My Kingdom for a Guitar


Book Description

My Kingdom for a Guitar is a novel based on the remarkable life of Cameroonian-born writer and musician Francis Bebey. Born in Douala, Cameroon, Bebey studied in Paris and New York. He found fame when his first novel, Le Fils d'Agatha Moudio (Agatha Moudio's Son), was published in 1967, and that fame continued to grow with the release of his first album in 1969. He would go on to become one of the best-known singer-songwriters of Africa, whose groundbreaking style merged Cameroonian makossa with classical guitar, jazz, and pop. Narrated by Bebey's daughter, Kidi, My Kingdom for a Guitar is a tribute to her late father and his family. Through a combination of recollections and fiction, it offers the reader a chance to witness the admiration of a daughter for her father and the love of a man for his music.




The Ultimate Guitar Book


Book Description

An illustrated guide to over 450 different guitars, from early acoustics to the latest electrics.




Chet Atkins


Book Description

Chet Atkins: Me and My Guitars is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive and enlightening book on Chet Atkins ever published. A friend of Atkins' for 40 years, Russ Cochran was privy to stories from Chet that even the most knowledgeable Chet fan would never know about. Chet tells it all in his own words about his childhood, his playing influences and early struggles to find work, along with insight into the guitars he used and endorsed along the way. The book includes full-color photos of Chet and his guitars, many only previously seen in a limited collector's edition. Photographer Wolf Hoffman manages to expertly capture the images of some very famous guitars played by Chet, including his first Sears Roebuck Silvertone, custom made D'Angelicos, the Gretsches, and the prototype models of the current Gibson Country Gentleman guitars. Over 60 guitars in Chet's private collection are photographed in Chet's home and his office on Music Row. Chet speaks about each of his important guitars - including the Gibson L-10 which his brother Jim gave him - telling the story of his career as seen through his guitars. More than just a pictorial review of his guitars throughout the years, it's a fascinating look inside the mind of history's greatest guitar player. This book will appeal to guitar collectors and Chet Atkins fans everywhere. Full-color and B/W photos throughout.




Beyond Basics


Book Description

Featuring standard notation and tablature, this new book & audio package introduces basic accompaniment patterns, how to use the thumb and fingers, Travis" picking, and much more. Readers learn the applications of folk, blues, ragtime and new age styles to solo guitar while learning beautiful new chord voicings."




The Grail Guitar


Book Description

In The Grail Guitar: The Search for Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze Telecaster, Chris Adams takes readers on a fascinating mystery tour to determine whether a Fender Telecaster bought secondhand in a London music store in 1973 was the one used by Jimi Hendrix to record “Purple Haze” in January 1967. The only clues are its left-handed tuners and the salesman’s chance remark that the guitar was brought into the shop by a Hendrix roadie. But these are enough to set the author off on this intriguing journey into Hendrix history. With firsthand details from model Linda Keith, who discovered Hendrix in New York, Adams recounts how the rising star left for London with a white Stratocaster belonging to Keith Richards. The man who made Hendrix’s pedals explains how this Strat failed to make the “Purple Haze” recording session and how it was replaced by a borrowed Telecaster. As Adams tracks down the surviving musicians, they shed light on the fate of that Telecaster and gradually the two guitars begin to merge into one. Throughout, Adams weaves his own story as a rock musician and tells how, against the odds, he managed to hold on to this remarkable instrument. Here is a riveting story of one man seeking the truth about a cultural artifact that changed rock history, a story for rock fans and guitar aficionados, treasure hunters and antique dealers, as well as anyone who likes a detective story.




Guitar Makers


Book Description

It whispers, it sings, it rocks, and it howls. It expresses the voice of the folk—the open road, freedom, protest and rebellion, youth and love. It is the acoustic guitar. And over the last five decades it has become a quintessential American icon. Because this musical instrument is significant to so many—in ways that are emotional, cultural, and economic—guitar making has experienced a renaissance in North America, both as a popular hobby and, for some, a way of life. In Guitar Makers, Kathryn Marie Dudley introduces us to builders of artisanal guitars, their place in the art world, and the specialized knowledge they’ve developed. Drawing on in-depth interviews with members of the lutherie community, she finds that guitar making is a social movement with political implications. Guitars are not simply made—they are born. Artisans listen to their wood, respond to its liveliness, and strive to endow each instrument with an unforgettable tone. Although professional luthiers work within a market society, Dudley observes that their overriding sentiment is passion and love of the craft. Guitar makers are not aiming for quick turnover or the low-cost reproduction of commodities but the creation of singular instruments with unique qualities, and face-to-face transactions between makers, buyers, and dealers are commonplace. In an era when technological change has pushed skilled artisanship to the margins of the global economy, and in the midst of a capitalist system that places a premium on ever faster and more efficient modes of commerce, Dudley shows us how artisanal guitar makers have carved out a unique world that operates on alternative, more humane, and ecologically sustainable terms.




Guild Guitar Book


Book Description

(Book). Guild guitars have been around since the early 1950s, and by the beginning of the '60s, the company had established a solid reputation for its electric and acoustic archtops, which are still widely regarded today. Despite this enduring popularity, little was known about the history of Guild. The Guild Guitar Book is the result of years of intensive research and countless photo sessions. It includes a thorough history of the company and its guitars, including serial numbers, specifications, original prices, and all the information needed to date Guild guitars. Features hundreds of photos, with a beautiful 40-page color section. Now Back in Print!




Children's Guitar Chord Book


Book Description

Younger students will enjoy this creative approach to playing simple guitar chords. Chords are taught with exercises that build upon each other and eventually lead the student to playing logical and common chord progressions. These progressions include I-iii-vi-ii-V-I and twelve bar blues in many different keys. Chords are shown in chord diagram form with detailed illustrations showing finger positions in relationship to the fretboard. Open chords for folk music as well as power chords for rock music are presented clearly and easily in this text. A complete easy chord chart and capo chart is provided at the end of the book for easy reference. Examples and exercises are presented in strum bar notation.




The Blue Guitar


Book Description

John Banville, the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, now gives us a new novel—at once trenchant, witty, and shattering—about the intricacies of artistic creation, about theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another, and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme (“O O O. An absurdity. You could hang me over the door of a pawnshop”), is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who has never before been caught and steals only for pleasure. Both art and the art of thievery have been part of his “endless effort at possession,” but now he’s pushing fifty, feels like a hundred, and things have not been going so well. Having recognized the “man-killing crevasse” that exists between what he sees and any representation he might make of it, he has stopped painting. And his last act of thievery—the last time he felt its “secret shiver of bliss”—has been discovered. The fact that the purloined possession was the wife of the man who was, perhaps, his best friend has compelled him to run away—from his mistress, his home, his wife; from whatever remains of his impulse to paint; and from a tragedy that has long haunted him—and to sequester himself in the house where he was born. Trying to uncover in himself the answer to how and why things have turned out as they have, excavating memories of family, of places he has called home, and of the way he has apprehended the world around him (“one of my eyes is forever turning towards the world beyond”), Olly reveals the very essence of a man who, in some way, has always been waiting to be rescued from himself.




World Music


Book Description

Authors Terry E. Miller and Andrew Shahriari take students around the world to experience the diversity of musical expression. World Music: A Global Journey, now in its third edition, is known for its breadth in surveying the world’s major cultures in a systematic study of world music within a strong pedagogical framework. As one prepares for any travel, each chapter starts with background preparation, reviewing the historical, cultural, and musical overview of the region. Visits to multiple ‘sites’ within a region provide in-depth studies of varied musical traditions. Music analysis begins with an experimental "first impression" of the music, followed by an "aural analysis" of the sound and prominent musical elements. Finally, students are invited to consider the cultural connections that give the music its meaning and life. Features of the Third Edition Over 3 hours of diverse musical examples. with a third audio CD of new musical examples Listening Guides analyze the various pieces of music with some presented in an interactive format online Biographical highlights of performers and ethnomusicologists updated and new ones added Numerous pedagogical aids, including "On Your Own Time" and "Explore More" sidebars, and "Questions to Consider" Popular music incorporated with the traditional Dynamic companion web site hosts new Interactive Listening Guides, plus many resources for student and instructor. Built to serve online courses. The CD set is available separately (ISBN 978-0-415-89402-9) or with its Value Pack and book (ISBN 978 0415- 80823-1). For eBook users, MP3 files for the accompanying audio files are available only with the Value Pack of eBook & MP3 files (ISBN 978-0-203-15298-0). Please find instructions on how to obtain the audio files in the contents section of the eBook.




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