Arts & Music Books > Popular Music Arts & Music Books

Advantages: vital factors covered
Disadvantages: not to much detail

...: 1. Notes on the Fretboard (very important factor to learn) 2. The major scale 3. Two movable chord Shapes 4. The 1st 3rd and 5th chord families 5. The DAF Roadmap 6. Chord Fragments/families 7.The circle of Fifths 8. Variations on two movable chord shapes 9. movable major scales 10. Movable blues scales 11. sliding pentatonic scales 12. A Movable double note lick Over all the book provides strong key information into building your knowledge ...
...much detail in each section but provides good step by step instructions to give the basic understanding of the theories. I would recommend this to players who want to get a quick grasp of alot of different basic skills without having to read hundreds and hundreds of pages. In fact the whole book only has 64 and it covers all of the above. All in all a good little book for beginners especially and intermediate players wouldn't be sorry for reading ... Read review

Advantages: Easy but not shallow reading, deeply chucklesome
Disadvantages: At the price, none

A book that is tremendously annoying in the sense that as a music fan you wish you'd written it first. Giles Smith's comfortable, easy writing style takes you through his life with popular music; listening to it, buying it, obsessing over it, and finally attempting to play it in public for money. Along the way he goes through such pivotal moments as buying your first single (and lying about what it was years later), realising that Dark Side Of The ...
...his virginity with the record player on, being compelled to buy everything Nik Kershaw records, failing to heed John Peel's warnings that it'll all end in tears, the revelation that Andy Partridge is a total genius, being big in Germany for about five minutes, having your bandmate break down and run off to become a gardener, and becoming a music journalist because your mission to "become Sting" has failed. Rest assured, I have bought this as a stocking ... Read review

Advantages: A non-fiction page turner, very well written
Disadvantages: Time for an update? Will not appeal to all

'The Nation's Favourite', Simon Garfield's real-life account of the behind the scenes going on at Radio One, was recently passed on to me with recommendations from a good friend. (If interested, you should be able to pick it up for next to nothing on Amazon or Ebay) He, like me, is one of those sad acts that can name every Breakfast Show host at Radio One (R1) since it's launch (but would have no hope of doing the same with, say, US Presidents, ...
...website at www.simongarfield.com). The Nation's Favourite also contains an excellent index so that you can dip in and out of favourite stories. If you detest Radio One and all it stands for, this book will pass you by, but if, like me, you like a bit of modern pop culture, this makes for a very interesting read. For a non-fiction book, this is a real page-turner and I guarantee you won't want it to end. Time for a sequel perhaps? ... Read review

Advantages: Everything you could ever want to know
Disadvantages: Slightly upsetting in places

This is quite a significant book to me. I grew up listening to Thin Lizzy and being Irish, my whole family was totally in love with their music. Phil Lynott was such a complex character I felt I owed it to him to read this book, just to prove that there was more to him than just the drugs. I learnt so much about him and the band that at points I felt I knew them. It was strange to think that if only Phil had stopped the drugs, he'd still be here. ...
...gives us all the gory details of his life, it tells tales of Phils hilariously flirtatious character, his obsession with music and showed us what a loving father he was and how much he loved being a father. Last year I had the privelige of meeting his son and I felt like I knew everything about his father and he knew so little (he had only just found otu Phil was his father due to Phil giving him away because of his religion). It was amazing, it ... Read review

Advantages: None
Disadvantages: None

Hello and welcome to the review that should have been here. It was here but its not here now as I have taken it and put it into my private stash somewhere else. It may well appear somewhere else online and if it does it will have my name on it. Thank you to everyone, to all the people in my COT over the years who have stuck by me and who have been great influences over the reviews I have written. It is indeed a sad case that reviewers have to come ...
...sense at all when the original content should be listed and frankly because of endless problems with Ciao I no longer have the time and energy to carry on. Each time I tried, it didn't work. Each message I sent to other members, they didn't appear. Each rate I applied, it didn't show. So that's the end of it. Ty for reading. ... Read review