(Book). This book explains the secret ingredients needed to obtain the very best tonal qualities when building acoustic string instruments. It includes an exploration of the tools and equipment needed, the methods to excite tones in the instrument, how to make the necessary changes, and how to achieve consistency and repeatability. The text focuses on tap tuning as it relates to mandolins, guitars, banjos, violins, ukuleles, dulcimers, pianos, and more. The DVD includes demonstrations of the acoustic phenomena described in the text.

This books describes the process of voicing and tap tuning acoustic stringed musical instruments and includes a secure code to stream a 55-minute video with numerous real-time demonstrations of the tap tuning process.

(Book). The Ultimate Bluegrass Mandolin Construction Manual is the most complete step-by-step treatise ever written on building an acoustical string instrument. Siminoff, a renowned author and luthier, applies over four decades of experience to guide beginners to pros through detailed chapters on wood selection, cutting, carving, shaping, assembly, inlays, fretting, binding and assembly of an F-style mandolin. A special highlight is an in-depth chapter on the art of tap tuning. This fully-illustrated manual boasts more than 250 photos, a full-color section on the staining and finishing processes, numerous detailed illustrations, and a bonus set of 20 full-size blueprints. Spiral bound.

The Art Of Lutherie offers a glimpse into the mind and craft of luthier Tom Bills, whom many consider to be one of the most talented luthiers today. In this beautifully written and enjoyable read, Tom elegantly and clearly shares his best- kept secrets and methods of custom guitar making - those which make his guitars favorites among top collectors and players. Tom's unique approach to The Art Of Lutherie will empower and inspire you to create more than just a guitar, but a truly unique work of art. The information that is generously shared within this insightful and timeless work is both practical and applicable. It contains the same hard-won wisdom that only comes from years of experience and experimentation that Tom uses in creating his inspiring instruments. Over the years, he has producedinstruments considered to be some of the bestsounding guitars ever made. Learning the steps of how to build a guitar is important, but understanding whymaster luthiers take those steps and make those decisions can empower you to make your own educated choices. This will allow you to create unique guitars, and the world needs your art, your guitars - your important contribution. The Art Of Lutherie, a truly unique and inspiring guide, can prepare you to reach new heights when designing and creating unique guitars. It is not often I heap such lavish praise on people; however, Tom is in this case more than deserving: I know of no other luthier whose work I respect more. Tom knows his craft inside and out; he pours his soul into every guitar he makes; heuses cutting-edge science to guide his work, and it shows...as head of Artist Relations and Product Development at Mel Bay, it gives me great pleasure topublish Tom's work, which will no doubt take the art of lutherie to a new level. I hope you'll spend some time soaking in this book - it will certainly augmentyour musicality - Collin Bay. Includes access to online video

Tuning engines can be a mysterious art, all engines need a precise balance of fuel, air, and timing in order to reach their true performance potential. Engine Management: Advanced Tuning takes engine-tuning techniques to the next level, explaining how the EFI system determines engine operation and how the calibrator can change the controlling parameters to optimize actual engine performance. It is the most advanced book on the market, a must-have for tuners and calibrators and a valuable resource for anyone who wants to make horsepower with a fuel-injected, electronically controlled engine.

A poorly performing database application not only costs users time, but also has an impact on other applications running on the same computer or the same network. SQL Tuning provides an essential next step for SQL developers and database administrators who want to extend their SQL tuning expertise and get the most from their database applications.There are two basic issues to focus on when tuning SQL: how to find and interpret the execution plan of an SQL statement and how to change SQL to get a specific alternate execution plan. SQL Tuning provides answers to these questions and addresses a third issue that's even more important: how to find the optimal execution plan for the query to use.Author Dan Tow outlines a timesaving method he's developed for finding the optimum execution plan--rapidly and systematically--regardless of the complexity of the SQL or the database platform being used. You'll learn how to understand and control SQL execution plans and how to diagram SQL queries to deduce the best execution plan for a query. Key chapters in the book include exercises to reinforce the concepts you've learned. SQL Tuning concludes by addressing special concerns and unique solutions to "unsolvable problems."Whether you are a programmer who develops SQL-based applications or a database administrator or other who troubleshoots poorly tuned applications, SQL Tuning will arm you with a reliable and deterministic method for tuning your SQL queries to gain optimal performance.

Tuning your database for optimal performance means more than following a few short steps in a vendor-specific guide. For maximum improvement, you need a broad and deep knowledge of basic tuning principles, the ability to gather data in a systematic way, and the skill to make your system run faster. This is an art as well as a science, and Database Tuning: Principles, Experiments, and Troubleshooting Techniques will help you develop portable skills that will allow you to tune a wide variety of database systems on a multitude of hardware and operating systems. Further, these skills, combined with the scripts provided for validating results, are exactly what you need to evaluate competing database products and to choose the right one. - Forward by Jim Gray, with invited chapters by Joe Celko and Alberto Lerner - Includes industrial contributions by Bill McKenna (RedBrick/Informix), Hany Saleeb (Oracle), Tim Shetler (TimesTen), Judy Smith (Deutsche Bank), and Ron Yorita (IBM) - Covers the entire system environment: hardware, operating system, transactions, indexes, queries, table design, and application analysis - Contains experiments (scripts available on the author's site) to help you verify a system's effectiveness in your own environment - Presents special topics, including data warehousing, Web support, main memory databases, specialized databases, and financial time series - Describes performance-monitoring techniques that will help you recognize and troubleshoot problems

A very practical guide to making databases run faster and better. A poorly performing database application can cost each user time, and have an impact on other applications running on the same computer or the same network. This book will help DBAUs and programmers improve the performance of their databases.

David Michael Hertz explicates the rela­tionship between the music and poetry of the Symbolist movement, tracing it from its inception in Baudelaire’s verse and Wagner’s music to its final transformation into Modernism in the works of Schoen­berg. Hertz begins by examining the con­cept of the period, the well-rounded phrase of verse or music, which was at­tacked first in Wagner’s use of the leitmo­tif and unusual intervals such as the tritone. ­Such musical elements created a feel­ing of emotion directly expressed, un­hampered by convention. This approach was further developed by Mallarmé, who stripped his verse of its conventional framework in an attempt to create images of pure emotion. Mallarmé in turn in­fluenced Debussy. Hertz shows that in setting Mallarmés verse, Debussy moved further away from the standard har­monic structures of the nineteenth cen­tury, particularly in his use of tonal ambiguity. ­Hertz explores the aesthetic of the Symbolist movement as embodied in the unique forms that characterized the era, the tone poem and the lyric play. He dem- onstrates the particular importance of Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mé1isande, which was scored by Debussy. A revolutionary work difficult to characterize, it speaks gracefully of the transformation of Ro­manticism into Modernism. Citing examples of art, literature, and music, Hertz finds ultimately that the Symbolist aesthetic came to encompass the entire artistic world. Only a scholar thoroughly at home in both the literary and musical realms and possessing a sov­ereign command of the cultural climate and currents of the period would be able to deliver exactly what his subtitle prom­ises: a musico- literary poetics of the Sym­bolist movement.

This book contains everything a music educator requires to approach fine-tuning intonation with their ensemble. This resource includes intonation charts for tracking personal progress, along with extensively researched color-coded fingering charts for every instrument providing pitch tendencies and suggestions for alternate fingerings.