Cougar's Favorite Books:

Creativity and Music

The Forgotten Power of Rhythm--Reinhard Flatischler
Investigation, shared through exercises, of our essential rhythmic nature in breath, heartbeat, walking, percussion.

Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey into the Spirit of Percussion--Mickey Hart with Jay Stevens
Excellent introduction to world music by eclectic Grateful Dead drummer.

Making Music: The Guide to Writing, Performing and Recording--George Martin, ed.
A potpourri of tips and lore from the popular music world, assembled by the Beatles' producer.

Salsa Guidebook for Piano & Ensemble--Rebeca Mauleón
Authoritative and accessible reference on Afro-Latin music and its rhythmic elements.

When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm--Layne Redmond
"In the mother goddess cultures of ancient Europe, the rhythm clans come alive in Layne's fascinating and insightful book." --Mickey Hart

The Drummer's Path: Moving the Spirit with Ritual and Traditional Drumming--Sule Greg Wilson
African-American drummer shares his wisdom and learning regarding all aspects of the art and life of the hand-drummer.

African Rhythm and African Sensibility--John Miller Chernoff
A Westerner looks deeply into a musical culture.

Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within--Kenny Werner
Werner is an accomplished jazz musician but speaks as the friend and mentor of the musical beginner or performer alike. Take it easy, he says. Relax. Get in touch with what this magic called music is really about. Listen. Get out of the way, enough to hear what the music wants to say, where it wants to go. If you can do this--feeling your musical "I" to be as large as time itself--then you can say in the larger sense, "I am a master."

Mande Music--Eric Charry
A definitive and scholarly study of West African music--its origins, its instruments, its language and technique.

Maps to Ecstasy: Teachings of an Urban Shaman--Gabrielle Roth
...She writes like her music dances: rich, sensuous, uncompromising, systematically therapeutic in leading us to the stage of the fully human.

Drum Circle Spirit--Arthur Hull
...A handbook of drum circle etiquette, sensitivity and technique, mostly for facilitators or those who would take on this role in part or full-bore. The most useful section for me listed some core "universal grooves" to depend on in any situation. The first night I tried one, a 6/8 bell pattern over a campfire drone, it set the tone into a higher trance of group spirit. This stuff really works!

If You Can Talk, You Can Write--Joel Saltzman
...keeps it simple, and inspires anyone with anything to say to go for it in prose; bringing also the more erudite of our ilk down to earth with advice to get real.

The Fiction Editor, The Novel, and the Novelist--Thomas McCormack
...light-hearted but precise advice for those in the writing trade.

A Writer's Time­-Kenneth Atchity
...bogged down in big projects?--inspiring and practical advice here

Becoming a Writer--Dorothea Brande
...classic from 1934, just as valuable today for aspiring writers

Faces in the Crowd: Players and Writers­-Gary Giddins
...insightful and authoritative portraits of the great in the New York arts scene

  The Artist's Way­-Julia Cameron

...get on track to positive, creative energy

The Unfinished Universe­-Louise Brown
...universe evolving, in our creative energies

Living Without a Goal­-James Ogilvy
...between extremes of goal-worship and nihilism: Do what you love . . . 

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