Entertainment Theory

Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut best seller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted audiences as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times best seller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history.

If you've always wanted to play the piano but thought it was too hard, too late, or too expensive—this audiobook is for you. Inside is a practical, no-fluff method that shows you exactly what to do each day for 30 days to start playing with confidence.

Scouted by a modeling agent when she was just sixteen years old, Cameron Russell first approached her job with some reservations: She was a serious student with her sights set on college, not the runway. But modeling was a job that seemed to offer young women like herself unprecedented access to wealth, fame, and influence. Besides, as she was often reminded, “there are a million girls in line” who would eagerly replace her.

Long before the United States had presidents from the world of movies and reality TV, we had scores of politicians with connections to country music. In I'd Fight the World, Peter La Chapelle traces the deep bonds between country music and politics. These performers and politicians both rode and resisted cultural waves: some advocated for the poor and dispossessed, and others voiced religious and racial anger, but they all walked the line between exploiting their celebrity and righteously taking on the world.

The follow-up to Caitlin Moran's breakout hit, How to Be a Woman - a hilarious collection of award-winning columns, available to American listeners for the first time ever.

Many people consider music theory to be intimadating, when in all actuality, it is the very language that connects us. This book is a step-by-step guide providing the basics and laying the foundation necessary to provide you with the skills to compose and orient your ideas when creating music.

Investigative journalist Lee Smith's The Plot Against the President tells the story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the commander-in-chief. While popular opinion holds that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, the real damage was done not by Moscow or any other foreign actor. Rather, this was a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country.

“Playing changes”, in jazz parlance, has long referred to an improviser’s resourceful path through a chord progression. Playing Changes boldly expands on the idea, highlighting a host of significant changes - ideological, technological, theoretical, and practical - that jazz musicians have learned to navigate since the turn of the century. Nate Chinen, who has chronicled this evolution firsthand throughout his journalistic career, vividly sets the backdrop, charting the origins of jazz historicism and the rise of an institutional framework for the music.

Do you struggle writing songs? Have you ever tried learning music theory but found it hard or thought that it wasn't necessary? If you are finding that you are writing songs, and while they sound good, there is something missing, then read on. What you are missing is the sense of harmony and emotion that professional producers and songwriters have. You're about to discover everything you need to know about music theory, songwriting, lyrics, and creativity.

The complete learning experience of professional piano lessons. Have you always wanted to play the piano, but didn't know where to start? Maybe you never got the chance as a kid? Or maybe you haven't played the piano in years and are looking for a refresher? Well, then look no further because this book is perfect for you. Traditionally, piano lessons have been very boring. They often leave people frustrated and feeling like they’re not learning quickly enough. Stop burning through your time and start the real playing with this book.

Forty essays on history, art, and literature to lift your mind and spirit. Guy Davenport serves as the listener's guide through history and literature, providing links between music and sculpture, modernist poets and classic philosophers, the past and present-pointing out the values and avenues of thought that have shaped our ideas and our thinking.

You’re standing at the forefront of a technological revolution… But who do you want to be in charge: It or you? Generative AI is shaping the future, and there’s really no choice but to get on board… and it’s only when you do that you’ll be able to access its incredible benefits. Want to boost your creativity? Enhance your efficiency? Solve problems more easily? AI can help you with all of these things… But it requires something of you first.

Traditionally, piano lessons can be very boring and require a fixed time. Then many books are either too complex or boring. This often leaves people frustrated and feeling like giving up. Instead of typical text-heavy books, this book explains the essentials in an easy-to-understand way that will establish a strong foundation on which to build your musical knowledge.

It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just 32 days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favourite film, celebrating moral fortitude.

With all the music production advice out there, it can be very easy to get overwhelmed. You may get a vague idea of the general topic, but you're more likely to be confused, and you definitely won't have any workable knowledge. Well, the good news is this book changes that. Designed to take the complex world of music production, and explain it in simple terms. If you are a home-based musician then this is a must have for making your music sound professional. For the pros and semi-pros out there, this is a great book for understanding what good music production entails.

Play in Perfect Harmony! Music Theory for Beginners is a thorough yet accessible guide. It’s recorded without confusing terms or jargon, and you can use the concepts to play any instrument in any style or genre. Rather than telling you what to do, it trains your ears and hands to express yourself. You can even use what you learn to produce your own original music on a laptop! Discover how to express yourself through rhythm and notes, because music theory doesn’t have to be intimidating or tedious.

We live in an age of the mobile image. This recent kinetic revolution of the image has enormous consequences not only for the way we think about contemporary art and aesthetics but also for art history as well. Responding to this historical moment, Theory of the Image offers a fresh new theory and history of art from the perspective of this epoch-defining mobility. The image has been understood in many ways, but it is rarely understood to be fundamentally in motion.

The choice is yours, and you'll have to live with the consequences for at least the rest of your life. Will you take the blue pill - skip this audiobook and go on thinking of The Matrix as just a movie? Or will you take the red pill - listen to this book, and find out just how far down the rabbit-hole goes?

Original 1923 text of The Ego and the Id by Sigmund Freud. This text has been edited to replace acronyms Freud used for brevity with full words for ease in understanding. This book also includes a foreword by Daniel Noyes.

David W. Barber has delighted fans around the world with Accidentals on Purpose, When the Fat Lady Sings, and other internationally best-selling books of musical humor. His best-selling Bach, Beethoven and the Boys chronicles the lives of the great (and not-so-great) composers, exploring their sex lives, exposing their foibles, and expanding on our understanding of these all-too-human creatures.