Piano Star Duets is an exciting book of 26 duets at early beginner to Grade 2 level, containing fun new compositions and arrangements in a variety of styles by leading educational composers. All pieces have been tried out - and approved! - by children. This collection will capture the imagination of young pianists everywhere as they are introduced to the joy of ensemble playing. Key features: * New compositions and arrangements from 13 leading composers * Duets in a variety of configurations - for two pupils of a similar standard, for pupil-teacher, or pupils of different standards - plus some trios * A wide range of musical styles, from traditional melodies to jazzy and pop-style pieces * Varied techniques, introduced progressively * Fun musical games and top tips for duet playing

Piano Exercises For Dummies features a wide variety of exervises and technique-building drills. Beginning with warm-up exercises, readers will transition to simple drills that help lay the foundation for exemplary technique. They'll then move on to specific skill-building drills to build strength, speed, and precision. Theyll practice correct hand and body posture and discover how to incorporate facets of musical performance such as tempo, phrasing, and dynamics into their exercises and drills.
Concluding each lesson is a musical piece for the reader to try. All practice pieces are included on the bonus audio CD. Whether theyre studying under a tutor, or looking for a self-paced resource, readers will find everything they need to build skill and gain confidence playing the piano with Piano Exercises For Dummies.

The New International Edition of Suzuki Piano School, Volume 2 includes French, German and Spanish translations, new Romantic and 20th-century pieces, as well as a newly recorded CD performed by internationally renowned recording artist Seizo Azuma. Now the book and CD can be purchased together or separately. The contents have changed slightly with minimal reordering of the music. The Mozart Minuet and Bach Musette from the earlier edition were eliminated and replaced with two new 20th-century pieces by BartA3k (noted below), and the Bach "Minuet in G Minor" (from J. S. Bachas Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach) has been moved to Volume 3. Other improvements include a cleaner appearance with less editing and spacious new engravings, as well as more detailed titles that include the keys, sources, composer dates, and catalog numbers.
Titles: Acossaise (J. N. Hummel) * A Short Story (H. Lichner) * The Happy Farmer, from Album for the Young, Op. 68, No. 10 (R. Schumann) * Minuet in G Major, BWV 822 (J. S. Bach) * Minuet in G Major, from J. S. Bach's Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach (Anonymous) * Minuet in G Minor, BWV 822 (J. S. Bach) * Cradle Song, Op. 13, No. 2 (C. M. von Weber) * Arietta (W. A. Mozart) * Hungarian Folk Song, from For Children, Sz. 42 (BA(c)la BartA3k) * Melody, from Album for the Young, Op. 68, No. 1 (R. Schumann) * Minuet in G Major, from J. S. Bach's Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach (C. Petzold) * Sonatina in G Major, Anh. 5 (Moderato, Romance) (L. van Beethoven) * Children at Play, from For Children, Sz. 42 (BA(c)la BartA3k).

The widely held belief that Beethoven was a rough pianist, impatient with his instruments, is not altogether accurate: it is influenced by anecdotes dating from when deafness had begun to impair his playing. Presenting a new, detailed biography of Beethoven's formative years, this book reviews the composer's early career, outlining how he was influenced by teachers, theorists and instruments. Skowroneck describes the development and decline of Beethoven's pianism, and pays special attention to early pianos, their construction and their importance for Beethoven and the modern pianist. The book also includes new discussions of legato and Beethoven's trills, and a complete annotated review of eyewitnesses' reports about his playing. Skowroneck presents a revised picture of Beethoven which traces his development from an impetuous young musician into a virtuoso in command of many musical resources.

This book of jazz piano scales will develop the technical skills you need to play jazz. It introduces patterns characteristic of the idiom, like the blues scales, the b3 pentatonic and various modes. It also explores these patterns on the roots and key centres commonly found in jazz. Regular and flexible practice of these forms, and using them as the basis for improvisation, will give you fluency and technical control and make your playing sound effortless and relaxed. As an accompaniment to the Board's jazz piano syllabus, this book sets out the scales by grade and gives a table of recommended speeds. It also provides details of what the examiner will be looking for in your playing.

This is the first comprehensive historical and technological study of the pianoforte based on important primary source material. Most histories of the piano begin with its invention by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence in about 1700: this study begins with the earliest fifteenth- and sixteenth-century manuscript sources and extends over Cristofori's rediscovery of the principle of the hammer action, the early exportation of Florentine pianofortes to prominent European courts, and the building of copies of these instruments in Portugal, Spain and Germany. Technical information is presented in a comparative format and the text is illustrated with many photographs, measurements, line drawings and tables. While written primarily for the technical specialist, there is much here of significance for the history of the piano and performance practice.

Twelve of today's most distinguished scholar-performers offer essays in this volume on new and intriguing aspects of baroque keyboard music. Topics include fresh evidence on music of the seventeenth century (Frescobaldi, Froberger and Purcell), the place of the keyboard in concerted music and on comparative teaching methods (Couperin, Marpurg and Roeser), studies of the repertoire of J. S. Bach and his sons (including ornamentation in C. P. E. Bach and the Polonaises of Wilhelm Friedemann), and writing on the later eighteenth century (including Mozart) and on matters of repertoire and performance practice (continuo playing, improvisation). The volume gives a balanced picture of the latest theories and discoveries in keyboard music, of interest to both academic and performing musicians, and includes a new arrangement for keyboard of Bach's D minor Violin Partita, published here for the first time.

W. Dean Sutcliffe investigates one of the greatest yet least understood repertories of Western keyboard music: the 555 keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. Scarlatti occupies a position of solitary splendour in musical history. The sources of his style are often obscure and his immediate influence is difficult to discern. Further, the lack of hard documentary evidence has hindered musicological activity. Dr Sutcliffe offers not just a thorough reconsideration of the historical factors that have contributed to Scarlatti's position, but also sustained engagement with the music, offering both individual readings and broader commentary of an unprecedented kind. A principal task of this book is to remove the composer from his critical ghetto (however honourable) and redefine his image. In so doing it will reflect on the historiographical difficulties involved in understanding eighteenth-century musical style.

The name of Ruckers is as important to early keyboard instruments as Stradivarius is to strings. This book describes in close detail the art and technique of the Ruckers family, who produced harpsichords and virginals throughout a period of over 100 years. Dr O'Brien provides detailed information about the construction and decoration of Ruckers harpsichords and virginals, as well as the numbering, pitch, stringing, and the determination of the original state of their instruments. Like Stradivarius violins, Ruckers instruments were later altered, and the nature and musical significance of these alterations are discussed, as is the influence of the Ruckers style on later building practice. The instruments in their original and altered states are considered in relation to the music of the time and to contemporary performance practice. The text is richly illustrated with diagrams and pictures of original instruments, and with plan-view photographs reproduced at a scale of 1: 10. The book also contains a partially illustrated catalogue of authentic and fake instruments, followed by extensive appendices.

For the first time ever, musical selections from the first five Harry Potter movies are available in one jam-packed collection. Intermediate-level pianists will love playing these Easy Piano arrangements, which faithfully render the magical music of John Williams, Patrick Doyle, and Nicholas Hooper. Full color art pages from each movie are included. Titles: Buckbeak's Flight * The Chamber of Secrets * Double Trouble * Dumbledore's Army * Fawkes the Phoenix * Fireworks * Hagrid the Professor * Harry in Winter * Harry's Wondrous World * Hedwig's Theme * Hogwarts' Hymn * Hogwarts' March * Loved Ones and Leaving * Nimbus 2000 * Potter Waltz * Professor Umbridge * The Quidditch World Cup (The Irish) * The Room of Requirement.

Harry Abley was a nightmare of a father: depressive, self-absorbed, unpredictable, emotionally unstable. He was also a dream of a father: gentle, courageous, artistically gifted. Mark Abley, his only child, grew up in the shadow of music and mental illness. How he came to terms with this divided legacy, and how he learned to be a man in the absence of a traditional masculine role model, are central to this beautifully written memoir. This extraordinary story will speak to all those who love music, who struggle with depression, or who wrestle with the difficult bonds of love between a parent and a child. Praise for The Organist: "A wise and haunting book." -Martha Baillie, author of The Search for Heinrich Schloegel "The Organist is a rich and wonderful book, a deeply insightful and moving story of a family's journey through the 20th century....Abley's tale is fearless in its revelations, yet also loving, funny, and beautifully told." -Ronald Wright, author of A Scientific Romance and A Short History of Progress "'What does a life add up to?' This question is central to Mark Abley's haunting family memoir, The Organist. Both expansive in the themes it raises and intimate in details required to bring those themes to life, it's a question that draws on Abley's talents as a remarkably clear and thoughtful writer. In The Organist, he ventures bravely into territory that is, for almost everyone, mysterious: what our parents were like before we, their children, became (so we like to imagine) central to their lives. What this compelling book makes clear is that what we don't know about them is often what we don't know about ourselves." -David Macfarlane, author of The Danger Tree "Beautiful, tender, and raging, The Organist comes from where the best writing usually does-deep emotion affirmed by hard-won experience of how humans are in their relationships, and in their own hearts. It has taken Mark Abley nearly a lifetime to produce the book of his life. Not a moment too late, or too soon" -Charles Foran, author of Mordecai: The Life & Times

A SUNDAY TIMES BEST PAPERBACK OF 2021 * Shortlisted for the 2021 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year prize * A critically-acclaimed Sunday Times, Spectator and Independent Book of 2020 * Now with colour photography by Michael Turek 'Richly absorbing... An impressive exploration of Siberia's terrifying past.' Guardian 'Evocative and wonderfully original.' Colin Thubron __________ Siberia's expansive history is traditionally one of exiles, bitter cold and suffering. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote and beautiful landscape are pianos created during the boom years of the nineteenth century. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos made the journey into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is remarkable. That they might be capable of making music in such a hostile landscape feels like a miracle. The Lost Pianos of Siberia is an absorbing story about a piano hunt - a quixotic quest through two centuries of Russian history and eight time zones stretching across an eleventh of the world's land surface. It reveals not only an unexpected musical legacy, but profound and brave humanity in the last place on earth you might expect to find it. __________ What readers are saying about The Lost Pianos of Siberia: ***** 'You know a book's good when, on finishing it, you just want to start again.' ***** 'Beautifully written, full of compelling anecdotes celebrating Siberia's extraordinary history.' ***** 'The most unusual and intelligent way to tell a travel story.'

While Chopin composed only a few works in variation form, he employed variations and variation technique in the majority of his works. Multiple modified repetitions of musical units on different levels of a work are so typical of Chopin's works that this may be considered one of the chief determinants of his style. Focusing on a broad range of Chopin's works, this book explores the extent to which Chopin's oeuvre is suffused with variations, the role that variation technique plays in his work, to what extent it interacts with other techniques for developing and modifying musical material, and how the variation technique itself evolved. Beginning with a comprehensively documented investigation of the concept of variation in its own right, Zofia Chechlinska employs Riemannian and Schenkerian theory to consider, in turn, the ways in which Chopin constructs variations on the level of microstructure (motif and phrase) and macrostructure (thematic areas, sections, movements and form). This is the first English translation of one of the classics of musicological literature in Poland and is essential reading for scholars of Chopin and nineteenth-century music and music analysts.

Mozart's piano sonatas form a richly diverse and significant part of his instrumental output, and span much of his mature composing career, thereby representing a microcosm of the composer's changing style. Part I examines the contexts in which the sonatas were composed and performed, and reviews likely sources of influence. Part II concentrates on the genesis of the sonatas and the surviving autographs, which reveal important information about Mozart's compositional process. In Part III the music is studied from the standpoint of rhetoric - a discipline featured in numerous contemporary aesthetic and theoretical textbooks on music - and proceeds through an investigation of the nature of the musical ideas, followed by a discussion of formal design and finally a consideration of the style. The resulting picture affords a cross-section of Mozart's compositional strategies.

The Second Edition of Alfred's Group Piano for Adults, Book 2 includes updates inspired by numerous recommendations from group piano teachers and students. This book includes a CD-ROM containing both Audio and General MIDI Files of the 500] accompaniments included in the text, each with an interesting and engaging arrangement coupled with the piano part. Designed for collegiate non-keyboard music majors with little or no keyboard experience, the easy-to-use text contains 26 units, each intended to be covered in one week, thus fulfilling two semesters or three quarters of study. Theory, technique, sight-reading, repertoire, harmonization, improvisation and ensemble activities are taught thoroughly and consistently throughout the text. Book 2 is 408 pages.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). The 2nd Edition Level 2A Technique & Artistry Book features effective "Technique Secret" exercises which train students in firm fingertips, light thumb, fast fingers, hands together coordination, and wrist float-off. An "Artistry Magic" piece at the end of each unit explores expressive playing. A useful reference section presents all twelve major 5-finger scales plus the seven white key minor 5-finger scales, grouped in easy to memorize patterns.

Creative Health for Pianists: Concepts, Exercises & Compositions is a practical method book for musicians of all abilities. It provides a new way of thinking about the piano, emphasizing the pianist-reader's innate capacity to respond creatively to a musical and technical stimulus. Author and veteran educator Pedro de Alcantara suggests that every pianist, from a complete beginner to a concert artist, may approach the instrument with the frame of mind of an improviser and composer, in which curiosity, inventiveness, and technical skills are inseparable. Throughout the book, original music snippets that encapsulate one or more aspects of piano playing are presented and explained, then developed through tweaks, variations, and compositions of increasing complexity. Every chapter contains variations suited to a complete beginner, as well as musical challenges that will capture the imagination of advanced players. Most chapters contain improvisational prompts and games with step-by-step rules, leading to the development of new creative skills combining musical depth and technical intelligence. Creative Health for Pianists is supported by a dedicated companion website with 48 pedagogical video clips.