Excellent book for beginners through intermediate hobbyist. Unlike Macfarren and other Scale Manuals with 100+ pages of daunting scale exercises, this book graphically and clearly explains Circle of Keys and chord construction. Great little book to keep by piano and use as guide to scale warmup at beginning of practice!

Don't be fooled by the cover. This book should be given free with every keyboard. It has all the scales in easy format and the common chords. If you sit down for 3 hours a day for one month you can play almost any song from a fake book. Beware though, it has only major and minor scales. Don't expect to find Greek and Spanish scales. But for the price its great and compact too.

I admire Carman's ability and sharpness to identify similarities between Christianism and other religions. I am also glad that he pointed out the differences as well. It is a very thorough book. The author has divided this book into five parts, and subdivided each part into several chapters. Part one is called "at the edge of theology." In chapter one Carman explains how he came to understand polarities in different religions and how he discovered similar polarities in the Christian religion or Christianity. Carman affirms that polarities do not contradict each other, but are necessary to explain the amplitude in range of a given divinity. In chapter two the author calls for a "deliberate effort to reestablish communication" between different religions; what he calls the "detour of scholarly understanding" (23). Carman recognizes that the road to establish new communications between communities of faith will be very difficult. He emphasizes the efforts made in this regard by the Norwegian W. Brede Kristensen from the University of Leiden and Gerardus van der Leeuw from the University of Groningen during the first half of the 20th century. While both agree on the importance of the scholar's own religious experience, they differ on how this experience should affect the scholar's research, teaching and writing. He also recognizes the German theologian Rudolf Otto as the one that introduced him to Ramanuja and awoke his interest in the comparative studies of religion. In part two of his book the author deals with polarities in Hindu theologies. Chapter three deals with the many different faces of Siva, the Supreme Lord in Hindu religion. One of these faces is represented in an image that shows Siva and the Goddess (Parvati?) combined in a single human figure, male on one side and female on the other. The author analyzes Tamil poems to discover the different polarities of Siva. Chapters four, five and six deal with the theology of the Srivaishnavas of South India. Carman analyzes the writings of Nammalvar, a very influential poet in the community, of the philosopher and theologian Ramanuja, and of Pillan, a commentator who tries to combine and explain the writings of the former two persons. In chapter seven the author proposes to compare the Buddhist teachings of Shinran with the doctrines of the Tengalai branch of Srivaishnava tradition and Protestant theology, especially with Martin Luther's teaching on grace and "faith alone." Chapter eight looks at the polarities in different Hindu deities, like Siva with his five faces, the goddess Kali, and Lord Vishnu. There are four polarities in Ramanuja's theology: god as support and god as supported, god as utterly pure and as a treasure-trove of auspicious attributes, god as supreme and nevertheless accessible, god as "the ruler who is pleased by good deeds and as the ruler who expects loving service from his servants and who creates opportunities for them to render service" (148). Part three of this book compares the polarities that exist in different religions. In Christian hymns the polarities are between majesty and gracious condescension, between transcendence and immanence, between divine majesty and human lowliness, between transcendent power and a child's helplessness, and between God's mercy and wrath. There are striking similarities between the Hindu concept of avatar and the Christian concept of incarnation. To the relieve of conservative readers (like me) there are also important differences. Polarities in Martin Luther's theology include the hidden and the revealed aspects of God. One of these hidden notions sees God as the creator who saves some and condemns others according to His sovereign will, but non-understandable to humans. Jonathan Edwards expressed the polarities of God in terms of anger and compassion, majesty (infinite highness) and humble (infinite) condescension, humility and exaltation. As recorded in hymns and writings, the Jewish religion sees God as just and (but) merciful at the same time. The human response to God matches this polarity; it consists in fearing and (but) loving God all at once. In part four of his book, the author takes on the different conceptions of divine unity in different religious expressions. Although there are many differences between the Virgin Mary and Hindu goddesses, there are also some striking similarities between her exaltation in Roman Catholicism, that makes her the Queen of Heaven and female counterpart to a male God, and the veneration of goddesses in Hindu religion. An always-difficult task for Christians has been to reconcile the polarities between the Trinity and the oneness of God. The Trinity is also one of the greatest critic Jews and Muslims have against Christianity. Although the god of the Muslims is one, his polarities are reflected in his attributes. In chapter seventeen, Carman presents Rudolf Otto's comparison of polarities in eastern and western mystics in the persons of the Hindu philosopher Sankara and the German Johannes Eckhart. He also presents H. W. Schomerus interpretation on the teachings of the latter. It seems that paradox and polarities would just not disappear in theology. That is the theme of part five. No matter if theologians belong to the Catholic (St. Bonaventure) or Protestant (Paul Tillich, Hendrikus Berkhof - I don't know what Charles Hartshorne is) camp, no matter how much they differ between each other, polarities can be found among them as well as everywhere else in modern theology. However, "theologians ... generally seek to attain the maximum possible logical consistency, and this often leads them to adopt one of several strategies for removing or at least diminishing the paradoxical character of a particular divine polarity" (403). In chapter twenty, Carman addresses the theologians with questions about polarities in God, comparing them to polarities in other religions. These questions ask whether the violent destruction of (parts of) His creation by God himself is an expression of His justice, or whether beauty in the creation suggests beauty in the invisible creator, or lastly, what can be learned by recognizing polarities in our monotheistic concept of God?

Harvard Professor Carman's book shows his background and large amounts of time spent in India. He sees the many faces of Christ and their reflections in other faiths, and he explains this all very well. The only possible drawback is that the book focuses on Christianity and Hinduism (with Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism as much smaller topics); however, as not very many books comparing just Christianity and Hinduism have been written, it fills that niche nicely!

It started out with an intriguing concept, but lost the initial thread when the story backtracked and the focus changed. Could have been an interesting idea, but too many loose ends. Not exactly what I expected and I had a hard time finishing it.

As Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in her collection of stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love in CLOSE RANGE: WYOMING STORIES, Alan Heuer masterfully paints similar images with bittersweet humor as his clarinet playing cowboy travels from his beloved Wyoming to study clarinet in NYC. His prose draws you into a "can't put down til it's finished at two in the morning experience"...I'm looking forward to the next Heuer book!

This book is difficult but so marvelous that it is well worth the effort required. If you are wed to the idea of so-help-me-God facts, this book isn't for you. It is full of magic and mystery and sheer out-and-out glorius poetry.

It is full of moonlight, spiderwebs and golden raintrees. If this book were visual art it would be a William Morris wallpaper.

It is full of the sadness and glory of the Sirens chapter of Ulysses. It has the heartbreaking beauty of nostalgia . It has the life affirming strangeness of Moby-Dick. It is like a thousand other things and utterly itself.

A new Unified Theory of Music, presented with hundreds of graphs. Thought provoking, unusual, and generally unavailable in the United States.
Pohlert seems to have a clear vision of music and how it moves. He presents a way of looking at musical movement completely different than mainstream harmony, or classical composition (though he discusses these knowledgeably also). His unique vision reveals how nearly all chord movements are 'fifth descents'. He further takes chords apart to show how things such as major to minor movements (CMaj7 to Cm7) are actually concealed fifth descents.
He then presents a strangely simple way of looking at chords, wherein you may generally substitute chord forms a third apart. While this description over-simplifies, his way of looking at chords and their 're-interpretations' leads very powerfully to a simple method of improvisation. In fact, it is so simple that a beginner can start improvising almost immediately! With this method you don't need to learn all the modes and chord-scales in order to start improvising nicely.
This system Pohlert calls 'Basic Mediant', and his complete book 'Basic Mediant' is reprinted within the 'Basic Harmony' book.
But wait, there's more! He also has a third book called 'Basic Tritonic', also printed in full within the 'Basic Harmony' textbook, and this 'Tritonic' system analyses chords on the basis of the tritone interval (normally expressed in the dominant seven and minor seven flat five chords). He integrates the tritone intervals with the whole tone scale, and ... well, it just goes on and on.
The 'Basic Harmony' theory book is not always easy reading. The translation from the original German also adds a twist now and then! This is the kind of book that you go back to year after year, and each time find a new 'aha!'. Pohlert is awfully enthusiastic about graphs, and the book contains hundreds and hundreds of them. This is an unconventional work, extremely throught-provoking, highly original, probably like nothing you have seen before, and the 'Basic Mediant' aproach to improvisation given herein is surprisingly simple, quick, and powerful.
Pohlert provides the simplest approach to improvisation I've ever seen. For this reason, we have specially imported these books from their publisher in Germany to make them available in the United States.
This is a huge book, 767 pages. You get a lot.
-- Traktor Topaz, US Manager for Mobius Megatar Touch-Style Basses,

If you don't want to hear about theory, and you just want to learn to improvise quickly, then this book is for you. This is the same text as printed within Pohlert's 'Basic Harmony' textbook, but this book contains only the improvisation method.
Pohlert obviously plays both piano and guitar, and he shows with diagrams how to play the 'Mediant' approach on these instruments. For tappers playing straight fourths instruments, translation is simple. And for folks who have studied the Mobius Megatar 'Easy Touch-Style Bassics' method book, you will discover that you already know all the forms you need to improvise in either the bass or melody region using Pohlert's 'Mediant' approach.
What is the 'Mediant' approach? The word 'mediant' means the 'middle' tone of a chord, meaning the third of the chord. For example in a C-major triad, the three notes are C - E - G. The 'E' is the third of the chord, and the chord built on this note is considered the 'mediant' chord to C. Skipping over some detail, specifically we mean that E-minor-7 is the 'mediant' chord to the C-Major-7 chord. So if you're improvising a song and the chord symbol says CMaj7, you just play the tones of an Em7 chord. (Actually on the Em7 pentatonic scale, which has the notes E - G - A - B - D.)
Pohlert gives a simple set of four rules of substitution, or rather what he calls 're-interpretation'. It works out that all of the chords that you'll use turn out to be the minor seven form, so that's real simple. Oddly enough, when you apply the rules, you will discover that the same 'mediant' chord can often substitute for two or more chord symbols in a row, meaning that you do not have to change chords so fast.
For example, in a simple 'turn-around' chord segment such as CMaj7 - Am7 - Dm7 - G7, you could use Em7 to improvise over both the CMaj7 and the Am7, and then use Dm7 to improvise over both the Dm7 and the G7. Those of us playing two-handed tapping are lucky, like piano players, because we can hit roots or chords in the left hand, and then improvise using this system in the right. It takes practice, just like anything else, but it's easy to understand, fairly easy to do, and can be done with the forms in the 'Easy Touch-Style Bassics' book.
Pohlert provides the simplest approach to improvisation I've ever seen. For this reason, we have specially imported these books from their publisher in Germany to make them available in the United States. (See 'Accessories \ Learning' section at http://www.megatar.com)
'Basic Mediant' gives chord sequences for many common jazz tunes (along with suggested 're-interpretations'), and details fingering on guitar and piano for many of these songs. If you've ever wanted to be able to improvise, but found frustrating the usual approach of learning many positions to play endless kinds of scales, then this book is for you.
Pohlert's motto: "Do it Simply, Simply Do It." And he'll actually show you how.
--Traktor Topaz, Mobius Megatar Touch-Style Basses, http://www.megatar.com

The realm of Taoism has many facets and secular practices. In this select translation of various texts, Cleary attempts to make it very clear what the true goal of Taoism is. The texts distinguish between various practices and their goals. There are practices that specifically deal with health and energy. Others deal with obtaining "powers." The Texts make it clear that real toaism is the practice of "observing mind." In the end, the reader finds that what has been translated is very similar to Zen Buddhism. The only difference is the use of Taoist terms such as "mysterious pass", "lead and mercury", etc. A reader should be aware that this book is not a book that a reader can read and use the insights in his or her own life. It remains an educational presentation for the "uneducated" in the area of Taoism

This is a really neat little booklet explaining the basics not only of Chakra Breathing techniques but of the nature, origin & function of Chakras. The book goes into details of the dis-ease that comes when a Chakra is out of balance, symptoms to look for and describes in detail what a fully functioning Chakra's effects are like.

The tone of the book gives very good information for the reader, never talking down or extending over the reader's head.

The tape that follows the book goes into specific breathing patterns for each of the Chakras. At times I thought the music was a bit too loud and overshadowed the recordings of breath patterns, but overall a good cassette to have.

I have a lot of cassette tapes on this subject & this one was very satisfying.

Oh I should mention that the book when you see it may seem to be rather small but the content makes up for it. Very enjoyable reading!

written by an expert on peace, this book provides inspiration for taking actions to promote peace in our hearts and neighborhoods.

I really like the concept of this book. Ed Arkin takes us on a journey that includes basic terminology, chord substitutions and harmonizations, chromatic alterations, quartal harmony, etc... and applies the individual topics to "real music" situations, e.g., the Blues.

The theory and music examples are well balanced and set up in an logical order. Although the cover states that it is written for all instruments, I see the experience and thinking of a guitar player, not only because all examples are supported by guitar tabs, but the way Mr. Arkin explains each topic. If you are interested in Jazz harmony and want to improve your chordal playing you should take a look at this book.

Guitar4u.com rating: great book; it helps to throw a bridge across theory and playing.

Prerequisite: I recommend to have knowledge of fundamental harmony and medium playing ability.