No comments about How To Play Mandolin Book and CD.

No comments about Easiest Mandolin Tunes for Children.

1 comments about Sam Bush Teaches Mandolin Repertoire and Technique (Listen & Learn).

1. Wow, Sam Bush is a super-star! This stuff is hard, but well worth playing! There's a diversity of things in it, from traditional style bluegrass mandolin to fiddle tunes and even this crazy russian ragtime song! It's worth it just to have to the CD for listening pleasure.

5 comments about Snow Blind.

1. I have used the words "brave and radical"in my title for this review and there is a reason for this.Most crime novels provide their readers with a sense of closure by setting up a situation in which a crime is perpetrated ,investigated and solved .The culprits are identified and brough to justive and order is restored to the moral universe of the book .Crime novels are thus deeply Conservative ,at least for the most part.
   Here there is no such sense of closure or the restoration of order.We are never wholly sure who the killers are -we are left to make our own minds up -and justice is not meted out to the potential perpetrators.This is a book of moral ambiguity and even handedness
   
   It seens the return of the Minneapolis cops familiar to readers of earlier P J Tracy books ,Rizzoli and Rolseth .The crew of the computer company Monkeewrench ,while present as before,take a back seat this time out and the result is a book more like a police proceduraal than are earlier works .Events are set in motion with the discovery ,in a frozen Minneaplois park of two bodies ,hidden in snowmen .They are the remains of two local cops ,Tommy Deaton and Toby Myerson
   Soon thereafter another body hidden inside a snowman turns up ,this time in upstate Minnesota .There is no mystery here about the killer ,the body being that of a parole officer ,and he has ben killed by a parolee ,a vicious killer named Weinbeck who is seeking the whereabouts of his wife ,who he abused repeatedly when free .
   This case is dumped in the lap of a newly elected female sheriiff of the county ,Rikker ,a woman who feels out of her depth -mainly becuase she is .
   Events turn on Bitterroot , a community of women ,in the wilds of the state ,that was established a haven for abused women ,a community whose founders ,we learn ,had killed in the past .It turns out that one of the murdered cops was also a spousal abuser and his ex-cop father in law is a suspect in the case .
   The crimes may be the work of the father in law;they may have been carried out by women from Bitterrrot ,some of whom beleieve the world should be ourged of abusers by any means possible
   The lack of clear resolution will frustrate and annoy many readers but for me it adds to the appeal of a well written and even handed book that raises real issues in an adult ,responsible and mature way .It may lavk the sheer tension of earlier wirks by this writing team but it is a more mature and ambiguous work ,with a very good line in desriptive writing of climate and terrain



2. My mothers husband's name is used in the book, Kurt Weinbeck. He is a huge fan of P.J. Tracy and she likes to use her fan's names.



3. 
   PJ Tracy is the pseudonym of a mother-daughter writing duo P.J. and Traci Lambrecht, (I am not too sure how this works?). Their first three novels, Monkeewrench, Live Bait and Dead Run, have become national and international bestsellers. They have also become best selling author's in the UK.
   
   The book certainly has an unusual twist to it and I found it entertaining reading. It is the kind of book that does not make you have to think too much if you know what I mean and sometimes that is a good thing. You can just sit and relax and enjoy the book without any distractions.
   
   Begins in Minneapolis during a hard spell of winter, residents often joke that it is the season that lasts for eleven months of the year. Someone has the bright idea of brightening up the dreary season by sponsoring a snowman building contest and in a matter of hours the local park is ringing with the laughter of children building their creations.
   
   It is not until a while later that a macabre secret is unveiled. The bodies of two Minneapolis police officers are found within two of the snowmen. This puts the Minneapolis police department on red alert. The following day yet another officer is found dead. This encourages the Monkeewrench team of crack computer buffs to become involved in trawling the net for clues and eventually a terrifying link emerges connecting the dead cops . . .



4. This has to be one of the best mystery books I have ever read. The twist and turns will keep you turning the pages late into the night. This mother/daughter team knows how to keep you reading. I couldn't read the book fast enough. And when you think you figured it out, you haven't.



5. This novel is a great addition to the three previous 'Monkeewrench' novels featuring Leo Magozzi and Grace MacBride. The beginning of the novel features two young women with a dead body: "Kill a man, bury him -- that was all all that was on their list today." (3) The scene abruptly shifts to Minneapolis in the middle of a snowstorm, with the discovery by Magozzi and his partner, Gino, of two dead men encased in snowmen. How these two events are connected makes a great mystery, and also raises some provocative questions on the nature of justice versus the law. Most of the 'regulars' from previous novels make an appearance (although the major flaw in the novel is not enough of the Monkeewrench crew), and a new character (worth revisiting), brand new Sheriff Iris Rikker (former English teacher with no real crime experience), who discovers a third snowman victim and leads Leo and Gino to connect the dots on what's really going on. As with the previous works in this series, a great mix of humor, suspense, and hints of romance (though not enough this time around!). Definitely worth reading.

2 comments about How To Play Mandolin.

1. I never played anything. With this book, it took only some days to start to play. It's excellent for the beginner.



2. While this is a decent book for a beginner, there is one major flaw, that being the fact that you have to be able to read music! Unfortunately I dont. Most beginners books are based on tablature, a method that is very easy to master and it allows you to play without knowing how to read music. I did learn a few things from this book and if you're interested in learning how to read music while you learn the basics of the mandolin, then you'll probably enjoy this publication.

3 comments about Acoustic Guitars and Other Fretted Instruments: A Photographic History.

1. This is one of the best books on Acoustic Guitars for the collector or anyone that has a passion for vintage guitars. Great pictures and detailed discussion.



2. George Gruhn is not only the best know dealer of collectible instruments in the US, he's also an absolute fount of information and a heck of a nice guy, too. Each of his books is *the* authoritative source of information on the guitars featured inside.

   If you're a collector, you need this book. If you'd like to be a collector, you need it even more. And if like most of us, you just love looking at beautiful pictures of guitars, you need it even more.




3. The name of George Gruhn is to the dealing of fine acoustic instruments as "Martin" or "Gibson" is to the manufacturing or "Chet Atkins" is to playing.

   This is THE coffee table book for the household that includes an acoustic instrument afficionado. Guitars are covered A to Z, but so are mandolins, ukes, banjos, dobros, etc. The photos are absolutely beautiful, and the accompanying text is VERY enlightening regarding the history of the instruments and the instrument makers. Included are the first published photos of Lead Belly's 12-string, plus a loving tribute to the first Martin D-45, probably the most valuable guitar in existence, and not just because it's first owner had his name, "Gene Autrey" inlaid into the fingerboard, before he became famous in movies as "Oklahoma's Singing Cowboy".

   Fascinatin' stuff for the acoustic guy or gal in your family.

1 comments about Early Dance Music for Mandolin Book/audio CD.

1. If you are interested in broadening your mandolin playing styles and skills I definitely recommend you check this book out. Most of the songs are pretty simple to play but sound awsome. You can tell they are old time traditional songs from the renissance period and are unlike anything you hear anymore these days.

No comments about Mel Bay Mandolin Tablature Pad.

2 comments about Mel Bay Flatpickin' the Gospels for Mandolin.

1. Hugh dissapointment. He has written the book in extra large print. So you constantly have to turn the page to play a song. Everytime you play 12 or 24 notes you have to stop and turn the page. I have lots of other mandolin instruction books and they print the songs small enought to fit on one page and no page turning.
   
   Kaufman plays each song twice, a simplified version which is okay follwed by a advanced version where he kind of improvises. But the improvised version is kind of all over the place with way too many notes and rolls and sounds almost nothing like the song it is supposed to be. I took the music to professional player and he said he knew several people who had bought this sheet music and were very disappointed for the same reasons. He also thought the improvised versions were overimprovised.
   
   Last complaint is there is a CD with the book. But each song starts immediately when the CD starts. No counting. So you have no time to get your pick ready or see what the beat will be. All other similiar books I have count out a couple measures before the song starts.
   
   I think this book was a wonderful idea and I love the songs that were chosen for it. Wish it was more user friendly. Each song on one page, no page turning during a song. Need the advanced songs better written and and some meteronome counting on the CD before the song starts. Please someone write such a book. We need need a good "how to play gospel" book that is user friendly.



2. After reading the previous review I almost didn't buy this book, but still did, since I couldn't find any other gospel music book for the mandolin at the time. Glad I did. Altho most of the things said in the previous review are true, it's still a wonderful book. The "easy" versions of each of the pieces are simple to pick out on the mandolin and sound wonderful in their simplicity. Sure, the CD doesn't give you the "countdown" to play along with, but it's still masterfully done. It's great to just listen to even without following along to the music. "Overimprovised" mandolin-picking??? I think not. I wish I could play like that! The tablature is clearly written and not hard to follow. I wasn't disappointed!!

No comments about Mel Bay Kaufman's Favorite 50 Celtic Reels for Mandolin, Tunes A-L.