Alfred's Top Hits series has overwhelmingly been accepted by students and teachers. This series combines just the right combination of hits from Broadway, Hollywood, television and recordings! As you might expect from Alfred, this series offers a rare combination of great music arranged with care and creativity. Your beginning and intermediate students can savor the excitement of playing pop music and reap the benefits from making practicing more fun and rewarding.

This is the first book about the life of jazz pianist and composer Stan Tracey CBE (1926-2013). Drawn largely from his personal diaries and some of his many interviews, his son Clark Tracey pieces together what made the late Stan Tracey a unique character in jazz music. Stan's wit and wisdom also come shining through in abundance in this long overdue account of one of the UK's most important jazz musicians.In a career that spanned 70 years, Stan Tracey recalls his earliest memories in war torn London and his first experiences of hearing jazz. As a teenager, he joined ENSA and the RAF Gang Show and for the next three years played at more venues than many musicians do in a lifetime. Once demobbed, Stan befriends pianist Eddie Thomson, vibist and drummer Victor Feldman and clarinettist Vic Ash and begins his career in music. He toured with Kenny Baker's band and the Kirchin Band before joining the Ted Heath Orchestra, then began recording under his own name. He was asked by Ronnie Scott to be the house pianist at Scott's new club, where Stan's legendary status grew for the next six years.He accompanied giants of American jazz such as Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard and many others. During this period he wrote and recorded the seminal album Under Milk Wood, which to this day remains his best selling work. Stan left Ronnie's club following a drug addiction and in the 1970s found himself penniless. His wife Jackie employed her skill in the music business as an A&R from previous years and began presenting concerts to keep Stan afloat, as he formed new musical friendships in the free/improvised idiom at that time, such as Mike Osborne and Keith Tippett. Commissions for suites emerged and Stan's writing skills found an outlet again through the formation of his various groups that were to last for nearly 30 years. Stan's achievements and awards are ample and in many cases unique. Recipient of an OBE and a CBE, Stan also received several lifetime achievement awards and in his last year became the first recipient of the Ivor Novello Jazz Award.

Piano Meditations is a beautiful collection of 12 original piano compositions that have been inspired by paintings of a meditative nature. By best-selling composer Pam Wedgwood, these piano solo pieces are perfect for practising mindfulness in music. The book is suitable for intermediate-level players and is accompanied by a stunning pull-out poster of art providing the visual inspiration for each piece.

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.

Adaptive Strategies for Small-Handed Pianists brings together information from biomechanics, ergonomics, physics, anatomy, medicine, and piano pedagogy to focus on the subject of small-handedness. The first comprehensive study of its kind, the book opens with an overview of historical, anatomical, and pedagogical perspectives and redresses long-held biases concerning those who struggle at the piano because of issues with hand size. A discussion of work efficiency, the human anatomy, and the constraints of physics serves as the theoretical basis for a focused analysis of healthy movement and piano technique as they relate to small-handedness. Separate chapters deal with specific alternative approaches: redistribution, refingering, strategies to maximize reach and power, and musical solutions for technical problems. Richly illustrated with hundreds of examples from a wide range of piano repertoire, the book is an incomparable resource for piano teachers and students, written in language that is accessible to a broad audience. It balances scholastic rigor with practical experience in the field to demonstrate that the unique physical and musical needs of the small-handed can be addressed in sensitive and appropriate ways.

A translation of the only book that focuses solely on the pianistic aspect of Busoni's wide-ranging career. Ferruccio Busoni is most widely known today as the composer of such works as the Second Violin Sonata, the incidental music for Gozzi's Turandot, and the most monumental piano concerto in the repertory (some eighty minuteslong, with male chorus in the finale). But Busoni was also renowned in his day as an author and pedagogue and, most especially, as a pianist. Busoni's recordings of pieces by Chopin and Liszt -- and of his own arrangements of keyboard works by Bach and Beethoven -- are much prized and studied today by connoisseurs of piano playing. Yet even his most important biographers have cast only a cursory glance at the pianistic aspect of Busoni's fascinating career. Grigory Kogan's book Busoni as Pianist (published in Russian in 1964, and here translated for the first time) was and remains the first and only study to concentrate exclusively on Busoni's contributions to the worldof the piano. Busoni as Pianist summarizes reviews of Busoni's playing and his own writings on the subject. It also closely analyzes the surviving piano roles and recordings, and examines Busoni's editions, arrangements, and pedagogical output. As such, it will be of interest to pianists, teachers and students of the piano, historians, and all who love piano music and the art of piano playing. Grigory Kogan (1901-1979) was a leading Soviet pianist and music critic. A conservatory professor at the age of twenty-one, Kogan created the first-ever course in Russia dealing with the history and theory of pianism. Through his brilliant lectures, his concert performances, and his many books, articles, and reviews, Kogan influenced an entire generation of Soviet pianists. Svetlana Belsky is a teacher and performer, and is coordinator of Piano Studies at the University of Chicago.

This book contains all the scales and arpeggios required for ABRSM's Grade 5 Piano exam. It covers all the new requirements from 2021.

A study on the influence which the German novelist Jean Paul Friedrich Richter had upon Robert Schumann's music. Robert Schumann frequently expressed his deep admiration for the novels of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, the late-eighteenth-century German novelist, essayist, and satirist. Schumann imitated Jean Paul's prose style in his own fiction and music criticism, and said once that he learned "more counterpoint from Jean Paul than from my music teacher." Drawing on the recent, groundbreaking work in musico-literary analysis of scholars such as Anthony Newcomb,John Daverio, and Lawrence Kramer, Erika Reiman embarks on a comparative study of Jean Paul's five major novels and Schumann's piano cycles of the 1830s, many of which are staples in the repertoire of concert pianists today. The present study begins with a thorough review of Jean Paul's literary style, emphasizing the digressions, intertextuality, self-reflexivity, and otherworldliness that distinguish it. The similarly digressive style that Schumanndeveloped is then examined in his earliest works, including the enduring and highly original Carnaval [1835], and in cycles of the later 1830s, notably Davidsbundlertanze and Faschingsschwank aus Wien. Finally, an analysis of three one-movement works from 1838-39 reveals links with Jean Paul's exploration of the idyll, an ancient genre that had experienced an eighteenth-century revival. Throughout, the author attempts to keep inmind the actual sound and performed experience of the works, and suggests ways in which an awareness of Jean Paul's style might change the performance and hearing of the cycles. Erika Reiman, received her Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Toronto [1999] and has taught at Brock University, Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Guelph, and the University of Toronto; she is also active as a pianist and chamber musician.

The early piano has grown in popularity over recent years. It is now recognized as a window to the past and indispensable in revealing the sounds in the ears of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers. Yet rarely are two instruments more than superficially alike: the earliest instruments were constructed individually to the taste of each maker and often to that of his customer. Furthermore, pianos built in the same year by the same maker - even in a series - often have not enjoyed the same standard of conservation: one may have its original strings and hammers, while another may have suffered the improper replacement of its entire action with parts designed for the modern Steinway. Many old pianos are still well-maintained and are in playable condition, while others need extensive and careful restoration. Fulfilling a need for a comprehensive study of early pianos, Makers of the Piano 1700-1820 is the first book to present details about all known extant pianos built during the earliest years of the instrument's existence. Biographical information about each maker and such details about his instruments as the place and date of manufacture, style, compass, case description and measurements, strings, action, stops, pedals, and present and former owners are given. Bibliographical references are listed separately for the individual pianos. Builders whose pianos have been lost are identified; however, anonymous pianos have not been included unless an attribution to a known maker is likely. Principal collections with their catalogues and an exhaustive bibliography complete this valuable reference work.

The pieces in this anthology capture the characteristic simplicity and sincerity of all of Whitlock's music. His rare facility as an organist shines through in his ingenious use of the instrument's resources and his instinctive feeling for colour and sound. Whitlock's style is personal and intimate and the pieces charming and melodious.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

By the early 20th century the machine aesthetic was a well-established and dominant interest that fundamentally transformed musical performance and listening practices. While numerous scholars have examined this aesthetic in art and literature, musical compositions representing industrialized labor practices and the role of the machine in music remain largely unexplored. Moreover, in recounting the history of machines in musical recording and reproduction, scholars often tend to emphasize the phonograph, rather than player piano, despite the latter's prominence within the newly established musical marketplace. Machines and their music influenced multiple areas of early 20th-century musical culture, from film scores to popular music and even the concert hall. But the opposite was also true: industrialized labor practices changed the musical marketplace and musical culture as a whole. As consumers accepted mechanical replacements for what previously required an active human laborer, ghostly, mechanical performers labored tirelessly in parlors, businesses, and even concert halls. Although the player piano failed to maintain a stronghold in the recorded music marketplace after 1930, the widespread acceptance of recording technologies as media for storing and enjoying music indicates a much more fundamental societal shift. This book explores that shift, examining the rise and fall of the player piano in early 20th-century society and connecting it to the digital technologies of today.

This reference work catalogs music for organ and harpsichord written by more than 700 women composers from 40 countries. Compiler Adel Heinrich has expanded the organ and harpsichord repertoire to include choir and instruments accompanying organ and harpsichord. She provides more detailed information about each work than can be found in any other reference book on women composers. In addition to biographies for each woman, Heinrich supplies listings of individual compositions, and includes descriptions and sources whenever possible. Each composition is listed in both the Instrumentation Index and the Title Index. Publishers, library sources, and recording companies with their addresses are also provided. There is also a chronological listing of composers by country. Two appendices list a large number of women who have either written music for organ and harpsichord with no specific titles known, or have performed on one or both instruments. This reference book is a valuable resource for organists, harpsichordists, teachers, choral and instrumental conductors, and planners of festivals and recitals.

The London firm of Gray (later Gray & Davison) was one of Britain's leading organ-makers between the 1790s and the 1880s. Established for the building of keyboard instruments, by the mid-1790s the workshop of brothers Robert and William Gray had become one of the leading organ-makers in London, with instruments in St Paul's, Covent Garden and St Martin-in-the-Fields. Under William's son John Gray, the firm built some of the largest English organs of the 1820s and 1830s, as well as exporting major instruments to Boston and Charleston in the United States. In the early 1840s, with the marriage of John Gray's daughter to Frederick Davison - a member of the circle of Bach-enthusiasts around the composer Samuel Wesley - the firm became 'Gray & Davison'. Davison was a progressive figure who reformed workshop practices, commissioned a purpose-built organ factory in Euston Road and opened a branch workshop in Liverpool to exploit the booming market for church organs in Lancashire and the north-west. Under Davison's management,the firm was responsible for significant mechanical and musical innovations, especially in the design of concert organs. Instruments such as those built in the 1850s for Glasgow City Hall, the Crystal Palace and Leeds Town Hall were heavily influenced by contemporary French practice; they were designed to perform a repertoire dominated by orchestral transcriptions. Many of the instruments made by the firm have been lost or altered; but the surviving organs in St Anne, Limehouse (1851), Usk Parish Church (1861) and Clumber Chapel (1889) testify to the quality and importance of Gray & Davison's work. This book charts the firm's history from its foundation in 1772 to Frederick Davison's death in 1889. At the same time, it describes changes in musical taste and liturgical use and explores such topics as provincial music festivals, the town hall organ, domestic music-making and popular entertainment, the building of churches and the impact on church music of the Evangelical and Tractarian movements. It will appeal to organ aficionados interested in the evolution of the English organ in the later Georgian and Victorian eras, as well as other music scholars and cultural historians.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). This innovative sightreading book for Level 2A builds confident readers through recognition of individual notes and perception of note patterns, both rhythmic and melodic. Entertaining musical art and rhythm road exercises motivate and guide student progress.

Transformational Piano Teaching: Mentoring Students from All Walks of Life examines the concept of the piano teacher as someone who is more than just a teacher of a musical skill, but also someone who wields tremendous influence on the development of a young person's artistic and empathic potential, as well as their lifelong personal motivational framework. The specific attributes of today's students are explored, including family and peer influences from interpersonal relationships to social media. Additionally, students from specific circumstances are discussed, including those with special needs such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, ADHD, and Depression. Finally, motivation of a teacher's students is related to a teacher's own motivation in their work, as a cycle of positivity and achievement will be recommended as a way to keep an instructor's work fresh and exciting.

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.

Winner of the Royal Philharmonic Award for Storytelling 2020 'A rich, endlessly fascinating book.' Philip Pullman 'One pleasure after another.' Gramophone 'The delightful musings of a wise and worldly polymath.' Financial Times, Books of the Year Stephen Hough is indisputably one of the world's leading pianists, winning global acclaim and numerous awards for his concerts and recordings, as well as being a writer and composer. In Rough Ideas, Hough writes about music and the life of a musician, from exploring the broader aspects of what it is to walk out onto a stage or to make a recording, to specialist tips from deep inside the practice room. He also writes vividly about people, places, literature and art, and touches on more controversial subjects, such as the possibility of the existence of God, and the challenge involved in being a gay Catholic. Rough Ideas is an illuminating and absorbing introduction into the life and mind of one of our great cultural figures.

This book addresses the analysis of musical sounds from the viewpoint of someone at the intersection between physicists, engineers, piano technicians, and musicians. The study is structured into three parts. The reader is introduced to a variety of waves and a variety of ways of presenting, visualizing, and analyzing them in the first part. A tutorial on the tools used throughout the book accompanies this introduction. The mathematics behind the tools is left to the appendices. Part Two provides a graphical survey of the classical areas of acoustics that pertain to musical instruments: vibrating strings, bars, membranes, and plates. Part Three is devoted almost exclusively to the piano. Several two- and three-dimensional graphical tools are introduced to study various characteristics of pianos: individual notes and interactions among them, the missing fundamental, inharmonicity, tuning visualization, the different distribution of harmonic power for the various zones of the piano keyboard, and potential uses for quality control. These techniques are also briefly applied to other musical instruments studied in earlier parts of the book. For physicists and engineers there are appendices to cover the mathematics lurking beneath the numerous graphs and a brief introduction to Matlab (R) which was used to generate these graphs. A website accompanying the book (https://sites.google.com/site/analysisofsoundsandvibrations/) contains: - Matlab (R) scripts - mp3 files of sounds - references to YouTube videos - and up-to-date results of recent studies

(Piano Solo Personality). The original Einaudi pieces featured in this 64-page collection have been selected for their simplicity and ease of playing. Over the years the distinguished Italian pianist and composer has worked in many different styles, some of them quite challenging for the beginning player. Now pianists at a Grade 2 to 4 level can play some of his most memorable works in their original form. This book includes the pieces Corale, Primavera, Questa Volta, Sarabande and more.

In 2007, the great Bach scholar Anne Leahy died at the age of 46. She was a leading light in Bach studies and lecturer at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) Conservatory of Music and Drama. Posthumously edited by renowned Bach scholar Robin A. Leaver, Leahy's dissertation research forms the basis for this original study of the preludes to Bach's Leipzig chorales. Originally composed in Weimar and later revised in Leipzig, Bach's compositions have been a source of some puzzlement. As Leahy notes, "the original intentions of Bach and the possible purpose of this collection might be regarded as speculative." Working from available sources, however, she argues that through the careful examination of the links among the music, hymn texts, and theological sources some answers may be had. From Bach's personal and deep interest in Lutheran theology to his enormous musical passion, Leahy considers closely a series of critical questions: does the original manuscript for the chorales simply reflect a random gathering of compositions or is there a common theme in setting? How critical is the order of the chorales and what is the theological significance of that order? Were the chorales a unified collection, and if so, which parts were to be included and which not? Indeed, were the chorales themselves part of a possibly larger corpus? As Leahy makes evident, there are no simple answers, which is why she considers critical the relationship the texts of the hymns to the chorales and to one another, outlining a theological pattern that is vital to fully grasping the guiding philosophy of these compositions. J. S. Bach's "Leipzig" Chorale Preludes: Music, Text, Theology is ideally suited for Bach scholars and those with a general interest in the intricate connections between text and music in the composition of religious music.