Live from Beach City! (Steven Universe) Paperback – February 9, 2016

Part sheet music book, part introductory musical lesson book, part character feature, and part music activity book! This was a fun, unexpectedly thorough collection of the songs from Season 1 of Steven Universe, and the BEST thing about it is that we get to see the intended melodies written out on manuscript paper, with harmonies written in where appropriate, and lyrics and everything.The only place it really falls short for me is that it tried to cram introductory music theory into the first few pages in a way that I do not think is accessible for its intended audience. Someone who can understand these hasty definitions with very few demonstrations or examples probably already reads music, and someone who can already read and write music on the level it requires to write songs probably won't be using the adorable "write a song about ___" prompts to make up their own tunes in the provided staff paper in the book. (I say this as someone who majored in music education. I think it just didn't take its time enough, and that taking that kind of time to present these concepts is beyond the scope of a book like this.)There are also a couple outright typos, like "time signatue" and "Mini Music Lession." That surprised me, because those are spell-check-level mistakes that should have been edited out in a major publisher's production.But on to the wonderful things about the book! First, it has an intro from ex-rock star Greg Universe, followed by a really authentic intro from Steven where he tells you there are a bunch of different ways to experiment with music. I particularly appreciate this as a set-up to the complicated music lessons they're about to give, because kids who play/sing/write by ear but have no theory experience might need that pep talk if they don't get it on paper. Then they dump the music theory on you in attempting-to-be-simple descriptions, and then they give you a lovely little set of ukulele chord charts, guitar chord charts, and piano chord charts.We move on from there to sheet music for the show's theme song, "We Are the Crystal Gems." Related activities give prompts for kids to define their own superhero team elements and write their own theme song.Next we get "Let Me Drive My Van (Into Your Heart)," Greg Universe's old song from "Laser Light Cannon." Kids get activities to design their own band van, make up some rhymes, and write a song about their outlook on life.Moving on, we get "Giant Woman," a fan favorite. It's catchy as heck and decorated with drawings of Opal, and the follow-up pages give us facts about the stability of various Gem Fusions, some activities about elements of dance, and spaces to design a Fusion between yourself and a friend and write your Fusion Dance song. (Wow, that's a lot to take in.)The gorgeous song "Strong in the Real Way" is up next, from "Coach Steven." Predictably, it's decorated with Pearl art, and though it's mostly just accompanied with chord notations, it's got an intro and a bridge with two-handed piano music. I like that. The activities that follow are a little weird, discussing how to be strong and asking you to solve an odd puzzle. Pearl gives a lesson about harp and piano history, followed by one of my favorite things: she defines arpeggios for you and says some very in-character stuff about how "broken" chords are beautiful. (Considering the song this follows is full of arpeggios, it's pretty appropriate.) You're then supposed to write a song about being strong in your way."Steven and the Stevens" and the nearly identical song "Steven and the Crystal Gems" get a mention next, with activities for kids to design album covers, construct and write a song for their own band, and draw multiple Stevens. I love the little "B-sides" they threw in with chords and lyrics for the goofy partial songs from the episode: "Ste-Ste-Ste-Steven" and "Big Fat Zucchini." You have to hear "Big Fat Zucchini" to believe it."Dear Old Dad" is here too, and even though it's kind of a monotone song, the harmony between Greg and Steven is so touching and rough in the show. Kids can draw a picture of someone they've known as long as Steven's known his dad, and you're given a little "growing up" favorites list that you're supposed to fill out now and then again in a year. (I like that they ask you to mention your favorite gemstone.) The musical activity gives you paper to write a duet.Next is "Be Wherever You Are" from "Island Adventure," which is the sweetest little song and probably shouldn't be played on anything but ukulele. Activities let you make a list of stuff that makes you feel happy and confident, draw a picture of where you'd like to travel to, and brainstorm ideas for a musical refrain. The songwriting spot asks for an unwinding song to calm yourself or someone else.The deceptively deep "On the Run" follows--Amethyst and Steven's duet, with art of the two of them. Activities ask you to list items you'd put in your bag for a trip, design book covers, list friendship activities, and write a song about what you like to do with your friends. And it includes a whistling lesson, coupled with the new information that apparently Steven cannot whistle!The song "Lapis Lazuli" and its reprise "Wailing Stone" from the episode "The Message" are up next in the sheet music. Activities allow kids to draw mirror images of the Gems, list your own strengths and weaknesses, and reprise the tune of the above songs to write a song about when you felt misunderstood.And finally, everyone's favorite (okay, maybe just mine): Garnet's song from "Jailbreak," "Stronger Than You." I really appreciate seeing the chords and breakdown for this one. Activities are interesting: because this is Garnet's Fusion song, they of course talk about fusion, and they ask you to divide yourself into two "halves" and imagine what each would be like. Then you're supposed to write about your favorite traits about yourself, bouncing off Garnet's song celebrating herself. Finally, a music lesson about triplets presented as musical Fusions is taught in Garnet's voice. (Nice, since her song also uses triplets.) You're given space to write your own celebrating-yourself song.And we close with a partial rendition of "Love Like You," which has played in bits and parts over the end credits here and there. As of this writing, the entire song has not been played on the show, so it is not released here, but the full version is really lovely and I hope I get to see the sheet music for it someday--maybe in a sophisticated, no-activities, straight-up sheet music book for this show, including some instrumentals. Activities ask kids to write a postcard to someone they've said goodbye to, and a closing statement compares music to magic you can do.It's a lovely little book and I just wish a better balance could have been found for the music theory at the beginning.

I love this! I’m 24 and I love SU having the song book was great! I have it more as a collectible though but still great buy!

I'm a huge fan of Steven Universe and a music teacher, so when I saw this book, I was very psyched to say the least. I have at least one student that's going to be ecstatic to know this came in the mail today.I'm just really excited to see a book like this in the first place. It explains how to understand some basic music terminology and tools. Then it goes through songs from the show, and follows up with a creative activity for kids after each one. I would be ridiculously happy to see a book like this made for other well written family shows with catchy songs in them like Adventure Time and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.Here's the only catch: I'm really afraid this book could be a turn off for people without someone with a musical background in the family or access to a music teacher. So fair warning that the actual music parts can be a little hard to understand for new players, but the book does try to explain notes, rhythm, and harmony. It even has charts that show how to play chords on ukulele, guitar, and piano. If you don't already play though, you're not going to just pick up the book and play the songs easily. That's music though. Even if you just use this as a lyric collection and activity book though, it's still really cool. Even aside from all of that, it's still a cute collectable for a fan.So in short, if you already play music and want to share this with a young person in your life that's a fan of Steven, I HIGHLY recommend this book.If you're just fan (of any age) with no musical background or musician friends or mentors, it's still a fun collectable. It's just mainly geared towards people that can already play, or more specifically towards kids that have someone who plays music in their life that can help them work through it.

I've played guitar for several years but I wanted to pick up ukulele, so I grabbed this book of music from my favorite cartoon, Steven Universe.The book is split between sheet music and cute activities for younger readers. It includes almost every song from season 1, even minor songs like "Big Fat Meanie Zucchini!" and the activities are all high quality and amusing, even if they're aimed at very young children.The only real downside is that the chords are clearly designed around piano arrangements of the songs, so they sometimes include quite complex chords like Abmaj7/C or Abm(maj7).This isn't really a problem on guitar, but the ukulele doesn't really use slash chords or very complex chords due to the tuning and limited number of strings, so if you try to play equivalents to these complex chords the songs will sound pretty bad. You sometimes need to tweak the chords and find alternatives to fit the ukulele, which can require some experimentation and some experience that beginning players might not have.If you want to learn the songs on piano the book is perfect. If you want to learn the songs on Guitar you'll only need to make minor and rare adjustments. If you want to play them on ukulele, many songs will require some tweaking on one or two chords to sound right.This doesn't in any way make this a bad book - far from it. I'm glad I bought it. It's very high quality and I'm happy to be able to support the show. If they put out a season 2 book, I'd gladly buy it too. At the price, this is a steal for the number of songs it contains. I just wish the arrangements were geared more towards ukulele than piano so it would be more beginner-friendly.

My son is a big fan of Steven Universe and its music so he loves this book

Brilliant for beginners, teaches you how to play music on several instruments with all the charm of Steven Universe.

Really easy to use for ukulele! Not tested it for the other instruments, but I love sitting with it and practicing my uke with it open. Lots of activities for younger users too, like space to make your own songs! Really sweet book!

It's good

Birthday present for my 15 year old daughter, this book has all your favorite music, plus activities to challenge your creativity. This book also features basic instructions for guitar, uke and piano. I strongly recommend this for any Steven Universe fan. She literally fell on the floor and cried with joy when she saw this book and realized she was getting a ukulele.