For a glorious ten-year period from 1995 to 2005, hip-hop music received a much-needed shot in the arm from a generation of determined and wildly creative rappers and producers. They rallied against the increasingly formulaic and shallow world of mainstream rap, as well as a music industry unwilling to listen. By releasing music on their own terms as independent artists-many adopting the mantra of being 'independent as fuck' as a mission statement-these hungry creatives reclaimed their artistic freedom and wore it as a badge of honour. Most importantly, they also made a lot of excellent hip-hop. What emerged was a vibrant underground music scene that stretched from New York to Los Angeles, with influence reaching across the world. Independent as F**: Underground Hip-hop from 1995-2005 looks back at this golden era, celebrating the most important artists, record labels, 12' records, and albums, along with the stories behind them, while also shining a light on those who have since been forgotten. Lovingly researched and curated, this book is the ultimate guide to a special time in music history, one that continues to inspire each new wave of hip-hop artists decades later. Read more

*NEW EXTENDED MIX EDITION FEATURING EXTRA CHAPTERS*Nominated for Audiobook of the Year at the 2024 ARIAS Awards'Love this book! It triggers so many memories of the rave era. Thoroughly recommended.' - FATBOY SLIM 'Captures the hedonism and humour of the nineties with a laugh-out-loud honesty. The perfect Ibiza holiday read...if you can get it through customs!' - JUDGE JULES'Some great stories from those early rave days. Really made me giggle.' - CARL COXAs a humble barman at the M25 Orbital raves, Kirk Field witnessed the moment acid house exploded. Inspired by media lies to start writing the truth about what he saw unfolding, Kirk became a 'raving' reporter for the clubbers' bible Mixmag, covering the historic parties from the inside and sending sweat-soaked dispatches from distant dancefloors as the scene expanded across Europe and beyond.With a cast of characters including Diego Maradona, Timothy Leary, the KLF, Michael Eavis, Genesis P-Orridge, Brigitte Nielsen, Boris Yeltsin, Boy George, Saddam Hussein's wife, the president of Tunisia, the CIA, the KGB, Dave Courtney, Norman Lamont's dominatrix and even Her Majesty the Queen, Kirk's whirlwind account of the golden age of clubbing tells the story of what really happened in the 'naughty '90s', exposing the seedy underbelly of rave culture while also capturing the nostalgic spirit of the era.Told through a mixture of vivid first-person narrative, surreal insider anecdotes and incisive social commentary, this honest, hilarious and uncensored postcard of hedonism will appeal to anyone who's ever put their hands in the air like they just don't care. Read more

This book contains everything needed to prepare for the performance and technical work components of a Trinity Electronic Keyboard Grade 1 exam from 2019. All pieces have been composed or arranged specifically for the keyboard, and encompass a wide range of styles – from classical favourites to TV, film or show themes. The ‘own interpretation’ piece allows the candidate to create a personal arrangement, choosing their own voices, style, keyboard functions and interpretation. Also included are the scales, chord knowledge and exercises that form the technical work component of the exam. Demonstration recordings can be downloaded free.This series provides progressive steps in performance and keyboard functions for all electronic keyboard students, whether preparing for a Trinity exam or studying on another path.Note: Effective immediately, Trinity’s Electronic Keyboard 2019-2022 Syllabus will no longer operate with an end date. Therefore, Trinity’s Electronic Keyboard Exam Pieces 2019-2022 books will be valid indefinitely (subject to copyright) and any planned updates will be announced at least 12 months in advance. Trinity will be gradually amending the covers on these books upon reprint to ‘from 2019’, however there are books in circulation with the previous date range. In those cases, the change to syllabus arrangements overrides the dates printed on the cover of the book. Read more

The intimate biography of the iconic DJ who was lost too soon. Tim Bergling was a musical visionary who, through his sense for melodies, came to define the era when Swedish and European house music took over the world. But Tim Bergling was also an introverted and fragile young man who was forced to grow up at an inhumanly fast pace. After a series of emergencies resulting in hospital stays, he stopped touring in the summer of 2016. Barely two years later, he took his own life. Tim - The Biography of Avicii is written by the award-winning journalist Måns Mosesson, who through interviews with Tim's family, friends and colleagues in the music business, has intimately gotten to know the star producer. The book paints an honest picture of Tim and his search in life, not shying from the difficulties that he struggled with. Read more

👉 40 Popular Songs Piano Sheet Music: Easy Piano Arrangements for Beginners & Fun PlayingLooking for a collection of easy piano sheet music with popular songs? This book features 40 well-loved songs, carefully arranged for beginners and intermediate players. Whether you're learning to play or just want to enjoy familiar tunes, these simple piano arrangements make it easy and fun!🎶 Songs Included:✔️ Faded – Alan Walker✔️ River Flows in You – Yiruma✔️ Love Song – Sara Bareilles✔️ Another Love – Tom Odell✔️ Easy on Me – Adele✔️ Clocks – Coldplay✔️ Can’t Help Falling in Love – Elvis Presley✔️ Nuvole Bianche – Ludovico Einaudi✔️ Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen✔️ Hotel California – Eagles✔️ Piano Man – Billy Joel✔️ Let It Be – The Beatles✔️ Yesterday – The Beatles✔️ We Will Rock You – Queen✔️ Hello – Adele✔️ Shallow – Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper✔️ Stand by Me – Ben E. King✔️ Your Song – Elton John✔️ You Raise Me Up – Josh Groban… and many more!Why You'll Love This Book:✅ Easy-to-Read Sheet Music – Perfect for beginners and intermediate players✅ Simple Arrangements – Play your favorite songs without frustration✅ Wide Variety of Songs – Pop, rock, classical, and timeless ballads✅ Great for Self-Learning & Fun Playing✅Perfect for piano students, teachers, and music lovers, this book is a must-have for anyone who enjoys playing popular songs on the piano. Read more

Memorize the fretboard before you play another note! Here’s why…..A fully memorized fretboard is one of the most underrated skills in the guitar world. It’s not expected from a beginner, nor is it taught in the normal course of guitar learning.But the smartest and best guitarists in the world know why fretboard knowledge can be the secret to being good at guitar.Why memorize the fretboard?Apart from sounding extremely cool when you say “Oh, you played a C instead of a C#”, it amplifies every area of your guitar playing:Area #1: Guitar scales won’t be just patterns on the neck:Guitar scales are simply a couple notes repeated all over the fretboard. If you understand this simple concept and have the fretboard memorized, you won’t need to memorize those endless patterns all over the fretboard. Simply get set and solo!Area #2: You’ll unlock 1000+ guitar chords:Chords are combinations of specific notes too. You can hold these notes anywhere on the fretboard to get chords in different contexts. And if you know the chord formulas (which we teach in our other books) you just unlocked the gates to the world of harmony – without having to memorize them all!But it starts with – you guessed it – fretboard knowledge.Area #3: Song writing becomes child’s play:Break free from common chord shapes and sounds to venture into the wild west of music writing. Add your own chords to popular songs, change the key or simply be more creative.Granted this is an advanced skill, but the shortest path to get there – fretboard memorization!Area #4: And the biggest benefit of them all – improvisation! Improvising is natural to a person who knows the fretboard! New note combinations, unorthodox melodies, playing fluently with a backing track or even writing new melodies. Nothing works if you can’t pick out the notes on the fretboard in an instant.So, fretboard knowledge allows you to solo better, improvise better, play better harmonies and write songs. That’s a major chunk of guitar right there!Why more people don’t memorize the fretboard.It’s hard! It seems impossible! It’ll come with time!And we agree with all of that. Memorizing 24 frets across 6 strings is not the easiest thing in the world. And most guitarists only ever master it after 1000s of hours on the guitar.But we want to give you a cheat code!Inside this book, we’ve simplified this process that takes a “lifetime” into 5 easy steps. Using these, absolute beginners have memorized the fretboard in less than 24 hours. Some even in as little as 5 hours!Wondering how we do it? Simple! We combined pattern recognition with memory techniques and games to create a system that will show you patterns hidden in plain sight and give you short memory phrases like “Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie”. This will take the layout of the fretboard right to the brain – WITHOUT any sort of blunt memorization.With over 700 5–star reviews, this book has helped over 39,000 guitarists shorten their learning time and gain the skill of the guitar gods – in under 24 hours!And it costs less than a pack of strings!So, scroll up and click ‘buy now’ to gain the unfair advantage of the pros in under 24 hours! Read more

Master the Art of Rhythm Programming with 101 Drum Machine PatternsAre you a music producer, beatmaker, or electronic music enthusiast looking for fresh rhythm ideas?This book is a practical guide to drum machine programming, featuring 100 pre-designed patterns ready to use in DAWs, hardware drum machines, and MIDI controllers.Whether you produce techno, house, hip-hop, lo-fi, or experimental music, these structured rhythm patterns will help you develop new ideas and enhance your creativity.Inside the Book:100 pre-programmed drum patterns for various genres.16-step grid layout inspired by classic sequencers.Space for notes.Includes 5 suggested usage sets to add more variety to each pattern.Compatible with hardware drum machines, DAWs like Ableton, FL Studio, Logic, and MIDI controllers.Exclusive digital content accessible via a special link inside the book.For Producers of All Levels:Beginners will learn beat programming with a clear and structured approach.Experienced producers can use these patterns as a foundation for new ideas and creative expansion.A versatile and inspiring resource for any producer looking to improve their rhythm programming skills and explore new beat-making possibilities. Read more

The diary and essays of Brian Eno republished twenty-five years on with a new introduction by the artist in a beautiful hardback edition.'One of the seminal books about music . . . an invaluable insight into the mind and working practices of one of the industry's undeniable geniuses.'GUARDIANAt the end of 1994, musician, producer and artist Brian Eno resolved to keep a diary. His plans to go to the cinema, theatre and galleries fell through quickly. What he did do - and write - however, was astonishing: ruminations on his collaborative work with artists including David Bowie, U2, James and Jah Wobble, interspersed with correspondence and essays dating back to 1978. These 'appendices' covered topics from the generative and ambient music Eno pioneered to what he believed the role of an artist and their art to truly be, alongside razor-sharp commentary on his day-to-day tribulations and happenings around the world.A fascinating, candid and intimate insight into one of the most influential creative artists of our time, A Year with Swollen Appendices is an essential classic, reissued for a new generation of readers.This beautiful 25th anniversary paperback edition has been re-designed in A5, the same size as the diary that eventually became this book. It features two ribbons, pink paper delineating the appendices (matching the original hardback edition) and a two-tone cover that pays homage to the original design. Read more

"I wish I had this book when I started producing, it provides a great insight into the fundamentals of sound design and beyond." - Seven (Uprise Audio)Synthesizers can be challenging.If you're struggling to recreate a sound you've heard, or you wish to step beyond presets and online tutorials, How To Program Any Synthesizer will help you.By breaking down each element of synthesizer programming into easy steps and showing you how to build your own, signature sounds from scratch, this book will provide you with a systematic understanding of how all synthesizers work.Whether you’re creating a funky lead on a Minimoog or a huge bassline on Massive, How To Program Any Synthesizer will teach you the method behind the magic. You’ll be creating the sounds of your dreams in no time!Included in the Second Edition:A new methodology, easier and more accessible than ever.New sections, including on wavetable synthesizers such as Xfer Serum and Arturia Pigments.Updated sections on modulation, routing, arpeggiators and more. Read more

For most of the US, disco died in 1979. Triggered by the infamous "Disco Demolition" night at Comiskey Park in Chicago on July 12, 1979, a backlash made the word "disco" an overnight punchline. Major labels dropped disco artists and producers, and those mainstream musicians who had jumped on the bandwagon just as quickly threw themselves off. Gay men, however, continued to dance, and in the gay enclave of the Castro District in San Francisco, enterprising gay DJs, record producers, and musicians started their own small dance music record labels to make up for the lack of new, danceable music. Almost immediately this music reached far beyond the Bay, with Megatone Records, Moby Dick Records, and other labels achieving worldwide success, creating the world's first gay-owned, gay-produced music for a dancing audience. This music reflected a new way of life, a world apart and a culture of sexual liberation for gay men especially. With Menergy, author Louis Niebur offers a project of reconstruction in order to restore these lost figures to their rightful place in the legacy of 20th-century popular music. Menergy is the product of years of research, with dozens of personal interviews, archival research drawing upon hundreds of contemporary journals, photographs, bar rags, diaries, nightclub ephemera, and, most importantly, the recordings of the San Francisco artists themselves. With its combination of popular music theory, cultural analysis, queer theory and gender studies, and traditional musical analysis, the book will appeal to readers in queer history, popular music history, and electronic dance music. Read more

This book contains everything needed to prepare for the performance and technical work components of a Trinity Electronic Keyboard Grade 2 exam from 2019. All pieces have been composed or arranged specifically for the keyboard, and encompass a wide range of styles – from classical favourites to TV, film or show themes. The ‘own interpretation’ piece allows the candidate to create a personal arrangement, choosing their own voices, style, keyboard functions and interpretation. Also included are the scales, chord knowledge and exercises that form the technical work component of the exam. Demonstration recordings can be downloaded free.This series provides progressive steps in performance and keyboard functions for all electronic keyboard students, whether preparing for a Trinity exam or studying on another path.Note: Effective immediately, Trinity’s Electronic Keyboard 2019-2022 Syllabus will no longer operate with an end date. Therefore, Trinity’s Electronic Keyboard Exam Pieces 2019-2022 books will be valid indefinitely (subject to copyright) and any planned updates will be announced at least 12 months in advance. Trinity will be gradually amending the covers on these books upon reprint to ‘from 2019’, however there are books in circulation with the previous date range. In those cases, the change to syllabus arrangements overrides the dates printed on the cover of the book. Read more

The "Piano Music Book: Minecraft - 20 Songs for Easy Piano" is a delightful collection tailored for beginner and intermediate pianists who are fans of the popular video game Minecraft. Includes:MinecraftSwedenSubwoofer LullabyWet HandsStalHaggstromAria MathMoog CityMice On VenusCatAlphaDry HandsMellohiChirpLiving MiceClarkDoorFarMutationDanny Read more

They were such devout futurists that they even came from a New Town. Emerging from the unlikely locale of Basildon at the dawn of the Eighties, the unassuming Depeche Mode became pioneers of British electro-pop. Surviving the abrupt early departure of band founder and chief songwriter Vince Clarke, they quickly gathered a fervent cult following before powering into the mainstream. Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher and Alan Wilder took their dark, venal songs of sex, religion, obsession and death to the world's arenas and stadiums. Over four decades, Depeche Mode have seduced millions from Moscow to Montevideo. Yet it has never been an easy ride. Along the way there have been crippling bouts of self-doubt, depression, intra-band fighting, alcohol abuse... and the catastrophic heroin addiction that almost killed the charismatic yet vulnerable Gahan. From the band's earliest stirrings in Essex to the eve of their 40th anniversary, Faith and Devotion is a tale of triumph from adversity: the extraordinary history of a unique global synth-rock phenomenon. It's the story of Depeche Mode. Read more

'An excellent history of UK dance culture' – The Sunday Times'Engrossing history' – The ObserverFrom the illicit reggae blues dances and acid-rock free festivals of the 1970s, through the ecstasy-fuelled Second Summer of Love in 1988 to the increasingly corporate dance music culture of the post-Covid era, Party Lines is a groundbreaking new history of UK dance music from journalist and filmmaker Ed Gillett, exploring its pivotal role in the social, political and economic shifts on which modern Britain has been built.Taking in the Victorian moralism of the Thatcher years, the far-reaching restrictions of the Criminal Justice Act in 1994, and the resurgence of illegal raves during the Covid-19 pandemic, Party Lines charts an ongoing conflict, fought in basement clubs, abandoned warehouses and sunlit fields, between the revolutionary potential of communal sound and the reactionary impulses of the British establishment. Brought to life with stunning clarity and depth, this is social and cultural history at its most immersive, vital and shocking. Read more

This book contains everything needed to prepare for the performance and technical work components of a Trinity Electronic Keyboard Grade 3 exam from 2019. All pieces have been composed or arranged specifically for the keyboard, and encompass a wide range of styles – from classical favourites to TV, film or show themes. The ‘own interpretation’ piece allows the candidate to create a personal arrangement, choosing their own voices, style, keyboard functions and interpretation. Also included are the scales, chord knowledge and exercises that form the technical work component of the exam. Demonstration recordings can be downloaded free.This series provides progressive steps in performance and keyboard functions for all electronic keyboard students, whether preparing for a Trinity exam or studying on another path.Note: Effective immediately, Trinity’s Electronic Keyboard 2019-2022 Syllabus will no longer operate with an end date. Therefore, Trinity’s Electronic Keyboard Exam Pieces 2019-2022 books will be valid indefinitely (subject to copyright) and any planned updates will be announced at least 12 months in advance. Trinity will be gradually amending the covers on these books upon reprint to ‘from 2019’, however there are books in circulation with the previous date range. In those cases, the change to syllabus arrangements overrides the dates printed on the cover of the book. Read more

Effective music production can be a challenge.This is where The Music Producer's Guide comes in. Each book is designed to demystify a music production concept, bringing professional results to your tracks.Within The Music Producer's Guide to EQ, you will embark on a transformative journey, discovering:⦁ How to harness the power of EQ to improve and balance your mix.⦁ The fundamental theories that underpin all EQ modules.⦁ Expert tips and tricks for working with commonly-used instruments.⦁ How to use the frequency spectrum and harmonic series to make excellent mixing decisions.Prepare yourself for better production and mixing sessions as The Music Producer's Guide to EQ arms you with the indispensable theory and practice necessary to elevate your music to new heights. Read more

The first decades of the 21st century saw dramatic changes in the music industry as new technology transformed creation, communication, and consumption. Amid this turmoil one change occurred relatively quietly, almost naturally: so-called bedroom producers, music makers raised on hip-hop and electronic music, went from anonymous, often unseen creators to artists in their own right. In Bedroom Beats and B-sides, Laurent Fintoni details the rise of bedroom producers at the turn of the century through the stories of the instrumental hip-hop and electronic music scenes that made this rise possible. From trip-hop, illbient, and IDM to leftfield hip-hop, glitch, and beats, the book explores how these scenes acted as incubators for new ideas about composition and performance that are now taken for granted. Combining social, cultural, and musical history with extensive research and over 100 interviews, the book tells the B-side stories of hip-hop and electronic music from the 1990s to the 2010s, exploring the evolution of a modern beat culture from local scenes to global community via the diverse groups of idealists on the fringes who made it happen and the external forces that shaped their efforts. Read more

FOREWORD BY JAMES MURPHY'Literally changed the course of my life' James MurphyWhen someone says, 'You have to know your history...' this is it. A pop culture classic for over two decades, now fully refreshed and updated as part of White Rabbit's Deep Cuts series, Last Night a DJ ... is the whole unruly story of dance music in one volume. It recreates the dancefloors that made history, conjuring their atmosphere with loving detail and bringing you the voices of the DJs and clubbers at their heart - from grime, garage, house, hip hop and disco, to techno, soul, reggae, rock'n'roll, and EDM. Whether musical outlaw, obsessive crate-digger or overpaid superstar, the DJ has been at the spinning centre of nightlife for a century, making parties wilder, pushing clubbers harder, and driving music into completely new shapes and styles.'The chapter on Larry Levan alone transformed me into wanting to be your favoUrite DJ' Questlove'We can't tell the story of dance music without speaking the names of Sharon White and Judy Weinstein, so I welcome this vital update' The Blessed Madonna Read more

'The definitive look at dance music and club culture - a must read' - Paul Oakenfold'Brilliantly woven collection of aural histories ... a damn fine read' - DJ MAGIn 1987, four friends from London, Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker, took a week-long holiday to Ibiza. What they saw there, and brought back home, would give rise to a new global music and counterculture movement. As the eighties drew to their close, with Thatcherism holding the nation tight in its grip, something funny was happening right across the jungle of Britain's nightlife scene. People were dressing down, not up, to go to clubs. And they were dancing right through the night armed seemingly with only bottles of water. Ecstasy and acid house music had arrived on British shores, and a tribal battle between for the moral future of the nation, between the youth and the establishment, had begun. In The Second Summer of Love, author and dance music promoter Alon Shulman uses exclusive contributions from the world's biggest DJs, including Paul Oakenfold, Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim, Moby, Faithless, Mr C, Farley & Heller, Danny Rampling and many others to faithfully recreate the story of the summers of 1988 and 1989, and chart the birth and rise of Acid House, dance music and club culture right through to the modern day where dance music has become a culturally dominant global industry.Complete with stunning unseen photographs, this is the first authentic account of what really happened in that glorious period - from the politics and the people to the music, the drugs, the fashion and the culture - told by people who were there, as they bring to life the creation of an underground scene which inadvertently altered the course of modern global youth culture forever.'It's as if house music and rave culture tapped into this ancient predilection of humans to stay up all night dancing and staring into the fire, and just supercharged it with electricity and MDMA' -Moby'What I was experiencing was right in front of my eyes, it was happening right now and I loved it' -Carl Cox'It opened my eyes and ears to a different spirit in music' - Fatboy Slim Read more

In this original and provocative study of computational creativity in music, David Cope asks whether computer programs can effectively model creativity -- and whether computer programs themselves can create. Defining musical creativity, and distinguishing it from creativity in other arts, Cope presents a series of experimental models that illustrate salient features of musical creativity. He makes the case that musical creativity results from a process that he calls inductive association, and he contends that such a computational process can in fact produce music creatively. Drawing on the work of many other scholars and musicians -- including Douglas Hofstadter, Margaret Boden, Selmer Bringsjord, and Kathleen Lennon -- Cope departs from the views expressed by most with his contentions that computer programs can create and that those who do not believe this have probably defined creativity so narrowly that even humans could not be said to create.After examining the foundations of creativity and musical creativity, Cope describes a number of possible models for computationally imitating human creativity in music. He discusses such issues as recombinance and pattern matching, allusions, learning, inference, analogy, musical hierarchy, and influence, and finds that these experimental models solve only selected aspects of creativity. He then describes a model that integrates these different aspects -- an inductive-association computational process that can create music. Cope's writing style is lively and nontechnical; the reader needs neither knowledge of computer programming nor specialized computer hardware or software to follow the text.The computer programs discussed in the text, along with MP3 versions of all the musical examples, are available at the author's website, http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope. Read more