Music theory is often seen as independent from - even antithetical to - performance. While music theory is an intellectual enterprise, performance requires an intuitive response to the music. But this binary opposition is a false one, which serves neither the theorist nor the performer. In Interpreting Chopin Alison Hood brings her experience as a performer to bear on contemporary analytical models. She combines significant aspects of current analytical approaches and applies that unique synthetic method to selected works by Chopin, casting new light on the composer's preludes, nocturnes and barcarolle. An extension of Schenkerian analysis, the specific combination of five aspects distinguishes Hood's method from previous analytical approaches. These five methods are: attention to the rhythms created by pitch events on all structural levels; a detailed accounting of the musical surface; 'strict use' of analytical notation, following guidelines offered by Steve Larson; a continual concern with what have been called 'strategies' or 'premises'; and an exploration of how recorded performances might be viewed in terms of analytical decisions, or might even shape those decisions. Building on the work of such authors as William Rothstein, Carl Schachter and John Rink, Hood's approach to Chopin's oeuvre raises interpretive questions of central interest to performers.

A year after the University of Portsmouth awarded Cecilia McDowall an honorary doctorate they commissioned an organ work from her, to be performed at each of the graduation ceremonies in 2014. Celebration was written especially to accompany the academic procession and was performed on the mighty Guildhall organ by David Price (University Organist). 'I've tried to capture some of that sense of excitement and joy that fills Portsmouth's Guildhall on these occasions and I have woven into the fabric of the piece a quotation from "To Portsmouth", a cheerful round about the city written by Thomas Ravenscroft at the turn of the seventeenth century.'

The key to fast and fun piano proficiency! Whether you're a wannabe Mozart or are an experienced hand at tinkling the ivories, the latest edition of Piano For Dummies has what you need to take you to the next level in making beautiful music using this much-loved and versatile instrument. Working as an introductory course--or as a refresher to keep those fingers nimble--you'll find information on getting started, improving your technique and performance, and the best ways to practice until you hit finely tuned perfection. And, along the way, you'll pick up the techniques for different styles, including classical, blues, and rock. In an easy-to-follow style, the book also helps you sharpen your sight-reading. You can also tune in to audio and video online to help you improve your creativity and discipline, as well as hear and see that you're hitting the right notes. Choose the right piano Know your keys Scale up for success Care for your instrument Whatever you want from your love affair with the old "88," you'll find enough right here to keep you hammering happily--and even more proficiently--away for years to come! P.S. If you think this book seems familiar, you're probably right. The Dummies team updated the cover and design to give the book a fresh feel, but the content is the same as the previous release of Piano For Dummies (9781118900055). The book you see here shouldn't be considered a new or updated product. But if you're in the mood to learn something new, check out some of our other books. We're always writing about new topics!

It's never too early to encourage good sight-reading in young players. Now revised to support ABRSM's Initial Grade, this book is designed to lay the foundations at the most fundamental level, through the proven, systematic formula of the highly acclaimed Improve your sight-reading! series by renowned educationalist Paul Harris. Step by step a complete picture of each piece is built up, firstly through rhythmic and melodic exercises related to a specific technical issue, then through prepared pieces with associated questions, and finally 'going solo' with a series of meticulously graded sight-reading pieces. Also includes supporting audio available online for students to check their performances against.

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 Level 4 comprises mostly arrangements of familiar tunes like "'Country Gardens" and "Amazing Grace," and a few new originals as well.

The purpose of The Organists' Manual is to provide, within a single volume, technical studies, diverse compositions, and technical information for beginning organists.

At fifteen, Sanford Brunson Campbell (1884-1952) became enchanted with the new sounds of ragtime and ran away from his rural Kansas home, hopping a train to Sedalia, Missouri, determined to take piano lessons from a black musician he had never met. Scott Joplin nicknamed his white protege ""The Ragtime Kid."" A composer and entertainer at the dawn of the ragtime era, ""Brun"" was a prime mover in the ragtime revival of the 1940s and helped establish Joplin's prominence as an American virtuoso. Campbell's own legacy was tarnished by his inability to tell a straight story and he was often dismissed as a liar and a clown. Based on his memoirs, musical compositions and correspondence with music industry notables, this first comprehensive biography of Campbell reveals an engaging storyteller and a devotee wholly dedicated to a musical genre that had been given up as dead. His firsthand account of life as an itinerant pianist in the Midwest provides a unique picture of life a century ago.

Piano Makers in Russia in the Nineteenth Century is a richly detailed thematic study of the history of the piano in Russian society from its beginnings with the European artisans who settled in St. Petersburg in the early decades of the century through the transition to Russian-owned family firms. The piano played a defining role in the shaping of Russia's musical culture in the nineteenth century, as artisans and entrepreneurs provided the foundation for the great tradition of the Russian virtuoso in the performance and the composition of piano music. It also helped bring about a transformative change in the material culture as the piano expanded its reach from the court and the nobility to include music enthusiasts from all social classes and Russian families in their homes. This historical study brings to light the impact of neglected piano artisans in nineteenth-century Russia, and presents a fresh view of the social and economic ties between the state and the piano-manufacturing artisans in an era largely defined by handcrafting and entrepreneurship. It contributes significantly to current issues surrounding the role of the piano and the entrepreneur-artisans in the urban centers of imperial Russia and represents an expansion of what is currently known about the piano builders who established workshops in Russia beginning in the late 1830s and 1840s, well before the heyday of the virtuoso in that country. Rare documents, including letters, memoirs, gazettes, exhibition catalogs, music journals, and administrative reports, form the nucleus of this book and provide fascinating insights about state and private patronage and the class/economic issues related to the affordability and prestige of the piano in Russia. Issues surrounding the transformation of the music industry in Russia, the role of women as patrons and performers, the exportation of instruments to the Russian Far East, and the complex system of tariffs and trade protection that benefited domestic piano manufacturers provide this book's thematic links. Conclusions indicate that while favorable tariff laws and state-imposed economic policies benefited the family-owned firms in the nineteenth century, they remained in effect in the decades after the nationalization of the piano industry in 1917.

The authors' new approach to learning two playing techniques offers a systematic method for mastering the modern, legato technique needed for organ music composed after 1750, as well as an articulated technique for earlier works. The authors also present useful information on accompanying anthems and solos and on adapting piano and orchestral accompaniments to the organ.

(Piano Solo Songbook). 100 pop and classical standards that every piano player should master, including: Air on the G String * Bridge over Troubled Water * Canon in D * Clair de Lune * Fields of Gold * Fur Elise * I Dreamed a Dream * I Will Always Love You * Imagine * Lullaby of Birdland * Memory * Misty * Moon River * On My Own * Over the Rainbow * The Shadow of Your Smile * Smile * Stardust * Summertime * Sunrise, Sunset * Time After Time * Unexpected Song * The Way You Look Tonight * We've Only Just Begun * What a Wonderful World * Yesterday * You Raise Me Up * Your Song * and more

The Academy Award winning film Shine made pianist David Helfgott a household name. While purporting to be a true story, the movie is actually full of fabrications. Now for the first time, Margaret, David Helfgott's eldest sister, who knows him better than anyone from their early years, sets the record straight. Dispelling the many untruths propogated by the movie, Margaret tells the real story of her extraordinary brother, of a life, a career, and a legacy that will remain foever...Out Of Tune.

Piano Pedagogy: A Research and Information Guide provides a detailed outline of resources available for research and/or training in piano pedagogy. Like its companion volumes in the Routledge Music Bibliographies series, it serves beginning and advanced students and scholars as a basic guide to current research in the field. The book will includes bibliographies, research guides, encyclopedias, works from other disciplines that are related to piano pedagogy, current sources spanning all formats, including books, journals, audio and video recordings, and electronic sources.

The piano works of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) are among the most treasured musical compositions of the twentieth century. In this volume, pianist and Russian music scholar Sofia Moshevich provides detailed interpretive analyses of the ten major piano solo works by Shostakovich, carefully noting important stylistic details and specific ways to overcome the numerous musical and technical challenges presented by the music. Each piece is introduced with a brief historic and structural description, followed by an examination of such interpretive aspects as tempo, phrasing, dynamics, voice balance, pedaling, and fingering. This book will be an invaluable resource for students, pedagogues, and performers of Shostakovich's piano solos.

Keyboard Music Before 1700 begins with an overview of the development of keyboard music in Europe. Then, individual chapters by noted authorities in the field cover the key composers and repertory before 1700 in England, France, Germany and the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain and Portugal. The book concludes with a chapter on performance practice, which addresses current issues in the interpretation and revival of this music.

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

In The Pianist's Craft 2, pianist and scholar Richard P. Anderson gathers together a new collection of essays by renowned performing artists and teachers and discusses the preparation, pedagogy, and performance of selected works by an entirely different set of composers whose works are standard in the piano literature. In this volume, readers will find an invaluable collection of contributions on C.P.E. Bach, Antonio Soler, Felix Mendelssohn, Gabriel Faure, Erno Dohnanyi, Francis Poulenc, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Alberto Ginastera, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Olivier Messiaen, and John Cage. The contributors-all nationally and internationally recognized as performing artists, teachers, recording artists, and clinicians-write thoughtfully about the composers whose work they have studied and played for years. Each author addresses issues unique to an individual composer, examining questions of phrasing, tempo, articulation, dynamics, rhythm, color, gesture, lyricism, instrumentation, and genre. Valuable insight is provided into teaching, performing, and preparing these great works-information otherwise available only in conferences, master classes, and private lessons. This collection, with more than 250 musical illustrations, is intended for teachers and students of the intermediate and advanced levels of piano, instructors and performers at the university level, and those who love piano and piano music.

From Mozart's fabulous legato that "flowed like oil" to Beethoven's oceanlike surge, from Clara Schumann's touch "sharp as a pencil sketch" to Rubinstein's volcanic and sensual playing, The Great Pianists brings to life the brilliant, stylish, and sometimes eccentric personalities, methods, and technical peculiarities of history's greatest pianists.Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author Harold C. Schonberg presents vivid accounts of the artists' performances, styles, and even their personal lives and quirky characteristics-- such as Mozart's intense competition with Clementi, Lizst's magnetic effect on women (when he played, ladies flung their jewels on stage), and Gottschalk's persistent nailbiting, which left the keys covered with blood. Including profiles of Horowitz and Van Cliburn, among others, and chapters detailing the playing and careers of such modern pianists as de Larrocha, Ashkenazy, Gilels, Gould, Brendel, Bolet, Gutierrez, and Watts, The Great Pianists is a comprehensive and fascinating look at legendary performers past and present.

Vladimir de Pachmann was perhaps history's most notorious pianist. Widely regarded as the greatest player of Chopin's works, Pachmann embedded comedic elements-be it fiddling with his piano bench or flirting with the audience-within his classic piano recitals to alleviate his own anxiety over performing. But this wunderkind, whose admirers included Franz Liszt and music critic James Gibbons Huneker (who cheekily nicknamed Pachmann the "Chopinzee"), would by the turn of the century find his antics on the concert stage scorned by critics and out of fashion with listeners, burying his pianistic legacy. In Chopin's Prophet: The Life of Pianist Vladimir de Pachmann, the first biography ever of this remarkable figure, Edward Blickstein and Gregor Benko explore the private and public lives of this master pianist, surveying his achievements within the context of contemporary critical opinion and preserving his legacy as one of the last great Romantic pianists of his time. Chopin's Prophet paints a colorful portrait of classical piano performance and celebrity at the turn of the 20th century while also documenting Pachmann's attraction to men, which ultimately ended his marriage but was overlooked by his audiences. As the authors illustrate, Pachmann lived in a radically different world of music making, one in which eccentric personality and behavior fit into a much more flexible, and sometimes mysterious, musical community, one where standards were set not by certified experts with degrees but by the musicians themselves. Detailing the evolution of concert piano playing style from the era of Chopin until World War I, Chopin's Prophet tells the fantastic and true story of an artist of and after his time.

This guide to the piano literature for the one-handed pianist surveys over 2,100 individual piano pieces which include not only concert literature but pedagogical pieces as well. Following the introduction are four chapters cataloguing original works for the right hand alone, original works for the left hand alone, music arranged or transcribed for one hand alone, and concerted works for one hand in concert with other pianists, instruments, or voices. Each entry assesses the individual composition, its quality, its difficulty, its particular appeal, and its uses with the composer's name, dates, and nationality, where possible. Also included is a selected discography of commercially produced phonodiscs, compact discs, and cassettes.

Instructors and pianists alike will appreciate this exhaustive guide to one-handed piano music. To aid further research, a bibliography of books, articles, and theses about the literature is provided along with a chapter that lists the contents of thirty-six anthologies devoted to one-handed piano music. This unique reference also includes an index.

* For undergraduate music majors at colleges, universities, and conservatories who take the Class Piano course. * The pedagogical text is on separate pages from the musical content/notation, creating fewer distractions in the narrative, while helping students to focus on the music more readily * Includes music by women, persons of color, and from outside the United States have a prominent place throughout the textbook. * contains sections on fundamentals such as scales and arpeggios, as well as sightreading, keyboard theory, harmonizing melodies, improvising in both classical and blues styles, score reading, accompanying, and solo, duet, and ensemble repertoire

Jazz, Rags & Blues, Books 1 through 5 contain original solos for late elementary to early advanced-level pianists that reflect the various styles of the jazz idiom. An excellent way to introduce your students to this distinctive American contribution to 20th century music. Available separately (item #18115), the CD includes dynamic recordings of each song in Books 1-3 of this series.

The Piano: An Encyclopedia was selected in its first edition as a Choice Outstanding Book and remains a fascinating and unparalleled reference work. The instrument has been at the center of music history with even composers of large symphonic work asserting that they do not write anything without sketching it out first on a piano; its limitations and expressive capacity have done much to shape the contours of the western musical idiom. Within the scope of this user-friendly guide is everything from the acoustics and construction of the piano to the history of the companies that have built them.

The Encyclopedia of Organ includes articles on the organ family of instruments, including famous players, composers, instrument builders, the construction of the instruments, and related terminology. It is the first complete A-Z reference on this important family of keyboard instruments. The contributors include major scholars of music and musical instrument history from around the world.

For the advanced pianist, this etude by Chopin featuring rapid arpeggios and harmonic modulations based on the key of A-flat major was named "Aeolian Harp" by Robert Schumann. The piece consists of a right-hand melody with left-hand accompaniment. The principal melody falls on the fifth finger of the right hand at the beginning of each sextuplet. Occasional polyrhythms are introduced in the accompaniment.