This book has become a classic in all musicians' libraries for rhythmic analysis and study.

Designed to teach syncopation within 4/4 time, the exercises also develop speed and accuracy in sight-reading with uncommon rhythmic figures.

A must for all musicians, especially percussionists interested in syncopation.

Sacred music traditions vary profoundly from one religion to the next. Even within the Christian faith, one can hear a wide variety of music among and within different denominations. Catholics, mainline Protestants, and Evangelicals have all developed unique traditions. Many people are not exposed to multiple faith experiences in their upbringings, which can make exploring an unfamiliar sacred music style challenging. Because of this, singers and teachers regularly encounter religious singing styles to which they have not yet been exposed. In So You Want to Sing Sacred Music, multiple contributors offer a broad overview of sacred singing in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Evan Kent, Anthony Ruff, Matthew Hoch, and Sharon L. Radionoff share their expertise on topics as diverse as Jewish cantorial music, Gregorian chant, post-Vatican II Catholic music, choral traditions, and contemporary Christian music. This plethora of styles represents the most common traditions encountered by amateur and emerging professional singers when exploring sacred performance opportunities. In each chapter, contributors consider liturgical origins, musical characteristics, training requirements, repertoire, and resources for each of these traditions. The writers-all professional singers and teachers with rich experience singing these styles-also discuss vocal technique as it relates to each style. Contributors also offer professional advice for singers seeking work within each tradition's institutional settings, surveying the skills needed while offering practical advice for auditioning and performing successfully in the world of sacred music. So You Want to Sing Sacred Music is a helpful resource for any singer looking to add sacred performance to their portfolio or seeking opportunities and employment where sacred music is practiced and performed. Additional chapters by Scott McCoy, Wendy LeBorgne, and Matthew Edwards address universal questions of voice science and pedagogy, vocal health, and audio enhancement technology. The So You Want to Sing series is produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Like all books in the series, So You Want to Sing Sacred Music features online supplemental material on the NATS website. Please visit www.nats.org to access style-specific exercises, audio and video files, and additional resources.

The last half-decade has seen the rapid and expansive development of video game music studies. As with any new area of study, this significant sub-discipline is still tackling fundamental questions concerning how video game music should be approached. In this volume, experts in game music provide their responses to these issues. This book suggests a variety of new approaches to the study of game music. In the course of developing ways of conceptualizing and analyzing game music it explicitly considers other critical issues including the distinction between game play and music play, how notions of diegesis are complicated by video game interactivity, the importance of cinema aesthetics in game music, the technicalities of game music production and the relationships between game music and art music traditions. This collection is accessible, yet theoretically substantial and complex. It draws upon a diverse array of perspectives and presents new research which will have a significant impact upon the way that game music is studied. The volume represents a major development in game musicology and will be indispensable for both academic researchers and students of game music.

With Contemporary Piano: A Performer and Composer's Guide to Techniques and Resources, Alan Shockley provides a comprehensive resource for composers writing music that uses extended techniques for the piano, and for pianists interested in playing repertoire that makes use of techniques and/or implements unfamiliar to them. Shockley explains dozens of ways to prepare a piano without damaging the instrument, how to notate every standard technique and many, many obscure ones, and the specific geographies of every common concert hall piano. This will be the standard reference for pianists touring and playing inside-the-piano repertoire, and for composers at all levels of familiarity with the piano hoping to understand the mechanical miracle that is the modern piano.

Choosing a career is one of the most important decisions we make in our lifetime. Career choice is more than working to earn a living but also an important window into how we identify and feel about ourselves. There are multiple issues involved in every career choice, particularly in the pursuit of a career in music performance. Influenced by her hybrid background in music performance, psychology, and psychoanalysis, Julie Jaffee Nagel addresses the joys and challenges of career choice in music, with a specific focus upon the classical performing musician. She addresses a wide range of pressing topics related to such a career choice at a time when jobs and income for musicians are diminishing and COVID-19 has had a monumental, long-term impact on the arts. This includes feelings of burnout, career change and redirection, the need for self-care, mental health issues related to the lack of jobs and income, and the oftentimes crippling standards of professional performing musicians. In addition, Nagel also points to potential opportunities and advocates new roles for musicians in the wake of a transformed music industry and society. Despite the numerous challenges performing musicians face in their careers, music can play a powerful role in mental life and society, helping us cope with the ravages and losses of the pandemic and other important events, and this can serve as much inspiration and reinvigorate professional musicians questioning the purpose of their career. All of these themes are developed through stories, clinical examples, anecdotes, research data, and personal reflection.

From the very first lessons in Book 1, students are making music as they explore the piano keyboard through fun improvisation pieces called My Own Song. The beginning of the book introduces finger numbers, the black-key and white-key groups, and basic rhythm patterns. Directional reading is taught first by finger number, then by note name, and then by interval (stop, skip, and repeat). Once the students are introduced to the staff, they learn reading guides Bass F and Treble G and read by interval in several different hand positions.

In Songs of the Second Viennese School: A Performer's Guide to Selected Solo Vocal Works, scholar Loralee Songer outlines for singers and voice teachers critical information on selected solo vocal works by three major classical composers active during the first half of the twentieth century: Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern. For too long, the remarkable vocal works of these composers have received insufficient attention because too many have assumed their works to be "unsingable" atonal pieces, musically impossible (or unrewarding) for performers and entirely unsatisfying for listening audiences. For each composer, Songer provides information about the composer's educational background and compositional style, as well as commentary on representative vocal works supported by musical examples. The discussion is bolstered by interviews with renowned singers who supply advice for practice and performance. A catalog of selected songs featuring information on each work's poet, key, range, and German-English translation is also provided. Voice teachers and singers of varying levels will benefit from this book's practical content and format, and the exposure to under-appreciated works will enhance recital performance repertoire substantially.

Through the systematic analysis of data from music rehearsals, lessons, and performances, this book develops a new conceptual framework for studying cognitive processes in musical activity. Grounding the Analysis of Cognitive Processes in Music Performance draws uniquely on dominant paradigms from the fields of cognitive science, ethnography, anthropology, psychology, and psycholinguistics to develop an ecologically valid framework for the analysis of cognitive processes during musical activity. By presenting a close analysis of activities including instrumental performance on the bassoon, lessons on the guitar, and a group rehearsal, chapters provide new insights into the person/instrument system, the musician's use of informational resources, and the organization of perceptual experience during musical performance. Engaging in musical activity is shown to be a highly dynamic and collaborative process invoking tacit knowledge and coordination as musicians identify targets of focal awareness for themselves, their colleagues, and their students. Written by a cognitive scientist and classically trained bassoonist, this specialist text builds on two decades of music performance research; and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and postgraduate students in the fields of cognitive psychology and music psychology, as well as musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, and performance science. Linda T. Kaastra has taught courses in cognitive science, music, and discourse studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser University. She earned a PhD from UBC's Individual Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Program.

Perfect Italian Diction for Singers: An Authoritative Guide provides the steps and tools for singing beautifully and expressively in this language. Timothy Cheek and Anna Toccafondi systematically home in on the essential features of the most beautiful Italian, pitfalls of non-native singers, and how to overcome those issues. In addition to delving to the heart of Italian sounds and inflection, they present controversies, misconceptions, and various approaches--often conflicting--that have arisen throughout the last century. Chapters also address: -Italian style and legato -Best use of supplemental resources and dictionaries -Recitative with suggested, short Mozart excerpts -Working with text -Singing diphthongs, triphthongs, and hiatus Also included are a plethora of audio and video examples and exercises (over seventy QR codes), exercises for group or self-study, and self-assessment summaries. This book will help singers and students lay a solid foundation in beautiful, lyric Italian.

In Songs of the Second Viennese School: A Performer's Guide to Selected Solo Vocal Works, scholar Loralee Songer outlines for singers and voice teachers critical information on selected solo vocal works by three major classical composers active during the first half of the twentieth century: Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern. For too long, the remarkable vocal works of these composers have received insufficient attention because too many have assumed their works to be "unsingable" atonal pieces, musically impossible (or unrewarding) for performers and entirely unsatisfying for listening audiences. For each composer, Songer provides information about the composer's educational background and compositional style, as well as commentary on representative vocal works supported by musical examples. The discussion is bolstered by interviews with renowned singers who supply advice for practice and performance. A catalog of selected songs featuring information on each work's poet, key, range, and German-English translation is also provided. Voice teachers and singers of varying levels will benefit from this book's practical content and format, and the exposure to under-appreciated works will enhance recital performance repertoire substantially.

For those who prefer a compact book here's a solution from the bestselling music learning author Jake Jackson. Left and right-hand chords, organised as a chord per spread, this is a simple, direct solution for anyone learning the piano or keyboard, or needing a quick reminder. Great for beginners, and for those playing with others needing a straightforward reference.