This is an excellent book if you want to play Scott Joplin on guitar. There is no tab in the book so you need to know how to read standard music notation to learn the pieces. An added bonus is that Prof. de Chiaro has recorded all the pieces in the book on a set of 4 CDs from Centaur Records, so you can use the CDs to help you to learn to play the pieces. I am currently learning "Maple Leaf Rag" from the book and I am very happy with the results (after previously trying other, inferior transcriptions). Unreservedly recommended!

This is a fabulous resource for the folk harp, written with just the perfect amount of personal touch. The arrangements are beautiful, and the historical notes on the songs are a joy for any music lover.

I bought it. I lost it. I will buy a new copy if I can't find it.

As a Commander for an American Legion post, I purchased a bugle to play taps at funerals. No where could I find any books with the notes for taps and other bugle calls, until I found this book. Not only did it have the notes, but it had a CD that you could listen to and the history behind each and every bugle call. An excellant book.

The exercise in this book are commonly heard phrases that can be played over standard chord sequences. As practice material they are great and the explanations are simple and enlightening. This is a good book for developing dexterity and a feel for the keys and scales. Improvising is much more than repeated practiced licks but working through this book will give a player some chops to fall back on as well as a wider understaning of what is possible.

Bill Guest and other featured song writers in this book present a style of music which is fun to play and pleasing to the listener. Trills, slurs and slides embellish the music and provide a challenge for the hobby fiddlist. The CD available with the book helps the fiddler hear the distinct Bill Guest style. As usual, Mel Bay provides another great collection of music.

As the Texas Legislature said in 1995, The Light Crust Doughboys have always been regarded as one of the country's most precious natural resources. But fans and critics more and more are recognizing the band as the seminal group it is: just as Bill Monroe is to bluegrass, and Robert Johnson is to the blues, so are The Light Crust Doughboys to Texas-style country and western swing. This unique collection explores many of the band's Doughboy originals both in secular and gospel music. Smokey Montgomery, fast becoming heralded around the world as the tenor banjo's greatest master, edited and compiled this collecton along with his disciple, the Texas Renaissance Man, Art Greenhaw. This is a must-have for anyone who wants to see how Texas country music is so much different from Nashville country, and you can explore the soul and feeling of a band that doesn't overdub, synthesize, or homogenize. The Light Crust Doughboys, the world's longest-lived country band, are bound for eternal fame like Scott Joplin and Stephen Foster and Irving Berlin, and now we can have a rare listen and sing-along to uncovered gems of Americana through this Mel Bay classic. Western swing is a synthesis of blues, gospel, rural fiddle music, big band, and much more. This is the lab band where western swing was invented in the 1930s, and here's how it's perfected in the 1990s with this contemporary Doughboy collection (along with a few amazing tracks from the 1940s). Where is The Country Music Hall of Fame when we need 'em to induct The Light Crust Doughboys?! Let's mount a campaign for The Light Crust Doughboys NOW!!

This book is meant for players who have a basic understanding of chords and chord mechanisms in Jazz, and covers a lot of material that is relevant to swing comping. I recommend this book. It covers the subject well and gives many hints on how to sound good when comping. However, if you need to learn new voicings and chords, you'd be better off buying a chord chart.

The Celtic Encyclopedia is an interesting collection of traditional Irish pieces, mostly one page long - some a little longer. (Yes, it does have a version of "Danny Boy") Many are arranged from harp music, which works quite well, and most of them are quite obscure (at least to me). There aren't any "melody line" pieces - they all seem to be well rounded, with interesting harmonies that allow them to stand alone.

Anyone who would like to pick up a musical instrument and teach themselves to play can do just that with an autoharp and this fine book.
I borrowed an autoharp and this book from a music teacher whom I work with and brought them home. I was strumming out beautiful music that night!
This is a great book. It has a wide variety of songs from sea shantys to hymn... from children's songs to international songs.
The songs are set up with all the chords marked out and strum marks to help figure out the rhythms to play.
Using this book was rewarding and fun!