Growing up on his family's orchards in Appleton, Michigan, in the 1950s, Martin Dijksterhuis finds everything he needs in his extended family and in the land itself -- in the reassuring routines of growing and harvesting, spraying and pruning. Although his mother wants him to get out of Appleton, which she finds impossibly provincial, and attend a great university -- the University of Chicago, her alma mater -- he has no desire to leave. In the autumn of his junior year of high school, however, in the camp of the migrant workers who come north every year to pick the Dijksterhuis peaches and apples, Martin discovers his vocation, the country blues -- unsettling melodies that cry out from a place in the soul he never knew existed. He also falls in love with Corinna Williams, the strong-willed daughter of the black foreman who runs the Dijksterhuis orchards. His blues vocation and his love for Corinna are the two stories of his life. His struggle to combine them into a single story takes him a long way from home and from the life he had always envisioned for himself, and then it brings him back again in a way he could never have imagined. In this beautifully rendered novel, Robert Hellenga, author of The Sixteen Pleasures and The Fall of a Sparrow, explores the fragility of happiness, the difficulties of following one's calling in life, and the sorrows and satisfactions of being a parent.

(Guitar Educational). Expand your guitar knowledge with the Guitar Lesson Goldmine series! Featuring 100 individual modules covering a giant array of topics, each lesson in this Blues volume includes detailed instruction with playing examples presented in standard notation and tablature. You'll also get extremely useful tips, scale diagrams, chord grids, photos, and more to reinforce your learning experience plus 2 audio CDs featuring performance demos of all the examples in the book! A huge variety of blues guitar styles and techniques are covered, including: turnarounds, hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, the blues scale, 12-bar blues, double stops, muting techniques, hybrid picking, fingerstyle blues, and much more!

An exciting beginning blues harmonica course! the ideas presented are solidly in the blues tradition with great sounding bluesy licks to play, even at the beginning level! Topics include Phrasing Concepts (how small pieces of music, called licks, are organized to create a pleasing solo), 12 Bar Blues Theory, Vibrato, Shakes, and Tongue Blocking. the recording includes all of the harmonica parts notated in the book with accompaniment. This book and its recording use a C major diatonic harmonica.•

(Guitar Educational). A comprehensive source designed to help guitarists develop both lead and rhythm playing. Covers: Texas, Delta, R&B, early rock and roll, gospel, blues/rock and more. Includes 21 complete solos; chord progressions and riffs; turnarounds; moveable scales and more. The audio features leads and full band backing.

Provides exercises for jazz guitar techniques, including jazz riffs, breaks, fill-ins, and solos.

(Book). This practical book with CD helps guitarists improve their ability to play over changes, better understand jazz harmony, and expand their jazz vocabulary. Using examples from his own experiences playing with many well-known musicians, top fusion guitarist Larry Coryell provides dozens of musical exercises - plus original compositions - that challenge guitarists to increase flexibility in their thinking and playing. Topics include: new approaches to playing accompaniment ("comping"); integrating chords and scales in jazz solos; interpreting chord changes; and improvising - the art of creating music spontaneously with other players.