You love making music, but are you stuck in a practice rut? Ignite your passion for practicing and take your creativity to the next level with the Practizma Practice Journal. Track your practice, reinvigorate your practice, and above all, enjoy the journey of being a musician. The journal is designed for passionate amateurs, music students, and professionals of all instruments. For those taking lessons, it can be used as a lesson assignment book and a practice journal in one. Feeling good about our music making is not a bonus, it's the most important thing.The book includes:16 weeks of goal setting 16 reflection prompts16 action challengesPractice ideasInjury prevention strategiesEfficiency tipsPractice journal pagesTake your practice from ho-hum to extraordinary with the Practizma Practice Journal.

In The Musician's Way, veteran performer and educator Gerald Klickstein combines the latest research with his 30 years of professional experience to provide aspiring musicians with a roadmap to artistic excellence. Part I, Artful Practice, describes strategies to interpret and memorize compositions, fuel motivation, collaborate, and more. Part II, Fearless Performance, lifts the lid on the hidden causes of nervousness and shows how musicians can become confident performers. Part III, Lifelong Creativity, surveys tactics to prevent music-related injuries and equips musicians to tap their own innate creativity. Written in a conversational style, The Musician's Way presents an inclusive system for all instrumentalists and vocalists to advance their musical abilities and succeed as performing artists.

In Musicians in Transit Matthew B. Karush examines the transnational careers of seven of the most influential Argentine musicians of the twentieth century: Afro-Argentine swing guitarist Oscar Alemán, jazz saxophonist Gato Barbieri, composer Lalo Schifrin, tango innovator Astor Piazzolla, balada singer Sandro, folksinger Mercedes Sosa, and rock musician Gustavo Santaolalla. As active participants in the globalized music business, these artists interacted with musicians and audiences in the United States, Europe, and Latin America and contended with genre distinctions, marketing conventions, and ethnic stereotypes. By responding creatively to these constraints, they made innovative music that provided Argentines with new ways of understanding their nation’s place in the world. Eventually, these musicians produced expressions of Latin identity that reverberated beyond Argentina, including a novel form of pop ballad; an anti-imperialist, revolutionary folk genre; and a style of rock built on a pastiche of Latin American and global genres. A website with links to recordings by each musician accompanies the book.

For two decades after rock music emerged in the 1940s, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the oldest and largest labor union representing professional musicians in the United States and Canada, refused to recognize rock 'n' roll as legitimate music or its performers as skilled musicians. The AFM never actively organized rock 'n' roll musicians, although recruiting them would have been in the union's economic interest. In Tell Tchaikovsky the News, Michael James Roberts argues that the reasons that the union failed to act in its own interest lay in its culture, in the opinions of its leadership and elite rank-and-file members. Explaining the bias of union members—most of whom were classical or jazz music performers—against rock music and musicians, Roberts addresses issues of race and class, questions of what qualified someone as a skilled or professional musician, and the threat that records, central to rock 'n' roll, posed to AFM members, who had long privileged live performances. Roberts contends that by rejecting rock 'n' rollers for two decades, the once formidable American Federation of Musicians lost their clout within the music industry.

The Violin Practice Journal: 12 Month Log for Musicians is designed to help violinists make the most of their practice time. Reach the next level in your craft by setting goals, logging the time you spend practicing, and tracking your progress. This journal provides tools to help you stay focused and hone your skills. It includes space for yearly and monthly goal-setting and reflection, daily practice logs, a running repertoire list, and notes. It also provides a handy reference section that includes a glossary of musical terms, commonly-used scales, a fingering chart, tips for effective practice, and more.

Musicians are continually 'in the making', tapping into their own creative resources while deriving inspiration from teachers, friends, family members and listeners. Amateur and professional performers alike tend not to follow fixed routes in developing a creative voice: instead, their artistic journeys are personal, often without foreseeable goals. The imperative to assess and reassess one's musical knowledge, understanding and aspirations is nevertheless a central feature of life as a performer. Musicians in the Making explores the creative development of musicians in both formal and informal learning contexts. It promotes a novel view of creativity, emphasizing its location within creative processes rather than understanding it as an innate quality. It argues that such processes may be learned and refined, and furthermore that collaboration and interaction within group contexts carry significant potential to inform and catalyze creative experiences and outcomes. The book also traces and models the ways in which creative processes evolve over time. Performers, music teachers and researchers will find the rich body of material assembled here engaging and enlightening. The book's three parts focus in turn on 'Creative learning in context', 'Creative processes' and 'Creative dialogue and reflection'. In addition to sixteen extended chapters written by leading experts in the field, the volume includes ten 'Insights' by internationally prominent performers, performance teachers and others. Practical aids include abstracts and lists of keywords at the start of each chapter, which provide useful overviews and guidance on content. Topics addressed by individual authors include intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics, performance experience, practice and rehearsal, 'self-regulated performing', improvisation, self-reflection, expression, interactions between performers and audiences, assessment, and the role of academic study in performers' development.