Performance Books

This is a great research tool for concert music. Although the CDs are separate, this book works alone as well. And this is just book one of many!

The book "Teaching Music Through Performance in Band" Has already been a great tool for me. I am only a Sophmore in Music Education school and it has given me numerous ideas of ways to teach and what is appropriate to teach. The book breaks down many pieces to show ways to explain the music to children in band how to perform them musically. It also offers them insight into the composers life and how the piece fit into it. This helps students relate so that emotion and thought can be put into the piece that they are playing.

This book is a wonderful source of information on many band works of different grade levels and styles. I liked the fact that this book has an extensive bibliography, enabling a person to study band music in even more depth. I wish that the author had included some band works that can be played by bands without full instrumentation. (my band has two trombones for a "low" section, and it is hard to play the beautiful pieces to their full perfection. I would recommend this book to college students, and I would also recommend that they try and listen to recordings of some of the pieces discussed.

I bought this book after having taught for 12 years. I really wish that someone would have written a reference such as this for my first years of teaching! This is a comprehensive volume designed to help the band director develop a concise curriculum for the high school (or college) band program. Included are chapters on rehearsal techniques, conducting basics, philosophies of music education, and justification for our music programs!!! The standout feature of this book, however, is its coverage of wind literature. For each piece, there is historical background, instrumental difficulties, suggested listening lists, and various activities related to the piece. This should be required reading for all college music education majors.

For any theatre professional, student or enthusiast. Highly recommend watching "My Dinner With Andre" as well. It's a film by Wallace Shawn.

Comprehending this book is no small feat. Sure, you start with the premise that competing with the technical spectacle of movies and TV is a fruitless pursuit. That's not difficult. Neither is the idea of embracing poverty in theatre and making the human being the only center of performance. That's dead easy. Spare costumes, little or no makeup, no sound effects, as few light effects as possible. Who can argue with that?

But this doesn't mean everybody can embrace Grotowski's vision of Poor Theatre. His is one that involves stripping away all preconceived notions of theatre from the early Modern period on. This will never fly in commercial theatre, dependent as it is on technology, nor will it satisfy many recent playwrights, who depend on technical do-funnies to make their shows work.

Grotowski also takes a funny view of plays, playwrights, and theoreticians who don't agree with him. Among other things, he considers playwrights as hired talent and plays as essentially malleable. He also suggests that the only way the writings of Artaud are useful in theatre is if they are taken elementally rather than globally - a position sure not to sit well with many avant-garde directors.

Because this book isn't a straight-ahead statement of principles, ideas, and practices, it yields its secrets only with difficulty. Parts of it aren't even written by Grotowski, but are interviews by other authors, or even observations that don't include quotes from the man himself. It was basically compiled to provide an overview of the ideas and products of the Polish Laboratory Theatre up to that time, and it encourages experiment and development by the reader.

This isn't to say that it isn't actually useful. There are exercises for actors; there are statements of theory for directors; there are even sketches, diagrams, and photos for designers. However, expect to wrestle with this book if you're going to unlock its secrets. Once you elect to start down this path, you have a long row to hoe

"Towards A Poor Theatre" by Jerzy Grotowski is probably the most important book written on acting since Stainslavsky's three famous character books. There is so little known about Grotowski and many people have tried to fake his work and people need to read the man's original words. Grotowski's vision of theatre has had the greatest effect on me more than any other person in theatre. He saw acting as a Holy experience where both the actor and spectator were transformed after the performance. Grotowski expanded from where Stainslavsky left off and drew his ideas everywhere from modern art to religious rituals to primitive theatre. Any one interested in theatre must read this book somehow and be changed forever like I have.

There is no better book that I have read on the theory and practice of theatre. As Peter Brook says in the preface, "Grotowski is unique. Why? Because no-one else in the world, to my knowledge, no-one since Stanislavsky, has investigated the nature of acting, its phenomenon, its meaning, the nature and science of its mental-physical-emotional processes as deeply and completely as Grotowski."

Grotowski argues effectively that the split of the stage and the screen necessitates that the stage redefine its focus. The screen with its higher budget and countless retakes will always beat the stage in richness. So, Grotowski posits "If it [the stage] cannot be richer than the cinema, then let it be poor." The rest of the book illustrates what such a poor theatre means in practice. Brilliant.

Nicholas Rudall's Euripides' The Trojan Women: Plays For Performance provides a new translation of a literary classic of pathos and war, capturing the classical drama in a new form designed as a play for performing to modern audiences. An outstanding literary work Euripides' The Trojan Women is highly recommended for any studying Euripides.

Diane C. Donovan Reviewer

Edith Hamilton, in The Greek Way, says that "Euripides is the saddest of the poets" and that "no poet's ear has ever been so sensitively attuned as his to the still, sad music of humanity." The Trojan Women, a heart-rending read, certainly supports these opinions.

Written in Athens in 415 B.C. in the throes of the ruinous Peloponnesian War, the play was a condemnatory response to the recent Athenian atrocities against the neutral Greek island of Melos. After taking the island, the Athenians executed all the men and enslaved the women and children. It was an end of innocence of sorts for the city that had long considered itself the world's citadel of what we now call civilization and culture. In criticizing it, Euripides reached back to the central event of the Greek epic heritage, the legendary victory over Troy, for his setting and characters.

The resulting tragedy opens in the aftermath of the slaughter of the Trojan men, with Troy in flames and the women being divvied up as slaves to the conquering Greeks. Euripides is unflinching in his depiction of the inhumanities visited upon the vanquished. King Priam's daughter, Cassandra, is raped by Agamemnon, king of the Greeks. His other daughter Polyxena is cruelly murdered. In one of the most moving scenes in all of literature, his grandson Astyanax, a young child and the only surviving heir to the Trojan throne, is taken from his mother Andromache's grieving embrace and thrown to his death from the highest wall of the city. In fact, the only pity and decency presented among the Greeks is found in the Greek messenger Talthybius, who cleans the body of Astyanax and brings it to his grandmother Hecuba after Andromache's pleading to bury him is denied as she is taken away to her fate as a Greek slave.

Many have read this work as a blanket indictment of war. I read it as a misanthropic perspective on human nature, with its glimmers of what we call humanity intersticed between the harsh reality of our cruelty, hatred and violence, a reality set free within the lawless terrain of war. Those with a rosy view of our genetic inheritance should generally be given fair warning before engaging the works of Euripides, and The Trojan Women is no different. That said, whatever one's views of our species, this is one of its finer artifacts and it deserves a wide reading despite the passage of over 2,400 years.

Having seen a staged production of this text at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC, I am looking forward to reading the text in detail. In the theater, this was a powerful, painful confrontation of the effects of war on the victims -- the women and children. No heroes, no vainglorious praise of war. Just the horrors of surviving and loss. Troy becomes every war-devastated landscape. The parallels to Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, etc., etc. were not to be denied.

Rudell is able to bridge the centuries and make Troy contemporary. The language is both elevated (in the style of classic tragedy) and immediate in its emotional impact.

About 416 B.C. the island of Melos refused to aid Athens in the war against Sparta. The Athenians then slaughtered the men and enslaved the women and children, an atrocity never before inflicted on one Greek city-state by another. As preparations were made for the ruinous expedition against Syracuse, Euripides wrote "The Trojan Women," as a plea for peace. Consequently there is a strong rhetorical dimension to the play, which prophesies that a Greek force would sail across the sea after violating victims and meet with disaster. However, there the play also has a strong literary consideration in that the four Trojan Women--Hecuba, Queen of Troy; Cassandra, daughter of Hecuba and Priestess of Apollo; Andromache, widow of Hector; and Helen--all appear in the final chapter of Homer's epic poem the "Iliad," mourning over the corpse of Hector, retrieved by his father Priam from the camp of the Acheans. Whenever I have use "The Trojan Women" in class I have always used at least that last chapter of Homer to set up the play.

As with his last play "Iphigenia at Aulis," which tells of the events right before the Achean army left for Troy, "The Trojan Women" reflects the cynicism of Euripides. Of all the Achean leaders we hear about in Homer, only Menelaus, husband of Helen, appears. He appears, ready to slay Helen for having abandoned him to run off to Troy with Paris, but we see his anger melt before her beauty and soothing tones. In this play the Greeks do more than enslave women: they have already slain a young girl as a sacrifice to the ghost of Achilles and they take Astyanax, the son of Hector, out of the arms of his mother so that he can be thrown from the walls of Troy. Even the herald of the Greeks, Talthybius, cannot stomach the policies of his people. The play also reminds us that Helen was a most unpopular figure amongst the ancient Greeks, and there is no satisfaction in her saving her life (Note: you might want to check out Isocrates's "Encomium on Helen," an exhibition speech in which he shows off his talent by defending the hated woman). The idea that all of these men died just so that she could be returned to the side of her husband is an utter mockery of the dead. This translation by Nicholas Rudall focuses on the performance of "The Trojan Women," but it is certainly useful for those interested in the historical or literary aspects of the play as well. Another interesting analogy is to use this play in conjunction with "Lysistrata" by Aristophanes, so that students can compare and contrast an anti-war comedy and drama.

I loved this book. Drawing on examples of athletes, artists, scientists, and many others who have excelled in a range of fields, the book is both instructive and inspiring. Visionary behavior is living a full and well-rounded life, and the book discusses how developing various capacities in ourselves will help us achieve that. I found the book to be a nice balance of idealism and realism, looking optimistically to the future, but solidly grounded in the present. The real-life examples provide great models and nicely illustrate each point. No quick fix solutions or band-aids here. I think the book hits on some profound truths in a refreshing way that will resonate with people of any age and background. Reading the book made me want to be better and provided instructions on how to do so. I highly recommend it to others.

This is a book well worth reading. It is a step by step journey into the power of the mind. The author uses mental imagining to create a vision of those behaviors needed to find the path that leads to success.

He uses a variety of examples of successful people who have already found those secrets inside of themselves. This book provides the creativity,spiritual awareness,insightfulness,and guidance to help you become a self full-filled person.

This book is an intriguing expedition into the soul of man. It exposes one to a world of possibilities by utilizing the exemplars of our time and the science behind our innermost workings. If you're looking to enrich your everyday life and find increased meaning within the things you do and say, this book is for you.

Author Mike Weber unfolds a keen grasp of history, and spirituality in Visionary Behavior. He seems to have his finger on the beating pulse of our generation, as well as many past, present and future. He brings to light so many possibilities for mankind. His message of hope is written in a lovely, flowing way. He tells us how we got here, and where we might go in the manner of a strong, kind mentor. His ideas for building character, talent and wisdom are complemented by his ideas on leadership, and a better world. I loved it.

This is a very complex play although it seems simplistic at first. There were a lot of changes going on in society when Ibsen wrote this play in 1884 And not everyone was adapting to these changes. Some still tried to cling to the old way of doing things, and others were trying to force changes within their own sphere. (Is that so different than now?) Anyway, Ibsen portrays these varying degrees of acceptance with his characters in this play. And he does a masterful job of it. How can so much be depicted about the heartache and pathos of the human psyche within the limits of a five-act play? That is Ibsen/s genius.

so hilarious, so poignant, so daring, and so dense - teeming with life - the characters speaking their characterization - and such beautiful characters - and so wacko

Ibsen's philosophical "message" in this play disturbs me. I don't think I agree with Dr. Relling that each of us needs his own brand of self-deception to cope with life. Certainly Hialmar Ekdal is content enough, and hilariously funny as an lazy fool who thinks he's a creative genius in photograhy, a breadwinner to his wife and daughter, and a martyr to his father's scandalous past. Alas, his friend Gregers Werl points the way to the truth, that Hialmar is deceived about everything in his life. It would all be comical but for the fact that Hialmar's daugher Hedvig, who is probably not his daugther at all, shoots herself as proof of her love for Hialmar. So, Ibsen seems to say, here the truth has cost a young girl's life, an unbearable tragedy but for the fact that she was going blind. Well, no doubt there is cost in knowing the truth about oneself and about others, no doubt there are things we prefer not to know, and no doubt there are people like Hialmar who are impervious to truth. But there are also people like Hialmar's wife Gina, and Dr. Relling himself, who know the truth and who hold up nobly and well. For at least these, I think Ibsen should recommend truth in large doses, and perhaps he does.

Many find Ibsen difficult to understand. I certainly did. However, by reading The Wild Duck, I was introduced to an entire new world of symbolism and creative writing. Like the master he was, Ibsen paints a portrait of a family, representing all of us, living on a lie. Cruelty in our midst, innocent victimes and pragmatists losing to the vindictive, it's all there. The touches of comedy and tragedy just increase the impression that it does concern us, that really, he's looked into our lives and seen our lies, although hopefully in a less extreme version. And don't we all know a Hedvig, a Gina, a Hjalmar and a Gregers? Maybe there's something of the all in all of us... The book sucks you in, creeps under your skin and stays there, along with the horror, the anger and the sympathy you feel while reading. In my opinion, one of the best examples of Ibsen's less romantic period of writing.

This book is a "must have" for all managers: young and old, mature and just beginning.

For new managers, the book contains essential guidelines for establishing a vision, communicating the mission, and securing buy-in of your team members. It will help the new manager communicate effectively and establish confidence with the team.

For the mature manager (read "aged" manager), this book augments your "home-grown" techniques with many new ideas. I found the book re-inforced my "home-grown" style and augmented it with new ideas.

Wolf Rinke's latest book is a great addition to his collection of well-received books and and personal improvement products. "Winning Management" clearly shows the reader what must be done to excel in management. This is a practical guide to success on the job and can be used easily by any supervisor at any level of an organization. My copy is well-used!

Having seen Dr. Rinke present his strategies for success as a seminar leader and author, and also having heard the outcomes of his plans of action, I know that he can positively and quickly affect your success at work.

Once again Wolf Rinke provides readers with the necessary steps to succeed... this is the second book I have read of his. It is well written, easy to understand and follow... and perhaps most importantly - easy to implement so that gaining the highest performance becomes reality. Wolf Rinke's strategies for success are second to none!

As a mid-level manager for one of the country's premier communication organizations (Motorola), I found Rinke's book invaluable. His approach to teaching and coaching blends with our culture beautifully. It leads you on a practical, common sense journey that can be implemented everyday and easily taught to your team members. "Winning Management" has now become a cornerstone of our philosophies...you can find it on the desk of most managers. Thank You, Wolf!

Seriously he is.
I didn't think so at first but he worked me over for hours until I snapped. I ended up getting 3 sequined beads and a shower cap...He got the keys to my car and my undying affection. Yeah, he's that good.

I much prefer the audio tapes to the book.
Translates better I feel for this subject.

Once again Roger has amazed me with the way he explains his knowledge. I read 75 books a year, this is one book that I really had an easy time learning and applying, and that is what we are all looking for isn't it? A quick painless way to success? This is so clear that an elementary student will possess the skills to achieve anything in their life.

I don't know how "secret" Dawson's ideas are, but as one of the very few top-level professionals on the speaking circuit, he delivers a lot of motivation to get you off your duff. He gives you plenty more than just stale ideas to think about. I personally use his time management system, because he was the first person to show me the real value of having one that actually works. Sharing several of the ideas in this book with the clients I coach has helped my clients reach specific goals much faster.

A great guide packed with concise information and ideas for the dental practice. Easy to read, easy to implement.

This is a must have book for people who work in the Dental field.

Bob Levoy practically invented practice management, but God is not finished with him yet. His latest book may be the best book on dental practice management ever written. We liked it so much we've recommended that it be the required textbook for our practice management course at Temple University School of Dentistry.

Want to impress your friends when they start talking about 'tuning' and 'horsepower'? Buy this book then. A lot of good info for beginners and even people with a lot more experience. If you know all about engines, camshafts, etc., then this book will not be a good buy. Personally, I think it didn't have enough info on Honda engines, so I hope Mr. Edgar will write 21st Century Performance Part 2.

This has to be one of the best, or the best book on todays automobile technology and performance. This book makes you understand how and why things work the way they do. As an engineer myself I gave this book two thumbs up.

If you need to understand what works, or what doesn't work, in modifying your car to go quicker, this is the book to get.

What a great book !

This book was recommended to me by a fellow car enthusiast in Australia so I decided to take a chance on it - I wasn't disappointed.

This hardback book has a modern column based page-layout and is printed in a clear typeface with excellent clarity and image reproduction. The chapters are well sequenced and cover a comprehensive list of topics.

Of particular interest to me were the detailed sections covering engine management and electronics both OEM, after market and DIY.

Other chapters cover engine, forced induction and intercooling, chassis, aerodynamics, wheels & tyres, suspension, rolling roads etc. all in comprehensive detail with well written and easy to follow copy, clear photo's, diagrams and charts.

This book is also ideal for owners wishing to perform some simple DIY electronic modifications or build turbo boost controllers as there are some practical low cost projects to try. I have had excellent success with some of these and found that this added an almost interactive context to the book.

The author, Julian Edgar, is obviously passionate about automotive tuning and has extensive knowledge and experience in this field, this comes across in the book in a very positive and enthusiastic way.

All in all a book well worth adding to your collection.

This is a great book with clear advice for any parent, whether you have young children, or older ones. The fascinating thing about this book is that the advice given can be applied to work colleagues, parents, friends as well as your kids!

Buy it - this book works.

This is a great book with clear advice for any parent, whether you have young children, or older ones. The fascinating thing about this book is that the advice given can be applied to work colleagues, parents, friends as well as your kids!

Buy it - this book works.

I loved this book because it has many simple, "how to" type instructions for parents on raising a happy family. I am an educator/trainer myself and I appreciate that the book quickly reduces complex child raising information into a usable, fun format. It also is the kind of inspiration parents need on their bedside table for those days when nothing is working. The operating system in this book seems simple, but you will find yourself reading it again to get the depth. Taking punishment out, and putting natural consequences into parenting is a courageous, high integrity way to live. The book shows us how to do this, with great tools for parents and all of us who love and care for children. Bravo!!