Books about Improvising from Amazon.com

Learn how the professionals create monster solos with this easy-to-use book/CD pack! The accompanying CD includes 68 tracks of exercises, licks, solo examples, and play-alongs Includes all necessary foundation materials; detailed instructions on how and what to practice; essential concepts for players at every level; developing your real-time melodic reflexes; soloing over any progression in any style of music; using chords as an endless source of ideas; and more..
Price: $12.43 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When your climbing team is in trouble on the mountain—how to get yourself out of a jam without calling 911. • Self-rescue procedures for teams of two—the most common climbing party size • Techniques equally effective on rock, snow, and ice • Utilizes gear climbers already carry in their rack • Includes 40 one-page rescue scenarios and solutions for analysis The rope is stuck—or too short. A crucial piece of gear is MIA. You've wandered off route into dicey terrain. An injury leaves you or your partner in need of help. Climb long enough and finding yourself in a jam far from help is inevitable. In Climbing: Self Rescue, two longtime climbing instructors and guides teach how to improvise your own solutions, calling for outside help only when necessary.

Because few climbers carry fancy (and expensive) search and rescue gear, all skills taught in this book use the items typically found on a climbing rack: rope, carabiners, slings, and cord. Text, illustrations, and photos explain knots, belaying and hauling systems, rappelling, ascension, passing knots, how to safely assist and rig an injured climber, and more. Roughly half of the book is devoted to real-life climbing scenarios and solutions ranging from moderate to severe. Because real-life situations rarely unfold as they do in practice, Climbing Self-Rescue teaches how to analyze and improvise your way out of a crisis.

ANDY TYSON is a guide for Alpine Ascents, Exum and Antarctic-logistics and Expeditions. MOLLY LOOMIS is an instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), Alpine Ascents and Prescott College. Tyson is the author of Glacier Mountaineering; Loomis has written for Rock & Ice, Climbing, She Sends, and other publications..
Price: $12.20 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Many directors of early childhood programs come to their positions with little experience or training to prepare them for the extraordinary task of trying to run a quality program with inadequate facilities, resources and staff. If directors are to be truly successful and satisfied with their work, they not only need skills and expertise, but a way to get a handle on their jobs, and a source of motivation and fulfillment for themselves.

An inspiring and practical guide to creating a larger vision in early child care, The Visionary Director offers a concrete framework for organizing an early childhood program leaders thoughts and work. Chapters cover cultivating a vision, developing "systems thinking" for management roles, and implementing principles and strategies for mentoring staff and building a learning community for adults and children..
Price: $17.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The most comprehensive, smart, helpful and inspiring guide to improve available today. Applicable to comedians, actors, public speakers and anyone who needs to think on their toes.

From The Improv Handbook:

The problem for improvisers is anxiety. faced with a lot of nameless eyes staring at us, and feeling more than anything else like prey, we are likely to want to display very consistent behavior, so that anyone who looks at us, looks away and then looks back sees the same thing. Thus we become boring, we fade into the background, and we cease to be of interest.

The Improv Handbook provides everything someone interested in improvisational comedy needs to know, as written by a husband and wife comedy duo with years of experience and teaching in the field. In addition to providing a comprehensive history of improvisational theater as a backdrop, it also looks at modern theories and practices of improvisation on a global scale, including how the form of comedy has evolved differently in different parts of the world, from Europe to the UK to the Chicago scene.

The Improv Handbook also contains an essential performance segment that details different formats of improvisation. Chapter topics include Theatresports, Micetro, Gorilla Theatre, and the inventions of Keith Johnstone and Del Close as well as other popular forms of improv, like those on "Whose Line is it Anyway." The core section of the book is called simply, "How to Improvise" and delves into issues of spontaneity, the fundamentals of storytelling, working together, upping the ante, and character development. The book concludes with sections on how to improvise in front of an audience and- just as crucially- how to attract an audience in the first place..
Price: $15.61 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Improvising Better is an easy to read self-help book created with the new generation of improviser in mind. It's written for today's performers, looking for a quick fix to their performance problems. This book is a fast read with long-lasting results.

Jimmy Carrane and Liz Allen have improvised, taught, and directed in Chicago for over thirty years combined, and have either seen or experienced the most common problems facing improvisers today. Improvising Better will give you simple tools for repairing your improvisation through original and enhanced exercises. This book addresses the improviser as a whole, including how offstage issues affect onstage performance. Speaking candidly about this very personal art form, Carrane and Allen offer common-sense solutions, some tough love, and a little inspiration along the way.

Whether you are a beginner or a veteran, Improvising Better will catapult you to the next level in your career as a working improviser.

.
Price: $9.08 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This book presents 1,001 melodic gems played over dozens of the most important chord progressions heard in jazz. This is the ideal book for beginners seeking a well-organized, easy-to-follow encyclopedia of jazz vocabulary, as well as professionals who want to take their knowledge of the jazz language to new heights..
Price: $7.67 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Effective improvisation can add fun and individuality to guitar performances This book presents a unique improvisation strategy based on ear training and a linear interpretation of note/chord relationships. You'll learn how to: develop an expectation of sound * master the relationships between notes, modes and harmonies * improvise over jazz standards * identify pitch tendencies within chord progressions * and more..
Price: $13.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Jazz guitar legend Larry Coryell takes an unflinching look at his life and career, recounting his musical journey from his scuffling early days in New York City and his pioneering role in the jazz fusion movement to his current status as a world ambassador of jazz. Coryell reveals his own involvement in and eventual victory over the drug scene, and he gives his take on the musical giants he has known and performed with. Along the way, he details the development of his own style and provides inspirational words for fellow musicians. A special section presents a selection of Coryell's beloved Guitar Player magazine columns. Includes CD with audio lessons and original compositions recorded specifically for this book..
Price: $15.61 [Notify me when price goes down.]