Schools and Instruction Books

I've been a Suzuki teacher for 12 years. I found that this CD is really out of tune and in many cases sloppy. It has one cool feature and that is it's Suzuki playing Suzuki and he was in his 80s (I think) when it was recorded. The two other CD's available, however, in some cases have lightning fast tempos. The new Midi CD-ROM seems to have solved that issue.

I received my delivery in a timely manor and was able to enjoy The Suzuki Violin CD Volume 1 I ordered. It was exactly what I expected being from volume 1, it concentrated on strings A, and E. This CD was recommended by my daughters Suzuki Violin Teacher to help her learn by ear what the these two strings used in various songs sound like. It was worth the purchase since my daughter is a beginning Suzuki student, ... I may have to go out for volume 2 soon since she's fallen in love with her violin.

I have been taking a lesson from Suzuki method teacher, and this CD has been a great suppliment in my busy life. Just listening to this CD for 5-10 minutes a day ( during the commute or cooking time) has been helping me to understand what I need to work on. My daily practice time is avarage 15 minutes or so, but I have been making good enough progress because of this listening program.

Several people have commented on this recording sounding sharp. I suspect it has to do with different tuning standards. the standard tuning pitch here in the States is A 440, but in other parts of the world A 445 is often used. It would sound sharp by comparison, but is not necessarily "wrong".

It's really unfortunate that the performance on this CD does seem to sound too sharp as pointed out by a previous reviewer, who's a Suzuki teacher. Our violins (both mine and my daugther's) always sound quite a bit flatter than this CD after being tuned by my daughter's Suzuki teacher, who has perfect pitch. One time earlier on, I also tried tuning our violins w/ this CD as aid (thinking our violins had gone too flat), and the teacher thought they were oddly out of tune more than usual (or in an odd way I guess since they were sharp, not flat) -- well, she didn't really say so, but her facial expression and gesture said it all. :-) I never really brought this up w/ her before, but I think I will in our next lesson. And perhaps, I'll buy a different CD for this series as well -- maybe the David Nadien version as suggested elsewhere.

Nice approach for young artists to learn about drawing horses. It uses the various approaches of simplified lines/shapes to create the basic shape and illustrates some examples of shading and coloring that help inspire more realistic techniques. The cartoon-style horses are a little silly, but might help very young artists feel less discouraged if their early attempts don't look just like the realistic ones in the book. Our children 5 and 7 yrs. tried this book and both got something out of it. It's a little thin - could have been a little longer but it has a surprizing amount of material in it for such a small book.

This is a great book for the kids who are horse lovers at heart

My Daughter loves to draw and she loves this book!!! She is 8 and this was perfect would recommend again!!!

Since I ordered this for a young budding artist, I was willing to wait awhile until it shipped. What a disappointment - this book is not at all what I expected - I imagine I should have been warned by the price. There is almost no instruction about drawing horses - the pictures are pretty but they will not help in actually learning to draw horses. One star is almost overly generous for a "learning" book.

This book is pathetic. It has almost no instructions, only not-very-realistic horse drawings on each page. If you want a great horse drawing book, check out "Anyone Can Draw Horses." This book uses non-conventional methods, such as sketching the basic skeleton to get the horse's shape correct. It never ONCE tries to make you use circles and other geometric shapes. (I don't know about you, but this never works for me! The drawing just gets disproportionate!) However, if you like the circle method, try "Draw 50 Horses."

The book is boring, its ideas have nothing to do with kissing techniques, excercises are silly.

Not worth the money nor the bother!

I dont usually take the time to write reviews. This book had a profound impact on my life and the way I see myself in relationship and the way I see my partner. I spent the 1st 40 years of my life not knowing how to truly connect with a woman. Sure I was a good kisser. Now kissing is meaningful for both of us and the exercises in the book have helped take us to heights we never dreamed of. The kind of connection we are growing now is one that is fulfilling and satisfying and without end. We took turns reading it to each other and I loved every minute of it. I highly recomend it to everyone, especially thoes who pride themselves in being great kissers. Read the book and hold on to your hat!!!

If you are looking for a book that gives you technical explanations of how to improve your kissing skills, this is NOT the book. There is almost no discussion of the mechanics of kissing at all. What this book is, is a metaphysical approach to connectedness...basically, if you aren't at a place of inner-peace and connectedness with yourself, you can't share that with someone else. This book is a whole lot of ethereal fluff...and I tend to like ethereal, but not when I want real guidance. I was very disappointed and actually returned it. It wasn't even worth keeping around.

This book would be better titled "Loving School" because it primarily addresses how to connect with your loved one. If you are looking for advice on how to be a better kisser and technique, this book does not serve the purpose.

There's a lot of information we never get on how to enhance the quality of our relationships with our beloved. The entire content of this book fits into that category. I read this the first time as single person at the suggestion of a friend, wondering what I could possibly get out of it. I was exceptionally surprised! The exploration of our "inner lover" and the breathing exercises are designed to help us integrate the loving aspects of ourselves, bringing that incredible energy into our daily life whether we are alone, preparing for our great love or have been in relationship for years.
Being in relationship now, I find these practical steps to bring an excitingly enhanced physical, emotional and spiritual experience to our connection with each other. In reading, I found I was invited repeatedly to explore my innermost self to find how deep my love actually went, only to find it was unlimited - and I could share this all with my partner.
Don't let the title of the book fool you. While these exercises may take your kissing to a whole new level, your experience of what is shared between your hearts and souls in these tender moments can quickly become the highlight of your days together, even if it's the single moment of kissing each other goodbye in the morning. I would recommend this book to any person wanting to find and know that deeper love!!

I have this workbook and I feel that the content needs to be updated. I photocopy the exercise pages and others but I would prefer a different workbook for Calligraphers. I don't use carpenters pencils...but my Sheafer Fountain Callgraphy pen broad nib works with this book. I think for what I paid for it that I could have gotten a better deal elsewhere.

Not the greatest letterforms for beginners to be looking at... don't use this... please!

This book is great with its workbook format. It really did make it easy to learn the style of calligraphy it teaches. Its format makes it so simple that all you need is a calligraphy marker or pen. The rest is all in the book, from how to instructions, to tracing pages, to practicing, and to decorative projects. I really enjoyed it and also gave a copy to a 10 year old who equally enjoyed it.

I am so tired of seeing calligraphy "how-to" books put out by folks who don't really have the background and knowledge, but I guess it makes them money. I wish the author would take the time to truly learn good calligraphy letterforms before passing hers on to the unsuspecting public.

I found this book to be very comprehensive, easy to follow and will recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn calligraphy.

I would recommend this book, but first I would make some changes to it. If the book was up dated and it had more realistic pictures with a lot more details then it would be more exciting to draw the pictures in the book. When you read the book to learn how to draw it the book doesn't really explain how to draw the picture in the best way it can. Plus the author seemed like he only put in the drawings that he liked instead of thinking about other peoples thoughts. The only people that would read this book would be teens, children and some adults intrested in drawing non up dated drawings that are old and boring. They should show how to draw the steps better other than letting the persone do half the picture and then all of a sudden the picture is finished. But if the book was more exciting and up dated I'm sure people would love to read it. But other than that only the little kids would love to read this book. So yes, I recommend this book to little children.
Misty L.

If your an origanal artist it's pretty good. It covers a wide variety of things, but it dosn't get in to very good detail. Cats, scary stuff, dinosuars, people, robots( needs inproving) and stuff. Not much style, so if you want to become a comic book artist this book would probably be pretty useful. The cats, dinosaurs, the machines, maps and buildings sections are probably the best. This book would deffinetly inprove your drawing.

My 12 year old son received this as a gift and it's one of the most used books in our house. It covers many different techniques and styles of drawing and is a great starting point for a young artist who really wants to improve and expand!

I borrowed this book for my 8th grade art class and ended up buying it because it was a class favorite. The color drawings are compelling and kids lined up to have it to work with. It has a large variety of topics covered and although it isn't "step-by-step", it is close enough with the breadth and variety of examples being worth every penny.

If you're looking for a good introduction to drawing, keep looking. This book has examples from the various types of drawing (cartoons, monsters) but very little in the way of step-by-step instruction or depth. We got this hoping it would be interesting for our children but were sorely disappointed.

After homeschooling three of my children, I can truly empathize w/Dan Riley. He wasn't just interested in his daughter's academic development but what appealed to me was his focused attempts to assist her in developing "character", which a lot of educated and "successful" people, unfortunately, do not possess.

I picked this book up from the library with hopes that it would offer some insights as I prepare to homeschool my own 7th-grade daughter next fall.

Too bad I didn't want information about how to enroll her in a $20,000 year school that requires each student to own a horse: that was in this book. The Riley family also traveled to Europe: I don't know how much Gillian [the "A Girl] of the title got out of the trip, but she did seem impressed to be viewing Michelangelo's instead of the copy her sister had seen at a Vegas casino.

But try as I might, I can't come up with a description of 1 complete lesson. Most of the book consists of Riley's ruminations about the process of removing his daughter from the classroom for a year and descriptions of disagreements between he and Gillian, chiefly about her desire to return to public school to be with her friends.

Ignore the inside flap blurb: this is no "wise and witty memoir of home schooling." It's rather the ramblings of one not-very-likeable man who seems clearly to be doing this for himself, not his daughter.

I found this book to be a quick and easy read. Riley's sense of humor make the book enjoyable to read, yet it is not lightweight material. Perhaps the best part of Riley's book is the honest re-telling of what happens when you homeschool. Many homeschooling books paint homeschooling in such a glorious light, that the real life nuts and bolts of homeschooling gets swept under the rug. Homeschooling can be difficult and exhausting. Is it worth it? For some people, yes. Dan Riley captures the gritty, one on one nature that makes homeschooling a viable alternative for some families.

As a former homeschooled student myself, I found this an interesting but not representative account of what homeschooling truly is. While it was indeed interesting to read about Dan Riley's customized curriculum for his daughter and how the experience improved their relationship, I was disappointed with his failure to use a homeschooling parent's best and most-used resource--other homeschooling families. Unlike most of these families, he failed to seek out other homeschoolers for Gillian to know and failed to take advantage of the hundreds of extracurricular activities developed specifically for homeschoolers. Gillian's experience was more isolated than any other homeschooled student I've known(and I've been in contact with over a hundred for the past ten years). Academically, she may have flourished but socially she missed out on the well-developed network that has been in place among homeschoolers for a decade. This book must be read for what it is: a highly individualized account of one experience in home education, not as a guidebook or source of representative research on home education in America.

This book makes a case for "watering down" music education. All students have the ability to learn. No student should determine what is taught in a music class anymore than in a Math or Science class. If you are interested in how to teach to the average, buy this book. Those who put down contest or festival ratings are usually ineffective teachers unable to reach that level of musicianship. If you would like to help students reach their potential in music expression and performance, find another, more practical book instead of this self-indulgent garbage. I agree with the reviewer below - if you voted for George Bush, you probably believe people are able to do more for themselves than if you are a liberal Democrat. Pass up this socialist garbage!

This is a though-provoking, different look at music education. During a 20 + year career, I was continually troubled by the "Mozart Effect." defense of music, and the need to perform for ratings and trophies (at which I was VERY successful, by the way). Woodford challenges us to look at music as inherently good - not as a vehicle to get trophies (which is an extrinsic motivation), or to raise test scores (which have little to do with teaching and MUCH to do with socio-economic status). By abandoning those notions, the study of music could reach many more than the 10 or 15 percent of school populations that it now reaches, and become an art form that belongs to everyone. That whole "voted for George Bush" and vilifying of socialism commentary was kind of sad -- Guys, open your minds -- it's OK to disagree with your favorite radio talk show entertainers!

I disagree vehemently with the above review. I will grant that the book gets preachy at times. I will also refer potential readers and reviewers to the title of the book in forming their expectations. The book is about music education in the bigger picture, and the role played by music educators and students. At times it gets incendiary. That's a good thing. It's supposed to. It wants you to get beyond getting a "1" at festival into what else you have or should have to offer as a music teacher. I also have the advantage of having met Paul in a small informal setting and hearing him explain his views. If you want hard core philosophy go for Reimer, Jorgensen and that crew. Just looking at the title willl give you proper expectations. Finally, if you voted for George Bush, don't bother with this.

I had to read this book for a graduate music education course. When it was assigned, I looked forward to reading it because, up to now, I have found Canadian scholars of music education (e.g., Bowman, Elliott, Stubley, Lamb) to be exceptionally fine thinkers with excellent, cutting-edge ideas. I expected the same from Woodford, another Canadian. Unforunately, I was very disappointed. Woodford is not in the same league as his Northern colleagues. The content of his book (it's just a booklet, actually) will be unhelpful and uninspiring to any music educator interested in learning more about music, or music education, or engaging his/her students in the joys of music making. Woodford's book is about turning music teachers and music education into political-social tools. This is not a new idea, and it has potential, but Woodford does not have the writing and thinking abilities needed to justify his spin on this topic. In a nutshell: this book is an unconvincing and pedantic plod.

This book is a series of essays on the subject of reading instruction, and Frank Smith spends most of his time making his case against phonics. As mentioned in some of the other reviews, he does bring up some excellent points and asks some very tough questions. But again, as brought up by other reviewers, Mr. Smith doesn't provide any direction at all as to how to fix an educational system that he considers broken.

Frank Smith is quick to point out his pedigree when it comes to reading research, but he does in in such a condescending manner that even though I agree with his basic premise, I became so frustrated with his double talk and rambling that I tuned out much of what I think he was trying to say. Basically, this book is a soapbox on which Smith rambles on and on about the problems he sees and does it in a manner which confuses and aggravates many that are new to the subject.

While I do agree with many of his points, the attitude that comes through his writing, his lack of support material, the absence of any suggestions of resolution, and his rambling writing style left me very cold to his ideas. I would only recommend this to someone well versed in literacy studies, not a novice to the subject as I was. To be honest, this was one of the most difficult to read books that I have encountered, only surpassed by another of Frank Smith's books.

I found Dr. Smith's book to be condescending, insulting and full of sloppy science. He criticizes the entire process of education research, yet to prove his point, refers to only his own research as valid. Dr. Smith may be a Ph.D., but he is not an educator.

This book provides food for thought and a different perspective on issues that many educators take for granted. The author questions the basic assumptions underlying the concept of teaching reading through phonics, providing logical and intelligent reasons for his position. He argues that systematic phonics instruction makes reading more difficult for many students. Phonics, he explains, is simply too complicated a system, pointing out that even a small vocabulary of 6,000 common English words requires over 200 rules to account for all the ways that individual letters are related to individual sounds. Thus, he says, "Being required to master phonics before one can read is the wrong intervention at the wrong time."

The author appears to favor a more natural approach to reading instruction; one reason I gave the book 4 rather than 5 stars is that he really doesn't outline a specific program or alternative. He raises some excellent questions, but readers will have to go elsewhere for specific answers.

There are three theories to teaching phonics. Intensively, with systematic, direct instruction. "Basic Phonics" which is not intensively systematic but covers all the most important rules we all remember from first grade "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking," and zero phonics instruction. Some people equate "whole language" with zero phonics, but Smith shows that this is not true. In this excellent book, he stands up for Basic Phonics and against the ridiculously intensive method proposed by some. Such as Johnson (2001): "the a-e combination is pronounced with the long vowel and the final e silent (except when the final syllable is unaccented - then the vowel is pronounced with a short-i sound, as in "palace," or the combination is "are," with words such as "have" and "dance" as exceptions).

Get real and read Frank Smith. He's always right.

I can't understand why this book isn't more helpful than it is. The description of it sounds wonderful. I read through the whole book in a week or two, eager to improve my teaching, and even dug it out to re-read last week, but my conclusion is still the same ... I wish I had not spent my money on it.

Some of the suggested activities sound so out-of-touch it's actually funny. The author describes teaching a "line dance" or "aerobics move" to middle schoolers who "ahh and ohh excitedly" and ask to do it again. I don't think so! Suggestions to "make your activities interesting" are things like, instead of just having kids clap their hands, have their clap their hands to their left, then to their right. Still sounds boring to me!

The advice on procedures was not very enlightening either. There are several pages about how to use correct grammar, and another section on making sure your clothes are clean and neat. And did I really need to spend money on a book to tell me to put a post-it note in a book to mark my page?

I wish I had returned this one.

Author does offer some good related suggestions for music class activities, however, there is a lot of verbage to wade through in order to find them. Too much non related information. This is more like a textbook of all the possible dos and donts and classroom situations you could ever think of. (Perhaps some teachers would like to be made aware of these, however I would perfer to have the basic music instruction activities.) This was not what I expected from a book boasting to contain resource materials for the elementary music classroom. (The illustrations were a disappointment as well; less than inspiring.)

This book does a great job of covering a wide range of topics that are especially relevant to the music teacher in an elementary school. It has lots of ideas on how to make many classroom procedures, such as passing out instruments and taking turns playing them, go more smoothly; ways to learn all your kids names, a particularly tough task for those of us who literally have hundreds of students; and dozens of other things that tend to get overlooked in music education courses.

The author includes a lot of common-sense details on classroom procedures, such more effective use of visual aids, that a lot of us tend to overlook when planning our class time.

The book, which is written in a very easy-to-read, conversational style, has the kind of real-life information that the average music education textbook doesn't discuss. I was able to make immediate use of many of the ideas I got from the book, and I found my music classes running a lot more smoothly as a result.

This book does not contain anything new. All content has been published in hundreds if not thousands of other publications. A quick internet search will convince you of this. Also, the book is badly edited. Hundreds of repetitions of the same argument can be found. Also, the same exposition is repeated for every color. Unless you are writing for 5th graders such duplication is just a waste of paper. The whole thing is poorly executed. It was a waste of money.

This book has beautiful color plates of the work of other artists. It provides useful analysis of how and why their color schemes work. Wilcox gives practical advice you can put to work immediately.

My big complaint is that the editing of the text is simply awful. As with Wilcox's other book, Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green, it appears that he is self-published and probably self-edited. This is a pity. He often splices fragments into a sentence that doesn't work. This and other grammatical errors abound: unclear pronoun references, excessive use of passive voice, etc. Often a key point Wilcox is trying to make is obscured because it is so ambiguously worded as to require re-reading several times. You may never be sure if you've correctly understood his intended meaning. His book contains many redundancies. It lurches inconsistently in tone, sometimes formal and impersonal, sometimes chatty and conversational. In addition, the flow of ideas from one topic to the next within a chapter and from chapter to chapter seems a little illogical and confusing. It's a pity Wilcox doesn't submit his work to a professional editor.

Wilcox illustrates variations on some of his suggested color harmonies by indexing a series of colored thumbnail compositions to color swatches at the back of the book. The swatches may be valuable in themselves as mixing guides. But I found Wilcox's indexing notation both cumbersome and confusing. More to the point, I would figure out the notation if the thumbnails were more appealing. They have been of little help in suggesting useful color combinations because most of them are ugly to me. Many are downright garish. This is not a complaint I would have expected for a book entitled "Perfect Color Choices for the Artist."

Even with all these faults, Wilcox makes valuable and useful points. The reproductions can be a pleasure to browse, provided you can stay out of the brambles of Wilcox's often tortured text.

I learned from this and Wilcox's other book. I would buy it again--as disappointed as I am that it falls so far short of its potential.

If you have read "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green" also by Wilcox, this is the de facto companion volume. In this he lays out systematically the various color schemes available to the artist and uses examples of great art to teach each scheme. Furthermore he analyzes each scheme in relation to the palette he teaches in "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green." If, like me, you are a convert and use this particular palette, the analyses of the color scheme choices is so helpful that it literally revolutionizes the way you will be able to simplify your color choices. The main thing is that one should first get a copy of "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green.' If you are detrermined to go straight for this book, the color swatches from "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green" are reproduced in the back of the book. If you are a working artist, make sure you have the following palette on hand: Cadmium Yellow (light or Pale), Lemon or Hansa Yellow Light, Cadmium Scarlet or Cadmium Red Light, Permanent Rose or Quinacridone Rose, French Ultramarine or UltraMarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, Winsor Blue red shade or Pthalocyanine Blue (or Prussian Blue), Pthalocyanine or Winsor Green blue shade, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna (white--except if using watercolor). He has a website www.schoolofcolor.com in which paints and a special organizing palette can be ordered if one so desires. These books are as good as it gets in terms of useful knowledge for the artist.