Last Action Hero: The Official Moviebook

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last action hero

Last Action Hero: The Official Moviebook
Steve Newman , and Ed Marsh
Manufacturer: Newmarket Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1557041741

Book Description

Behind the scenes with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Last Action Hero. Over 40 photos in full color! Schwarzenegger is Jack Slater, the movies' greatest action hero. One day Slater's world gets shaken up when a magical ticket blasts his biggest fan,. eleven-year-old Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien), out of his theater seat and right into Slater's newest movie. Teamed with his favorite action hero, Danny gets to live out his wildest fantasies, as his crashes cars, flies through windows and takes on the bad guys in a fictional world where anything is possible.

This official companion book places the reader at the heart of the action, following director John McTiernan (Die Hard, Predator, The Hunt for Red October), the stars, and filmmakers as they create the ultimate action adventure fantasy. The book features:

* an exclusive Q&A interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger * over 100 action-packed movie stills and drawings, over 40 in full-color * insider stories on the stunts, the explosions, the special effects, the costumes, the sets, the cast, and the entire spectacular production

Customer Reviews:

last action hero.......2003-09-21

last action hero is about a young little boy who just moved to nem york with his mom.he has no friends except for a movie projector man at the pandora theatre in times square.this little boy danny loves Jack slater (arnold schwarzeneigger) movies.he has seen all three of them but has seen the third one seventeen times.the night before the fourth one comes out the movie projectior man nick tells him he can go to the theatre at 12:00 that night to see the whole movie before anyone else.that night someone comes and robs his house.he goes to the police department and they called his mom.after he got done at police department he went to the movies to see the movie.nick gives him a golden ticket that houdini gave to him when he was just 8 years old.so nick tore the ticket in half and gave danny the rest of the stub.then the ticket started to glow.when danny sat down the action begins

Average customer rating:

Nice Introduction, but missing something

Mel Bay's Guitar Journals Blues
Lee Andrews
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Guitar | Instruments & Performers | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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Mel Bay Guitar Journals: Technique (Mel Bay's Guitar Journals)

Mel Bay Guitar Journals: Mastering the Fingerboard--Reading Book (Mel Bay's Guitar Journals)

Mel Bay Guitar Journals: Scales (Mel Bay's Guitar Journals)

Mel Bay's Guitar Journals Jazz

Mel Bay Guitar Journals: Rock (Mel Bay's Guitar Journals)

ASIN: 0786607203
Release Date: 2005-02-28

Product Description

Mel Bay's latest series, Guitar Journals, is the ultimate eference guide of studies and solos in several different genres. This fantastic blues volume contains exercises on barre chords, power chords, progressions, strum patterns, hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, double stops, scales, licks and also a wide variety of tunes. Perfect for the student to professional musician's everyday use! All music in notation and tablature. Hard cover, covered spiral binding and premium stock paper make this a volume so beautifully printed and bound and containing so much valuable information that you will treasure it for years to come! Ultimate guide of blues exercises and solos and perfect reference manual for everyday use Barre chords, power chords, progressions, strum patterns, hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, double stops, scales, licks AND a wide variety of tunes Ideal for the student to professional musician Beautiful hard cover with covered spiral binding and premium paper Companion recording In notation and tablature

Customer Reviews:

Nice Introduction, but missing something.......2007-01-14

First of all, the physical design of the book. I love the hard cover with spiral binding inside. You can put the book down anywhere and it stays open and on the page you want. I bought another blues book at the same time and you have to practically break the binding to get it to stay open. But who chose the font for the printing? Whoever it was, my eye doctor thanks them. The font looks fine when used to show the chords , but in the general text of the book (which there's not much of) it's almost unreadable.

This book would be good for those starting *blues* guitar, not those starting guitar who want to play blues. I bought it a month or so after I started learning guitar and it was way over my head. I could follow some of the tab, but I didn't know WHY that was being played. And the book doesn't do a good job of explaining it. I put the book down and concentrated on learning the basics. It's now a year later and I'm going back to the book and it's much more useful. It still doesn't do a great job of explaining the details. A perfect example is the section on turnarounds. It shows all the turnarounds in the key of A and just says "Then move them up or down the neck so it will have the same relationship to the barre chord with the same root as the key in which you are playing." As someone with no musical background, that doesn't make any sense. After comparing turnarounds in another book in the key of G and reading other things, I finally realize what it's saying.

Mel Bay's Master Anthology of Blues Guitar Solos

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Decent, often good, but not "blues"

Mel Bay's Master Anthology of Blues Guitar Solos

Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0786647248

Book Description

This comprehensive book/CD set presents some of the first contemporary blues guitarists! Features Muriel Anderson, Duck Baker, Mickey Baker, Carlos Barbosa-Lima, William Bay, Larry Bolles, Ben Bolt, Dan Bowden, Dix Bruce, Mike Christiansen, Alan de Mause, Craig Dobbins, Steven Eckels, Jim Ferguson, Buddy Fite, Tommy Flint, John Griggs, Stefan Grossman, Ole Halen, Al Hendrickson, Roger Hudson, Jean-Felix Lalanne, Paul Lolax, Larry McCabe, Dale Miller, Franco Morone, Ronald Muldrow, Paul Musso, Bill Piburn, Bucky Pizzarelli, Paul Rishell, Vincent Sadovsky, Felix Schell, Jerry Silverman, Martin Simpson, Fred Sokolow, Stanley Solow, Tim Sparks, John Standefer, Jay Umble, Phil Upchurch, Paul Yandell and John Zaradin. These selections include both new pieces and some of the best previously published pieces from the latter half of the 20th century. Standard notation and tablature are offered for most of the pieces, along with a biographical sketch of each performer. A set of 2 CDs is included, making this an ideal sourcebook for serious students and professionals alike.

Customer Reviews:

Decent, often good, but not "blues".......2005-08-02

Frankly, the title is quite misleading, approaching false advertising. These are for the most part, not "blues" at all, but fingerstyle guitar pieces, mostly in the Nashville/Chet Atkins style. All of them owe some compositional debt to traditional blues, but the influence is sometimes very, very faint.

Now there are some very nice pieces in here: I'm particularly fond of Tim Sparks' "Blues on Bartok Street". But as good as that tune is, it has as much in common with what anyone thinks of as blues as any of Bartok's own compositions, which is to say nothing at all.

In short: blues this ain't. If you're hoping for an anthology of basic country/Piedmont/Chicago standards (or even styles), look elsewhere. Stefan Grossman's books are a good start.

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Mel Bay's Getting into Blues Guitar
Steve Grieve
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

ASIN: 0786662409

Book Description

A progressive instructional blues guitar tutorial for beginner and intermediate level players, covering chords, comping, scales, phrasing and solo improvising. Presented in lesson format, and including practice and further reading/listening suggestions, the book features a number of musical examples and tunes using both notation and guitar tablature as well as chord grids, all of which have been recorded for demonstration on electric guitar only, and are included on the accompanying CD.

The book introduces the student to authentic blues styles and techniques, referring to specific players, recordings and periods in the development and evolution of modern blues guitar playing. The relationship between chords and soloing is examined, as is the role of the guitar in blues ensembles and recordings, and a shared emphasis is placed on chord comping, improvising and related theory. The author envisions that upon completion of the book the student will be competent in a range of blues forms and idioms, be able to comp and improvise authentically, and be capable of ensemble and band playing if desired.

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Mel Bay's Blues Guitar Method, Level 1
David Barrett , and John Garcia
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Mel Bay Blues Guitar Play-Along Trax

Mel Bay Blues Keyboard Method, Level 1

ASIN: 0786675306

Product Description

Blues Guitar Level 1, within the School of the Blues Lesson Series, is about learning the art of playing rhythm guitar and its various grooves pertaining to the blues. Areas covered are: major scales, chord construction, Chicago-type shuffles, uptown swing & jump, cut time, slow blues, rhumba, funky blues, rock beat, boogie beat, eight-bar blues; openings, breaks and endings. This book is accompanied by a CD recording of all examples (played by author John Garcia) along with the background music. For all skill level players.

Mel Bay's You Can Teach Yourself Blues Guitar

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Buy this guitar book before all others

Mel Bay's You Can Teach Yourself Blues Guitar
Mike Christiansen
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

ASIN: 0786639253

Product Description

An in-depth look at the basics of acoustic blues guitar. Learn the blues progression, blues chords, strum patterns, how to accompany a blues song, moveable chords, barre chords, the blues scale, turnarounds, fill-ins, the capo, double stops, blues licks, bass line accompaniments, blues techniques, how to build and play an improvised solo, and fingerpicking blues. Also included are dozens of blues solos and 9 great new blues songs! In notation & tablature. This package includes a CD and DVD.

Customer Reviews:

Buy this guitar book before all others.......2007-04-09

I have a small library of guitar books, this is by far the best. Beginners who complete this book will be surprised at how much they've learned. You will be able to play and enjoy your guitar if you take the time to go through this book. Intermediate players will benefit from his clear presentation and organization. I have been playing and taking lessons for 3 years and occasionally find myself going back to this book for review (and the example songs are fun to play!).

Mel Bay Blues and Jazz for Fingerstyle Guitar

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Mel Bay Blues and Jazz for Fingerstyle Guitar

Manufacturer: Mel Bay PUblications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Product Description

A collection of 20 different 4-bar patterns and 10 original solo compositions by one of Europe's finest guitarists. Designed for the serious fingerstyle guitar student, this book presents rhythm patterns in a wide range of moods written in standard notation and tablature, along with new concepts about blues and jazz. In the solos, beautiful and impressive melodies are paired with alternate and walking basses. An accompanying audio CD includes a demonstration of each concept and a performance of each solo.

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Mel Bay Blues Guitar Chart
Corey Christiansen
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 078667234X

Product Description

This chart provides the basics of playing the blues guitar. Common scale and chord diagrams as well as blues chord progressions are laid out in a fashion anyone can understand. Chords, changes, power chords, scales and turnarounds are all listed here to help any level of guitarist pick up the blues in no time!

Mel Bay's First Lessons Blues Guitar Book/CD Set

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Mel Bay's First Lessons Blues Guitar Book/CD Set
Corey Christiansen , and Mike Christiansen
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0786627972

Book Description

Written for the beginning guitarist who loves the blues, this text will guide any student through the basis of playing guitar by using blues melodies and blues chord progressions. Students will learn open chords, common strumming patterns, power chords, blues scales, and how to read standard notation, and tab. An effective method for writing original blues lyrics is also provided. This text has lessons on correct posture, caring for the guitar, proper right and left-hand technique, and tuning the guitar to its self, a pitch pipe or a piano. The accompanying CD provides students a professional recording of tunes and exercises that should be used as a practice tool.

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Mel Bay Blues Guitar Play-Along Trax
David Barrett , and John Garcia
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Mel Bay's Blues Guitar Method, Level 1

ASIN: 0786673923

Product Description

Blues Guitar Play-Along Trax, within the School of the Blues Lesson Series, is an exciting play-along that contains the most common grooves used in blues bands today. Notated examples are also provided to give you an idea of how you can approach accompanying a vocalist or instrumentalist. Along with the 12 jam tracks, the book is accompanied by a CD recording of all examples (played by author John Garcia) along with the background music

Average customer rating:

Worth the time

Mel Bay's Electric Blues Guitar Method
William Bay
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Product Description

This is an innovative and comprehensive book which teaches the essentials of playing contemporary blues guitar. Includes basic techniques such as note-bending, the hammer-ons, the pull-offs, in addition to the blues shuffle rhythm. The first part of the book presents lead guitar solos demonstrating and teaching basic techniques. In notation and tablature. A play-along stereo CD is included.

Customer Reviews:

Worth the time.......2004-03-22

I had picked this book up a few years ago at an off price store cheap with some other books. I had never really got to involved with it until I was off work sick for a few days and start to get really bored. I took the CD out and sat down at page 1 and went the completely through it playing along with the CD. It does a great job at getting you to know the pentatonic scale up and down the neck. Playing with the CD was important because it caused me to really focus on getting the bends and slides to match the pitch of the CD instead of just playing them in a sloppy manner I have. It doesn't teach much theory but there are plenty of books for that.

Book Description

Over 100 glorious designs inspired by fabulous sea creatures, presented in varied sizes for embroidery and needlepoint projects. Instructions, color keys, diagrams help needleworkers create such beauties as Lightning Whelk, Panther Cowrie, Green Turban, Little Bear Conch, Australian Trumpet, many more.

Customer Reviews:

Charted Seashell Designs.......2000-05-28

This is a classic chartbook for needleworkers wanting individual seashell patterns to work singly or to incorporate into their own designs. The patterns are for both large and small seashells (though mostly small), and there are suggestions for borders and repeat patterns. The book contains basic cross stitch and needlepoint instructions for the beginner, and a floss conversion chart. The booklet is well worth its price--its only drawback is that only the four seashells on the covers are displayed in color, a problem if you want to combine patterns or have problems visualizing a completed design from a black-and-white chart.

Average customer rating:

Well Done

Insightful !

On the lean culture of cost leadership firms

You Can Successfully Be a Corproate Leader

Very interesting but divisive and of limited value

Less Is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity
Jason Jennings
Manufacturer: Portfolio Hardcover
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Think Big, Act Small : How America's Best Performing Companies Keep the Start-up Spirit Alive

It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool in Business

Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers

Leading Change

The New Ruthless Economy: Work and Power in the Digital Age

ASIN: 1591840015
Release Date: 2002-11-11

Book Description

From the author of the bestselling It's Not the Big That Eat the Small,It's the Fast That Eat the Slow comes a vital new guide to increasing business productivity without adding employees or other overhead costs

Managers and CEOs are always looking for ways to keep productivity high, and recent economic shakiness has only reinforced their need. Now Jason Jennings, a bestselling author and international business consultant, offers a groundbreaking look at how to boost productivity and your bottom line.

In Less Is More, Jennings shares tested and successful programs from the leading giants in industry and presents new trends that businesses of all sizes will be able to implement. Inside, you'll learn how to:

* increase sales 300 percent without increasing head count
* become 10 times more efficient
* keep track of every penny
* use technology and automation in your favor

Written in the same breezy, informative style of Jennings's previous book, Less Is More is sure to join its predecessor on bestseller lists nationwide.

Customer Reviews:

Well Done.......2006-04-22

Stories of successful businesses fill this book. The author got "down and dirty" and did in-the-trenches research to find the best performing companies in the world. Then he spoke with the CEO's to find out what makes them and their businesses tick.

Insightful !.......2005-02-23

This is not just another book about the secrets of famous companies. It is, instead, a book about the secrets of somewhat obscure but great companies. The principles that author Jason Jennings propounds are familiar enough, but most of his examples will not be familiar to the general reader. That is no drawback. Although some of these companies are less well known, they have all achieved great business success (if not fame) by applying some of the most tried, true and proven axioms of management. Treat people with respect, pay them for performance, focus on one clear and understandable mission - there is nothing new about these principles, except that they keep proving their efficacy even in the unlikeliest places. Do not look for a deep examination of management here. The book provides frustratingly scant background information about the companies themselves. But we assure those seeking a handbook of solid if venerable management advice that you will not go wrong with this interesting little book.

On the lean culture of cost leadership firms.......2004-08-02

This spring, I had a night-flight from Houston to Europe. I never got any sleep due to this book. It reads like a fiction novel while the focus is very much on the softer issues of productivity businesses. The well-written behind-the-wall stories and interviews with successful top executives give us insight to many issues that usual case stories do not explain.

Business magazines often glorify top executives by telling about the grand strategic plan behind the success. This little book shows us a different story. It provides insight to the many seemingly small traits of the lean culture that only works because they taken serious by the organization and used in combination. These are the 11 traits required for the leader of a highly productive enterprise: attention to detail, high moral fiber, embracing simplicity, competitiveness, long-term focus, disdain for waste, coach leadership, humility, rejection of bureaucracy, belief in others, and trust.

I'm sure you're really not impressed of this list. Neither am I. But try challenging some of the advice. Humility? When was the last time you saw a big company using this as a standard. When you hear the story of many head offices visited in this book, you'll understand humility. Often you'll find a very simple and humble office building for a huge company. No art on the walls! No lavish entrance hall! In these companies, you don't find huge corporate staff creating immense bureaucracy and all sorts of information requirements from their operating companies or business units. These organizations do actually "walk-the-talk" on lean - unlike many fad-driven major firms who's paying lip service to a lean culture.

PERSISTENCE is a word missing from the 11 traits, though attention to detail and long-term focus do include some of it. They never lose sight of their BIG idea or focus. It includes their performance measurement. "Everyone who works for SRC gathers once a week in their respective lunchrooms and takes part in a review of the business's financial performance for the previous week. By DOING IT WEEK IN WEEK-OUT FOR MANY YEARS the exercise has also become a system".

Okay, I'm sure that the book's research on productivity could have been better. And some of the firms reported on may experience difficulties, though most are still flourishing. But don't read this book for the hard stuff. Read the soft issues that over time usually turn out to be the hardest to beat.

I agree that it resembles "In Search of Excellence" to some degree, but remember that this book is on the lean culture of Cost Leadership firms (my interpretation, not the author's).

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

You Can Successfully Be a Corproate Leader.......2004-03-15

This book is an excellent example of the types of practices and procedures almost any company can follow to be successful both financially and ethically.
Jennings cites numerous companies who have carved out success while still remaining true to their customers, their employees and their values.
Not surprisingly, few of these companies are ones that so called pundits regularly review.
As the other reviews have noted, these companies are very successful financially, but they get there by asking the really pertinent business questions, and not by hiding behind an air of executive invulnerability. The leaders are real leaders, more focused on growing the company, serving customers, and doing right by employees.
What vividly differentiates these companies from the "name brands," is that in the "name" companies, executives are more concerned with their own compensation, preserving their own existence, and with profits at all costs, than long term success.
The questions you should ask yourself after reading this book are, "Where have all the leaders gone?" and "Why don't all companies follow many of Jennings' researched best practices?
After that, I would run, not walk, to one of these companies and see if you can start at the bottom and learn what it's like to work in a real company.

Very interesting but divisive and of limited value.......2003-12-30

Jennings reads his book on the unabridged audiocassette. He definitely has an announcers voice and is easy to understand. I found his inflections sort of larger-than-life/not natural at first but I quickly got acclimated, not a big issue. The book is fairly long and repeats many important themes like the need for healthy culture, process and vision in many different ways. It might be able to be shorter.

The research method Jennings and his team utilized for the book is the driver that makes the book so interesting. By carrying out detailed analysis to locate several under-the-radar, but incredibly productive companies, they managed to isolate some of the common threads for corporate success without being sucked into the vortex of large mega-companies whose stories are already well known and perhaps over-documented. The companies chosen represent a fairly good cross-section of international business, but I would have like to have seen at least one very high tech computer vendor make the cut. There are probably good reasons why there wasn't one, but there was no mention of this if my memory serves... In addition to the excellent research on the case companies, there are also some good insights into legendary companies like Ford and Toyota briefly provided for specific instances.

The significant flaw in this book is that when it is taken as a whole, it amounts to not much more than a very interesting, carefully crafted, indictment of most executive management in corporations today. The executives profiled all really know the nuts and bolts of their business and have been with them long enough to really cast Deming-like vision into reality. That plays well for well a while, but with 6 tapes, I'd like something more practical I can start at work tomorrow since I'm not an executive and probably never will be. The book does try to service this need for mid-managers like me towards the end of the book by encouraging that we apply at least some of the key principles to some degree in the hope of making a grass roots difference at least within our department. Actually, the department I work with abides by many of the principles given and they do help. But that doesn't stop large-scale lay-offs, frozen budgets and other realities that most managers really have to live with. The book's untitled theme is that strong success only flows from the top down. In the highly successful cases analyzed, each has exceptional Level 5 leaders (to use Jim Collins terminology). What if where I work is like 90% of all places where the executives turn-over a lot, are forced to optimize all decisions for short-term profit on Wall Street and de-rail some good plans due to economic realities? The book's primary advice to me would seem to be: go to work somewhere else, find that 10% club. Maybe true, but not particularly helpful today.

Even for those top-level executives whom this book will reach, it is likely to fall on deaf ears. Not because executives really are the "wing tip shoe wearers, peacock strutting" jerks Jennings occasionally alludes to. No, it is Jennings own inflammatory and derisive language that will tend to make executives shut the book. I wanted to lend my tapes to the president of my company because of the good macro-productivity ideas, but decided I wouldn't because he might take it as my endorsement of this class-warfare attitude.

There are other sources out there for most of the information here on egalitarian culture, continuous process improvement, open-book management, profit sharing incentives, etc. I'd be interested to know the average working hours of the employees in the case study companies as a cultural factor but I don't recall this being mentioned. In any case, the productivity measures would factor this in, just a cultural question I have about these companies.

Much of what Jennings says is true and interesting. There are some things that can be learned here, but much of it comes down to re-invent almost everything, starting with your executives. Who can implement that? Again, it is the detailed case study research that puts compelling value into this book.

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