Strictly Strings, Book 3 Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been playing violin since I was 9 years old, and Strictly Strings has been the first choice for music books. I have used Book 1, and this is the perfect installment. It has a familiar layout as other Strictly String books, and includes many of the basic skills seen in Book1. This gives a good introduction to players who may have taken a great from practicing violin because it gives a brief overview of what was seen in Book1. This music book goes more in depth by extending its lesson and introducing more techniques and vocabulary. Although I have not used this book since i finished it long ago, some of my favorite songs to play were "Chop-Sticks", "La Cucaracha","A Scary Night", and "The Jolly Sailor". There are much more, but those songs were enjoyable to play because they were familiar and the material in the songs were fun to play. "A Scary Night" was fun to play because of it was a duet and had a lot of tremolos. Other songs were fun because they had a familiar tune and were fast.

Strictly Strings Book2 also introduces other time signatures, keys, and notes on the violin. Illustrations are included in this book, which turns out to be very helpful when it comes to form and posture. The songs gradually get more and more difficult as it progresses. The end of Book 2 perfectly transitions smoothly into Book3, as expected. Overall, this book is perfect for violinists who are ready to learn and extend their knowledge. The only negative thing i have to say about this book is that i wish Strictly Strings complied all these together, because each book is rather short, consisting of ~40 pages.

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Product Description:
Strictly Strings
Book 3 is an all-in-one technical and musical reference book for the advanced middle school and high school orchestra. It may be used as a follow-up to Book 2 or independently as a quick-reference technique and musicianship manual. Strictly Strings
Book 3 features a host of suggested fingerings and bowings, emphasizes "real" music with over forty 2- and 3-part excerpts, and allows students to work on their own.

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Alfred's Teach Yourself to Play Piano (Teach Yourself Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is great for people just learning to play piano.I have a keyboard at home that I practice on.It takes you step-by-step through each phase/step, and one lesson builds on the next.I m learning a lot with this book- highly recommended.

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First step: Buy this. Everything after that is pretty self-explanatory.

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MIDI: For the Technophobe Review

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(More customer reviews)I've been a musician most of my life, and a computer and software engineer for over 15 years. I am NOT a technophobe, yet MIDI hasn't come easy for me. It is the only "science" that has given me fits... until now.
Mr. White's 'MIDI for the Technophobe' explains in simple terms how to make MIDI work. After the first 2 chapters I had a fundamental understanding of the connectivity & interaction between MIDI components.
It is a slow read at first, but it has to be to clarify what other books assume their readers can figure out for themselves. That's what makes this book so excellent for first-time and beginning MIDI users - it doesn't bury you in buzzwords, it buries you in visualizations on how it all connects and makes music.
A great book for the analog musician who wants to add MIDI synths, percussions and orchestrations to their recordings!

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Introducing the beginner to the concept of MIDI.

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Rhythmic Training Review

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(More customer reviews)This book does it's work very well. Through slow and steady practice of it's exercises, one can build up one's reading skills as fast as one practically can. It's hard work, but it doesn't get easier than thisbook.
While the end of the book is focused on insanely complicatedrhythmic scores, rarely to be seen outside very complicated 20th music,it's still good reading practice.

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Simple elementary exercises that progress to complex drills. 84 pages.

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Absolute Power: The Screenplay (Applause Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)At the start of "Absolute Power" Luther Whitne (Clint Eastwood), cat burglar par excellence, finds himself in a very strange situation.While robbing a rich man's safe in a large bedroom closet, he is interrupted by the appearance of a man and woman who head straight for the bed.While hiding in the closet, where he sees what is going on through a two-way mirror, he watches while the sex play gets rough: the man hits her, she stabs him with a letter opener, and then two men come into the room and shoot her.Luther gets out of there, but while his presence was undetected it does not go undiscovered.The problem is that the man he was watching happens to be the President of the United States (Gene Hackman).
Now, I have to stop at this point and tell you that one of my cinematic pet peeves is the idea that the United States Secret Service will let the president do anything, no matter how stupid or reckless, without batting an eye.Indeed, in "Absolute Power" there are two such agents, who help to cover up the murder and then try to track down Luther and kill him.However, the actors playing those two agents happen to be Scott Glenn and Dennis Haysbert, which is an important fact because a lot of the faults in this film area absolved by the casting, the credit for which goes to the film's director: Clint Eastwood.
The hook for this thriller is the idea that the president, his Chief of Staff (Judy Davis), and the Secret Service are out to get Luther, whose stated intention is to get out of town and get lost as quick as possible.But the key to this film ends up being a rather odd romantic triangle that exists between Luther, his estranged daughter, Kate (Laura Linney), and the D.C. homicide cop, Seth Frank (Ed Harris), who is assigned to the murder.Frank interviews Luther, not because he thinks the old con is a murderer, but because he is one of the few that could have pulled off the heist.He then moves on to Kate, hoping to get her to persuade her father to turn himself in before the wrath of the rich man (E.G. Marshall) whose wife is dead comes crashing down on him.Frank clearly likes Kate and is rather impressed by Luther, which is good because I like smart cops.For his part, Luther clearly has some admiration for the detective and also likes his taste in women.
My favorite scene in this movie is when Frank takes Kate to her father's house, where she has never been, and (knowing where Luther hides the key), takes her inside.In one room she finds a gallery of photographs, of all of the key moments in her life after her father left."She was at none of these," she insists to Frank, although clearly that was never the case and we can see in an instant that she is rethinking her entire relationship with her father.As much as it is fun to watch Luther outsmart the cops, the Secret Service, and the hitman sent by old man Sullivan, the heart of this film is between Luther and Kate.Even when she sets him up, believing it to be the only way of helping keep her father alive, he surprises her by showing up.His reasoning?He did not want her to believe he was a murderer.Besides, his daughter wanted to see him.
I understand the script by William Goldman is quite different from David Balducci's novel, but that simply has to do with Eastwood playing Luther (if you read the novel you will understand why this would matter in terms of the significant changes).Eastwood's direction is competent as always, and, as I mentioned above, he gets the credit for being able to bring together such a solid cast for one of his projects (who would turn down a Clint Eastwood movie?).Final Note: the White House Tour Guide is played by the director's daughter, Kimber Eastwood.

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When a routine burglary in an elegant, upscale Virginia mansion goes awry, career thief Luther Whitney finds himself witness to a brutal murder involving none other than Alan Richmond, the youthful, charming, and thoroughly corrupt President of the United States. Torn between fear for his life and devotion to his family and country, Luther must make a decision that will change not only his own destiny, but the destiny of the world as we know it. Based on the best-selling thriller by David Baldacci, described as "relentlessly entertaining" by The Atlanta Journal & Constitution, William GoldmanÕs screenplay captures the paranoia, greed, and corruption of politics through the ages and around the world.

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Suzuki Guitar School, Vol. 6 Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book to start reading music as an adult. My reasoning was that I was new to music and it should be very well explained and very simple. I finished vol. 1 in no time, and it gave me a good base to start reading music. From there I went on to buy Mel Bay and Sal Salvador guitar methods, but I still bought the second volume of Suzuki. It is short, and thus not discouraging, because you see the end coming. The selections are very good for classical music and even though the jump from volume 1 to volume 2 is a little too high, with a teacher it will improve your playing and your reading. I find this method very good. Specially for children.

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The SUZUKI METHOD of Talent Education is based on Dr. Shinichi Suzuki'sview that every child is born with ability, and that man is the son of his environment. According to Dr. Suzuki, a world-renowned violinist and teacher, the greatest joy an adult can know comes from developinga child's potential so he/she can express all that is harmonious and best in human beings.Students are taught using the "mother-tongue" approach.

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Love's Labour's Lost: Applause First Folio Editions (Applause Shakespeare Library Folio Texts) Review

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(More customer reviews)This merry play is a delight for its language.It has more a situation than a plot.The King has sworn himself and three attendants to three years of fasting, abstinence from women, study, and little sleep.Immediately a princess arrives with her attendants that cause the men to regret their oaths.Letters are written, delivered incorrectly, and a huge final scene with disguises, masks, and a wonderfully strange presentation of some of the nine worthies.All of this provides a structure for a rich play of language that is full of wit and bawdy.

This edition has a lengthy introductory essay that helps understand the issues of the text, the historical context, and performance practice issues.The notes are wonderfully helpful in understanding the text and what choices the editors had to make in presenting it.After the play is an essay just on the text of the play, appendix 2 has additional lines that this edition leaves out of the play, appendix 3 discusses Moth's name.

The issue around Moth is that in Elizabethan times Moth would likely have been pronounced more like Mott than our soft th.And the word mote and moth were roughly interchangeable.The name of the insect and the word for a small particle meant roughly the same thing.It is a nice issue to be aware of and the essay is helpful.

Appendix 4 lists words that are rhymed in this play - often a revelation to the way words were pronounced 400 years ago.Appendix 5 lists the compound words, many of them minted in this play.

All in all, this edition is a happy experience of a very fun play.

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If there ever has been a groundbreaking edition that likewise returns the reader to the original Shakespeare text, it will be the Applause Folio Texts. If there has ever been an accessible version of the Folio, it is this edition, set for the first time in modern fonts.
The Folio is the source of all other editions. The Folio text forces us to re-examine the assumptions and prejudices which have encumbered over four hundred years of scholarship and performance. Notes refer the reader to subsequent editorial interventions, and offer the reader a multiplicity of interpretations. Notes also advise the reader on variations between Folios and Quartos.
The heavy mascara of four centuries of Shakespearean glossing has by now glossed over the original countenance of ShakespeareÕs work. Never has there been a Folio available in modern reading fonts. While other complete Folio editions continue to trade simply on the facsimile appearance of the Elizabethan "look," none of them is easily and practically utilized in general Shakespeare studies or performances.

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