Just starting out on your musical trek? Here are a handful of items from the faithful people at Mel Bay to get you on your way for a firm foundation.
Michaela Anne Neller has put together a concise and highly useable primer for getting your voice in shape. The short but sweet book covers everything from warming up, breathing, hydration (!) and comes with an impressive series of exercises to literally build up your chops. Excellent for the aspiring American Idol!
Collin Bay’s 11 page Glossary of Guitar Terms is just that: it includes pictures of acoustic and electric guitars with all of the descriptions you ‘ll need so you won’t look like a dummy for your lessons. A hip Guitar Fingerboard Chart will come in pretty handy as well, and you’ll know the difference between a Whammy Bar and a Bar Line in no time.
The voluminous Guitar Tab Book is filled with sheets for you to write out the tabs you’ll be learning from either lessons or downloads. The pages can be torn out so you can take them to gigs as well. A very under appreciated little piece of work here! Wish I had one when I was learning my Martin Carthy tabs.
So many drummers, so little “time.” Steve Lyman has put together a book/cd set that gives you 43 different examples of various ways of using the ride cymbal for a 7/8 and 5/8 patterns with a ton of variations of a drumming theme. You’ll be ready for any Middle Eastern band in no time with this puppy-at least a prog rock trio!
Jason Prushko and Corey Dozier get together for linking electric bass and drums in this cd/booklet exercise kit. 50 different rhythms are spotlighted here, some being pretty easy on the first try and others making you wish you had a dvd to see what the heck these guys are doing. As baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken used to say, “Practice doesn’t make perfect; PERFECT practice makes perfect. “
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