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.

Brighten the world with music For pianists of all ages, this deluxe collection contains sheet music for 40 of the most beautiful songs ever written. Popular ballads, timeless standards, classic show tunes and graceful movie themes assure a lifetime of musical pleasure.
Titles: Angel Eyes (Jim Brickman) * As Time Goes By (from Casablanca) * At Last (Etta James) * Because You Loved Me (Celine Dion) * Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (Cole Porter) * Bridge over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel) * Canon in D (Pachelbel) * Come Rain or Come Shine * Days of Wine and Roses * Endless Love (Diana Ross and Lionel Richie) * Falling Slowly (from Once) * Hero (Mariah Carey) * Home (Michael Bubl?) * How Could I Ever Know? (from The Secret Garden) * How Deep Is Your Love (Bee Gees) * How Do I Live (LeAnn Rimes) * Killing Me Softly with His Song (Roberta Flack) * La Vie en Rose (Edith Piaf) * Laura (Johnny Mercer) * Leaving on a Jet Plane (Peter, Paul, and Mary) * Love Story (Where Do I Begin) * Love Will Lead You Back (Taylor Dayne) * Misty (Johnny Mathis) * The Notebook (from The Notebook) * On the Street Where You Live (Lerner/Loewe) * Open Arms (Journey) * Over the Rainbow (Judy Garland) * People (Barbra Streisand) * The Prayer (Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion) * The Promise (Jim Brickman) * Right Here Waiting (Richard Marx) * The Shadow of Your Smile (Mandel/Webster) * Summertime (Gershwins) * Take My Breath Away (from Top Gun) * Un-Break My Heart (Toni Braxton) * Valentine (Martina McBride and Jim Brickman) * Wind Beneath My Wings (Bette Midler) * You Light Up My Life (Debby Boone) * You Needed Me (Anne Murray) * You Raise Me Up (Josh Groban).

The Recital Books congratulate students for a job well done by providing correlated repertoire to their Lesson Books that are based on concepts they've already learned. As a result, the pieces are quickly mastered. Recital Book Complete Level 2 & 3 is for older beginners, and contains the best selections from Recital Books 2 and 3.

As there are several hundred piano studies by Czerny, it might become confusing to attempt to pick out the most effective exercises. To overcome this problem, Heinrich Germer, the original editor, chose those he thought were best. Willard A. Palmer has made several changes to metronome markings, fingerings and pedal indications where he felt certain passages needed clarification.

(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.

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.

Time To Begin, the cornerstone of the Music Tree series, is a unique and highly effective approach to beginning piano instruction. Starting with off-staff notation, it leads the student to reading direction and intervals, and climaxes with the discovery of the Grand Staff. Also included is a carefully designed program of rhythm, technic and creative work. The cassette features electronic renditions of the music: it offers the accompaniment alone, or both the student's and teacher's parts. The Teacher's Handbook is an invaluable tool. This volume contains essays regarding how students learn, on technic, and how rhythm is presented. Teaching aspects are discussed, and suggestions are offered for each unit of the book.

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 valuable material to help players strengthen their sight-reading skills in preparation for the ABRSM Grade 2 exam. Featuring preparatory exercises that gradually introduce key new elements encountered at Grade 2, along with a comprehensive selection of sample sight-reading pieces, More Piano Sight-Reading supports students with the transition between grades, and encourages them to integrate sight-reading into their daily practice. More Piano Sight-Reading is available for ABRSM Grades 1 to 8, offering additional support for the sight-reading requirements of the current syllabus.

Since the early days of silent film accompaniment, the piano has played an integral part in the history of cinema. Film's fascination with the piano, both in soundtracks and onscreen as a status symbol and icon of popular romanticism, offers a revealing opportunity to chart the changing perception of the instrument. From Mozart to Elton John, this book surveys the cultural history of the piano through the instrument's cinematic functions. Composer biopics, such as A Song to Remember, romantic melodramas like the Liberace vehicle Sincerely Yours, and horror films such as The Hands of Orlac, along with animated cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry demonstrate just how pervasive the cinematic image of the piano once was during a period when the piano itself began its noticeable decline in everyday life. By examining these depictions of the piano onscreen, readers will begin to understand not only the decline of the piano but also the decline of the idealistic culture to which it gave birth in the nineteenth century.

Join the superhero world of Lang Lang and come on a piano adventure with The Lang Lang Piano Method Level 2. Level 2 builds on the first book by introducing: eighth notes (quavers) simple hands together and thumb-under technique. The five progressive books in The Lang Lang Piano Method provide a unique and imaginative way for complete beginners to learn the piano with the world's most successful concert pianist, Lang Lang. There's plenty to play all around the keyboard right from the start. Fun, imaginative pieces develop the left and right hands equally and supporting audio features exclusive performances by Lang Lang of the concert pieces. Musicianship is developed through theory pages and listening to exclusive performances by Lang Lang of piano classics for children. "I've written The Lang Lang Piano Method to inspire today's kids with my passion for the piano." Lang Lang

(Faber Piano Adventures ). The 2nd Edition Level 1 Lesson Book introduces all the notes of the grand staff, elementary chord playing, and the concept of tonic and dominant notes. Students play in varied positions, reinforcing reading skills and recognizing intervals through the 5th. Musicianship is built with the introduction of legato and staccato touches. This level continues the interval orientation to reading across the full range of the Grand Staff. The 5-finger approach is presented here in a fresh, musically appealing way.

This book contains nine pieces from ABRSM's Grade 2 Piano syllabus for 2023 & 2024, three pieces chosen from each of Lists A, B and C - ideal for both Practical and Performance Grade exams. The pieces have been carefully selected to offer an attractive and varied range of styles, creating a collection that provides an excellent source of repertoire to suit every performer.The book also contains helpful footnotes and, for those preparing for exams, useful syllabus information. A version of this book with audio download is also available.

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

This set of six pieces is based on folk song melodies and dance forms from Transylvania which was annexed to Romania in 1920. The contrasting melodies were originally for violin or shepherd's flute, but the unusual harmonies are original with Bart?k. The performance time for the complete set of dances is approximately 4 minutes, 15 seconds.

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.

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.

Beginning pianists of all ages will cherish this excellent compilation of beloved piano classics. Selections include Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, Chopin's Funeral March, Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Mozart's Rondo alla Turca and Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, plus compositions by Schubert, Debussy, Handel, Mendelssohn, and others.

Lesson Book 2 starts as pre-reading, then moves to reading on the staff. After a review, the new concepts taught are: Dotted quarter note and 4/4 time, 4/4 time, Mezzo-forte, Staff and note reading, Steps and skips, Grand staff. New notes taught are F and G in the LH and RH, completing the Middle C position.