Let's face it---we all practice in front of the TV sometimes, so why not make the best of it? The Couch Potato Guitar Workout is a fun, straightforward, no-frills approach to building guitar technique while watching your favorite TV show or just vegging out on the couch. It's perfect for guitarists of all levels and styles looking to develop speed, strength, and accuracy. Learn the proper posture for sitting on a couch while playing guitar, how to practice without driving your couchmate crazy, basic finger mechanics, and even ways to work your flexors and extensors. With tons of exercises and licks to develop your technique in astonishing ways, The Couch Potato Guitar Workout is your ticket to advancing as a guitarist---all while sitting on your couch!

Let's face it, we all practice in front of the TV sometimes, so why not make the best of it? The Couch Potato Drum Workout is a fun, straightforward, no-frills approach to building drum technique while watching your favorite TV show or just vegging out on the couch. It's perfect for drummers of all levels and styles looking to develop power, speed, and endurance. Learn how to turn your couch into a practice drumset, and how to use your relaxation time in the most efficient and productive way possible. With tons of exercises to develop your technique in astonishing ways, this book is your ticket to advancing as a drummer---all while sitting on your couch!

From the bestselling author of Swindle, Restart, and Slacker is another hilarious story about an underachiever who learns to go above and beyond. Cameron Boxer, king of the slackers, has found something worth his time. By playing video games online in front of an audience he can find both fame AND fortune -- especially with Elvis (a beaver who seems to love video games as much as Cam) at his side.The only problem? Things keep getting in Cam's way. Like school. And the club he accidentally started. And the misguided people in his life who don't think beavers should be playing video games.It's going to take some trickery, some close calls, and a fierce devotion to slacking in order for Cam to get to his goal -- conquering the game's infamous Level 13. But if any slacker can do it, Cam can.

Rock Brands: Selling Sound in a Media Saturated Culture, edited by Elizabeth Barfoot Christian, is an edited collection that explores how different genres of popular music are branded and marketed today. The book's core objectives are addressed over three sections. In the first part of Rock Brands, the authors examine how established mainstream artists/bands are continuing to market themselves in an ever-changing technological world, and how bands can use integrated marketing communication to effectively 'brand' themselves. This branding is intended as a protection so that technology and delivery changes don't stifle the bands' success. KISS, AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, Phish, and Miley Cyrus are all popular musical influences considered in this part of the analysis. In the second section, the authors explore how some musicians effectively use attention-grabbing issues such as politics (for example, Kanye West and countless country musicians) and religion (such as with Christian heavy metal bands and Bon Jovi) in their lyrics, and also how imagery is utilized by artists such as Marilyn Manson to gain a fan base. Finally, the book will explore specific changes in the media available to market music today (see M.I.A. and her use of new media) and, similarly, how these resources can benefit music icons even after they are long gone, as with Elvis and Michael Jackson. Rock Brands further examines gaming, reality television, and social networking sites as new outlets for marketing and otherwise experiencing popular music. What makes some bands stand out and succeed when so many fail? How does one find a niche that isn't just kitsch and can stand the test of time, allowing the musician to grow as an artist as well as grow a substantial fan base? Elizabeth Barfoot Christian and the book's contributors expertly navigate these questions and more in Rock Brands: Selling Sound in a Media Saturated Culture.

(Guitar Method). A comprehensive, easy-to-understand intermediate approach to jazz guitar playing techniques, helps develop an individual concept of improvising by learning scales and their basic chord forms and further develops improvisation skills through the use of practice patterns. Utilizes transcriptions along with several original pieces by Joe Pass.

Greg Horne, the best-selling author of the Complete Acoustic Guitar Method, and Stacy Phillips, one of the world's foremost DOBRO(R) performers and educators, have teamed up to create the ultimate resource for acoustic guitarists ready to step up to a new level of musicianship. Become an in-demand acoustic musician by learning to play mandolin, ukulele, lap dulcimer, Dobro, and several kinds of banjo. This book covers the tunings, techniques and styles you need to know to become a true multi-instrumentalist. Written in an easy-to-understand and friendly style, The Multi-Instrumental Guitarist is your guide to a new world of music making.

From bestselling author of The Book of Delights and award-winning poet, a book of lyrical mini-essays celebrating the everyday that will inspire readers to rediscover the joys in the world around us. In Ross Gay’s new collection of small, daily wonders, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight. For Gay, what delights us is what connects us, what gives us meaning, from the joy of hearing a nostalgic song blasting from a passing car to the pleasure of refusing the “nefarious” scannable QR code menus, from the tiny dog he fell hard for to his mother baking a dozen kinds of cookies for her grandchildren. As always, Gay revels in the natural world—sweet potatoes being harvested, a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, a sunflower growing out of a wall around the cemetery, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree—and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us. The Book of (More) Delights is a volume to savor and share.