcy persuades Erin to help their TV producer friend research the kinds of people who place personal ads. It seems like innocent fun...until Erin disappears.

Erin's body is found on an abandoned Manhattan pier -- on one foot is her own shoe, on the other, a high-heeled dancing slipper. Soon after, startling communiques from the killer reveal that Erin is not the first victim of this "dancing shoe murderer." And, if the killer has his way, she won't be his last. Next on his death list is Darcy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (115)

Talk About A Fast Read!
I've long forgotten how exceptional Mary Higgins Clark is as a writer! I've read works of hers in the past but the titles escape me - not because they were bad, but because it's literally been YEARS since I've picked up another one of her books. Well, let me tell you - I'm so thrilled my aunt gave me this book to read! Awesome and thrilling and I never wanted to stop! The story is up and going from chapter 1 and it just never stops until the end! I absolutely enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys suspense!

Girls Should Never Look for Guys in the Personals
Erin and Darcy have been friends since they were kids. They are best friends who do almost everything together. Erin is a jewellery designer who has just landed a job that will make her career. Darcy is an interior designer with a flourishing business.

When a friend asks them to help her gather data for a televison program she's doing on dating from the personals, the girls agree. After all, it would be fun, answering a few ads, going out on a few dates. A lark.

And then Darcy doesn't come back from one of the dates. Her body is discovered with a dancing shoe on one foot. Erin decides to date the same men as her friend had, hoping she'll find out who the killer is. However, Darcy wasn't the first victim the killer found though a personal ad and, to his way of thinking, she won't be the last, because now he has his sights set on Erin.

It's always been a mystery to me how anyone can believe what they read in these ads. People lie. I mean you could be going out with a serial killer, as Darcy did, or with a rapist, or the very least, probably someone who is stepping out on his wife. Anyway, one thing is guaranteed for sure, if you read this book, you won't be answering any ads from the Sunday paper, or any other paper either. That said, I couldn't put this one down, it's a super thriller.

Loves Music, Loves to Dance
One of her earlier ones, not as good as thr newer ones but still a good novel

Loves Music, loves to Dance
My daughter loved it!!!!It was a required reading for school (senior, high school) and she made a 93 on the test!!!!

If you like this author, you'll love this book
Darcy and Erin are doing research on the kind of people who place personal ads by answering some personals and going out on dates.Erin chooses one where the man signs himself, "Loves music, loves to dance" and he does - but he's also a serial killer.

This book follows the same old formula that all of Mary Higgins Clarke's books do:A beautiful heroine is stalked by a perverted psycho.She meets a lot of red herrings who could all be the baddie and we won't know the villain's true identity until the minute when our damsel is rescued by Prince Charming.There's no suspense or excitement.

Clark's books are quick reads, good for the beach or a plane trip, buttoo predictable and poorly written for me to read anymore of them.There are too many characters to keep track of, we're given way too much useless information about them, the dialog is full of grandiose words and phrases that aren't realistic, and we know the heroine will solve the mystery in the end.I like this book's title and the idea of a killer finding his victims through personals, but it didn't hold my interest. ... Read more

Product Description
Harriet Cavalli, internationally recognized as one of the most talented and experienced specialists in the art of music for dancers and dance teachers, presents here the definitive book on accompaniment, as well as her personal--often humorous--look behind the scenes at the world of dance. The text is enhanced by diagrams and 83 complete musical examples, providing a wealth of repertoire choices.

One of the most comprehensive books to acknowledge the intimate link between music and ballet technique, Dance and Music emphasizes the necessity of effective communication between dance teachers and their accompanists. Cavalli lays the groundwork with descriptions of most musical forms used in the dance classroom and stresses the need for teachers to make music a living part of their classes.

For the inexperienced accompanist, she describes the pianistic demands of the profession, as well as the qualities of dance steps and movements that will facilitate the identification of suitable music. She also discusses the kinds of dance classes an accompanist may work in and offers a lengthy section on the functions of a pianist in a dance company.

With forty years in the field, and firsthand knowledge of what dancing feels like and how to re-create that feeling, Cavalli invites musicians to move gracefully into the special, sometimes intimidating world of dance accompaniment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Dance and Music
A wonderful book that should be read by all teachers and dance accompanists who collaborate in the dance studio. Well written and direct, the information concerning music and its use for ballet class is equally informativefor the teacher and the pianist. The rewards of the often mysterious and misunderstood profession of dance pianist are clearly explained. The importance of the relationship between dance and music are communicated along with an immense respect for the tradition of classical ballet.

Unexpected insights
As a teacher of ballet and not a musician I think we teachers acquire an understanding of the particular needs of accompanists very much the way they acquire an understanding of our needs, mainly by playing for class, and of course that means starting out there can often be little understanding so that it is only after some time that we teachers know how important setting a tempo for the pianist is, etc. and the pianist may come to learn how important it is to have a sense of the length and structure of the combination and not to speed up or slow down.I found this book in our studio and began to read it out of curiosity and i was very struck by Ms Cavalli's awareness of the teacher's needs, not just the pianists.I think it is a very good resource for both teachers and accompanists.

one major drawback but otherwise a remarkable book.
A remarkable/inspiring book in so many ways:i rather like Miss Cavalli'stone of voice... the only book i know which deals with the elusive (but vital) role of ballet accompaniment.
However,i do hope that future editions correct the truly terrible sin of not attributing any of the music examples to the various composers.The likes of Debussy and even Czerny deserve SO much better than this!
Also,a CD accompanying the volume would be a nice extra (as in Charles Rosen's Romantic Generation).

A First Time for Everything
Since I am a musician engaged to a ballet dancer, I was very excited to find a book that finally discussed the many facets of the intersection between dance and music.The book is divided into two main sections: a written section, and a vast collection of musical examples.The musical examples are a great resource, but the written portion itself is far too wordy.Her verbosity inevitably clogs up what could have been a very terse, informative reference work.Also, her title is misleading: this is a book fundamentally about ballet accompaniment. Anyone looking for insight on other forms of dance and their musical possibilities should look elsewhere.

Much needed.
Finally, a book about the rather obscure field of music accompaniment for dance class. This book is primarily for pianists, so it is good to keep this in mind. Teachers may find this book helpful too.
I give this 5 stars because it is one of the first and only books of its kind, written by someone with considerable experience in the field. Harriet Cavalli's humour and bluntness shine through, as she gives many suggestions on dealing with the nitty gritty details of this type of work, with many tips for the beginner on how to get started. It includes a considerable amount of music, which fills nearly the second half of the book. ... Read more

Product Description
For those wanting to shake and shimmy their way to a firmer body, this comprehensive guide to belly dancing offers instructions on how to make the most of the hot belly-dancing-as-fitness trend. In addition to guiding the dancer to a trimmer waist, this how-to book helps put women in touch with their sensuality through the alluring moves of this ancient dance. Specific guidelines for pregnant women who wish to stay strong throughout the nine months and regain their prebaby belly are included. The history and culture of the art is also explored with a celebration of the pulsating music and shimmering costumes that make belly dancing a joy to watch. In Cairo there is a saying: "Every girl is born a dancer." With this guide, all women can be divas of the dance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Simple Yet Useful
This is a little booklet, nicely packaged in quality papers. At first I found it quite simple and might not be as comprehensive as I expect.Though the book does not have huge volume, it is precisely written with some basic facts and history about belly dancing.I particularly love the part which it introduces different kinds of musical instrument and rhythem used in belly dancing.The materials are easy to understand, clearly presented but it provides what I expect to know.A practical guide for belly dance lovers.

Lavish pictures and concise introductory information
A lovely book for your very first purchase in this area.The author is an Australian of Middle Eastern background who has now moved to Egypt, so it is obvious she loves her subject.Such a pretty book in addition to being a good read.A great gift if you know someone who is just starting classes, or if you want to encourage them to!!

A really excellent basic bellydance overview
This was actually a surprising little book. A quick flip through led me to believe this was going to be the typical fluffy intro to belly dance book. The typical history, basic movements, and rah rah mystical female culture sections are offered, but where this book differs from several others I've seen is in the offering of brief but nuanced overviews of several important aspects of dance which are typically glossed over by information sources aimed at the beginner.

The first section I especially appreciated the chapter regarding common instruments with a brief breakdown of the mood generated by, and the motions generally driven by the instruments. This included an explanation of common rhythms (which actually goes beyond Baladi, Masmoudi, and Chiftetelli!) listing regional source, time signatures, "feel", and most common drumming patterns.

The other really interesting section for me was the breakdown of commonly seen dance styles with information on area of origin, and distinguishing characteristics in movement, musical style, and costume.

Belly dance is often offered by beginner books as sort of a homogeneous monolithic thing, when in reality it's a very broad collection of sometimes rather tenuously related styles. I think this book does a really good job of giving the reader a taste of the many different flavors of belly dance available without causing information overload.

One caveat: while the predominantly purple and blue printing in the book is awfully pretty, some of the layout choices leave a bit to be desired. Read it in good lighting.

A Must-have
This book is beautifully done- from the imagery to the content and everything in between I really appreciate Keti's research, insight, and presentation.It is very detailed and interesting... leaves you wanting more for sure but hopefully she will write more on the subject.In fact, she has, if you go to her website [...] you will find some interesting articles on a vast array of fascinating subject matter related to bellydance.From sacred geometry, chakras in dance, and identifying the specific traditions in dance of different regions- she has a lot of great things to share.
I have heard her style of teaching dance criticized but having used her advanced instructional dvd, I would have to say that I think, as far as instruction goes, she is one of the best.She takes all of the intricate elements of dance, theory, tradition, anatomy,geometry and really makes some elegant combinations that showcase a broad spectrum of classic bellydance (with a very "old hollywood" flair that I think is charming).Personally, I think her teaching style is fantastic- it gets even the most callow actually dancing right from the get-go without any wated time and imparts with each combination a little history & stylistic insight.You receive an introduction to her teaching style in this book (her A-Z teaching through combinations).

I would consider this a must-have book for the bellydancer's bookshelf.

entertaining and informative
I actually learned some new tidbits about bellydance through this book! I was just expecting to be a nice coffee table book, which it can be, with the nice pictures, but it actually have some good info. It's not a textbook, of course, so don't expect a whole educational level of information. What's in it, is just really good for general knowledge regarding this form of dance and culture. ... Read more

Product Description
A study of the history, development and present condition of Irish traditional music, song and dance. The techniques and style of traditional playing are fully treated with special reference to the fiddle, the Irish (Union) pipes and the whistle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Great Concise Read on Irish Traditional Music
Not much to say, except its worth a read to any student of traditional music, let alone Irish traditional music.There are many great books on this subject, but this one can be read in short order, and covers enough material to help direct further study in specific areas, or satisfy a general survey.

- Jim

This is a good, basic history book of Irish music and dance.
This book covers the history of Irish music fairly well.It isapproximately 140 pages.The dancing is covered in a mere two pages, butsummarizes the state of dancing in Ireland from the second half of the 18thcentury through the 20th century. ... Read more