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Books > Music > Musical instruments & instrumental ensembles > Keyboard instruments
Beautifully presented and intelligently paced, the Lesson Books
combine unusually attractive music and lyrics. The books feature
note reading, rhythm reading, sight-reading and technical workouts.
Each piece on the CD was recorded at a performance tempo and a
slower practice tempo.
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.
This volume contains valuable practice material for candidates
preparing for the ABRSM Grade 4 Piano exams. The book is written in
attractive and approachable styles and representative of the
technical level expected in the exam.
Research in the field of keyboard studies, especially when
intimately connected with issues of performance, is often concerned
with the immediate working environments and practices of musicians
of the past. An important pedagogical tool, the keyboard has served
as the 'workbench' of countless musicians over the centuries. In
the process it has shaped the ways in which many historical
musicians achieved their aspirations and went about meeting
creative challenges. In recent decades interest has turned towards
a contextualized understanding of creative processes in music, and
keyboard studies appears well placed to contribute to the
exploration of this wider concern. The nineteen essays collected
here encompass the range of research in the field, bringing
together contributions from performers, organologists and music
historians. Questions relevant to issues of creative practice in
various historical contexts, and of interpretative issues faced
today, form a guiding thread. Its scope is wide-ranging, with
contributions covering the mid-sixteenth to early twentieth
century. It is also inclusive, encompassing the diverse range of
approaches to the field of contemporary keyboard studies.
Collectively the essays form a survey of the ways in which the
study of keyboard performance can enrich our understanding of
musical life in a given period.
Bastien Piano Basics is suitable for children aged 7 upwards.
The course uses a gradual multi-key approach, with reading beginning in the C five-finger position.
This method with an ideal pacing ensures success for young beginners.
The composer and pianist Michael Finnissy (b. 1946) is an
unmistakeable presence in the British and international new music
scene, both for his immeasurable generosity as prolific composer
for many different types of musicians, major advocate for the works
of others, and performer and conductor who has also been a driving
force behind ensembles; he was also President of the International
Society for Contemporary Music from 1990 to 1996. His vast and
enormously varied output confounds those who seek easy
categorisations: once associated strongly with the 'new
complexity', Finnissy is equally known as composer regularly
engaged with many different folk musics, for working with amateur
and community musicians, for a long-term engagement with sacred
music, or as an advocate of Anglo-American 'experimental' music.
Twenty years ago, a large-scale volume entitled Uncommon Ground:
The Music of Michael Finnissy gave the first major overview of the
output of any 'complex' composer. This new volume brings a greater
plurality of perspectives and critical sensibility to bear upon an
output which is almost twice as large as it was when the earlier
book was published. A range of leading contributors -
musicologists, composers, performers and others - each grapple with
particular questions relating to Finnissy's music, often in ways
which raise questions relating more widely to new music, and
provide theoretical foundations for further of study both of
Finnissy and other composers.
Originally published in 1997, The Pianist's Bookshelf, was,
according to the Library Journal, "a unique and valuable tool." Now
rewritten for a modern audience, this second edition expands into
the 21st century. A completely revised update, The Pianist's
Bookshelf, Second Edition, comes to the rescue of pianists
overwhelmed by the abundance of books, videos, and other works
about the piano. In this clear, easy-to-use reference book, Maurice
Hinson and Wesley Roberts survey hundreds of sources and provide
concise, practical annotations for each item, thus saving the
reader hours of precious research time. In addition to the main
listings of entries, such as "Chamber Music" and "Piano Duet," the
book has several indexes of authors, composers, and performers. A
handy reference from the masters of piano bibliography, The
Pianist's Bookshelf, Second Edition, will be an invaluable resource
to students, teachers, and musicians.
English keyboard music reached an unsurpassed level of
sophistication in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries as organists such as William Byrd and his students took a
genre associated with domestic, amateur performance and treated it
as seriously as vocal music. This book draws together important
research on the music, its sources and the instruments on which it
was played. There are two chapters on instruments: John Koster on
the use of harpsichord during the period, and Dominic Gwynn on the
construction of Tudor-style organs based on the surviving evidence
we have for them. This leads to a section devoted to organ
performance practice in a liturgical context, in which John Harper
discusses what the use of organs pitched in F may imply about their
use in alternation with vocal polyphony, and Magnus Williamson
explores improvisational practice in the Tudor period. The next
section is on sources and repertoire, beginning with Frauke
Jurgensen and Rachelle Taylor's chapter on Clarifica me Pater
settings, which grows naturally out of the consideration of
improvisation in the previous chapter. The next two contributions
focus on two of the most important individual manuscript sources:
Tihomir Popovic challenges assumptions about My Ladye Nevells Booke
by reflecting on what the manuscript can tell us about aristocratic
culture, and David J. Smith provides a detailed study of the famous
Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. The discussion then broadens out into
Pieter Dirksen's consideration of a wider selection of sources
relating to John Bull, which in turn connects closely to David
Leadbetter's work on Gibbons, lute sources and questions of style.
This volume explores twentieth-century organ music through in-depth
studies of the principal centers of composition, the most
significant composers and their works, and the evolving role of the
instrument and its music. The twentieth-century was a time of
unprecedented change for organ music, not only in its composition
and performance but also in the standards of instrument design and
building. Organ music was anything but immune to the complex
musical, intellectual, and socio-political climate of the time.
Twentieth-Century Organ Music examines the organ's repertory from
the entire period, contextualizing it against the background of
important social and cultural trends. In a collection of twelve
essays, experienced scholars survey the dominant geographic centers
of organ music (France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the United
States, and German-speaking countries) and investigate the
composers who made important contributions to the repertory (Reger
in Germany, Messiaen in France, Ligeti in Eastern and Central
Europe, Howells in Great Britain). Twentieth-Century Organ Music
provides a fresh vantage point from which to view one of the
twentieth century's most diverse and engaging musical spheres.
William Sweetland was a Bath organ builder who flourished from
c.1847 to 1902 during which time he built about 300 organs, mostly
for churches and chapels in Somerset, Gloucestershire and
Wiltshire, but also for locations scattered south of a line from
the Wirral to the Wash. Gordon Curtis places this work of a
provincial organ builder in the wider context of English musical
life in the latter half of the nineteenth century. An introductory
chapter reviews the provincial musical scene and sets the organ in
the context of religious worship, public concerts and domestic
music-making. The book relates the biographical details of
Sweetland's family and business history using material obtained
from public and family records. Curtis surveys Sweetland's organ-
building work in general and some of his most important organs in
detail, with patents and other inventions explored. The musical
repertoire of the provinces, particularly with regard to organ
recitals, is discussed, as well as noting Sweetland's
acquaintances, other organ builders, architects and artists. Part
II of the book consists of a Gazetteer of all known organs by
Sweetland organized by counties. Each entry contains a short
history of the instrument and its present condition. Since there is
no definitive published list of his work, and as all the office
records were lost in a fire many years ago, this will be the
nearest approach to a comprehensive list for this builder.
The twentieth-century revival of early music unfolded in two
successive movements rooted respectively in nineteenth-century
antiquarianism and in rediscovery of the value of original
instruments. The present volume is a collection of insights
reflecting the principal concerns of the second of those revivals,
focusing on early keyboards, and beginning in the 1950s. The volume
and its authors acknowledge Canadian harpsichordist Kenneth Gilbert
(b. 1931) as one of this revival's leaders. The content reflects
international research on early keyboard music, sources,
instruments, theory, editing, and discography. Considerations that
echo throughout the book are the problematics of source
attributions, progressive institutionalization of early music,
historical instruments as agents of artistic change and education,
antecedents and networks of the revival seen as a social
phenomenon, the impact of historical performance and the quest for
understanding style and genre. The chapters cover historical
performance practice, source studies, edition, theory and form, and
instrument curating and building. Among their authors are prominent
figures in performance, music history, editing, instrument building
and restoration, and theory, some of whom engaged with the early
keyboard revival as it was happening.
This volume considers the influences and development of the English
organ sonata tradition that began in the 1850s with compositions by
W. T. Best and William Spark. With the expansion of the
instrument's capabilities came an opportunity for
organist-composers to consider the repertoire anew with many
factors reinforcing a desire to elevate the literature to new
heights. This study begins by examining the legacy of the keyboard
sonata in Britain and especially the pedagogical lineage that was
to be seen through Mendelssohn and ultimately the early organ
sonatas. The abiding influence of William Crotch's lectures are
studied to illuminate how a culture of conservatism emboldened the
organist-composers towards compositions that were seen to represent
the ideals of the Classical era but in a contemporary vein. The
veneration of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven is then examined as
composers wrote "portfolio" sonatas, each with a movement in a
contrasting style to exhibit their compositional prowess while
providing repertoire for the novice and connoisseur alike. Finally
the volume considers how the British organist-composers who studied
at the Leipzig Conservatorium had a direct bearing on the
furtherance of an organ culture at home that in turn set the ground
for the seminal work in the genre, Elgar's Sonata of 1895.
Alfred's Basic Adult All-in-One Course is a greatly expanded
version of Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course that includes lesson,
theory, technic and additional repertoire in a convenient,
"all-in-one" format. This comprehensive course adds such features
as isometric hand exercises, finger strengthening drills, and
written assignments that reinforce each lesson's concepts. The
accompanying DVD includes an introduction to all the pages in the
book and performances of the pieces by well-known teacher, Gayle
Kowalchyk. Titles: Alouette * Alpine Melody * Amazing Grace * Au
Claire de la Lune * Aunt Rhody * Auld Lang Syne * Aura Lee * The
Bandleader * Beautiful Brown Eyes * Blow the Man Down * Blues for
Wynton Marsalis * Brother John * Caf? Vienna * The Can-Can *
Chasing the Blues Away * Chiapanecas * Cockles and Mussels * The
Cuckoo * Day is Done * Dueling Harmonics * The Entertainer * A
Friend Like You * Go Down, Moses * Good King Wenceslas * Good
Morning to You * Good People * Got Those Blues * Greensleeves *
Happy Birthday to You * Harmonica Rock * Harp Song * Here's a Happy
Song * He's Got the Whole World in His Hands * I'm Gonna Lay My
Burden Down * Jericho * Jingle Bells * Joy to the World *
Kum-ba-yah * Largo (Dvorak) * Lavender's Blue * Lightly Row *
Little Brown Jug * Liza Jane * London Bridge * Lone Star Waltz *
Love Somebody * Lullaby * The Marine's Hymn * Mary Ann * Merrily We
Roll Along * Mexican Hat Dance * Michael, Row the Boat Ashore *
Money Can't Buy Everything * My Fifth * Ode to Joy * On Top of Old
Smoky * O Sole Mio * Raisins and Almonds * Rock Along * Rockets *
Rockin' Intervals * Rock It Away * Scarborough Fair * Shoo, Fly,
Shoo * Skip to My Lou * Standing in the Need of Prayer * The
Stranger * Tisket, a Tasket * Waltzing Chords * Waltz Time * What
Can I Share * When the Saints Go Marching In * Why Am I Blue?
(Piano Solo Personality). Recorded in a remote monastery in Verona,
Ludovico Einaudi's In a Time Lapse explores the concept of
capturing emotions and experiences in a single moment in time. This
exclusive matching piano folio presents all 14 tracks from the
album plus five bonus pieces.
42 of the most famous classics arranged for simplified piano. These
enchanting melodies supply students of the first and second levels
of study with an introduction to the world's finest music.
(Faber Piano Adventures ). Book C of the Fabers' young beginner
method continues the staff-reading adventure with the introduction
of skips (3rds). Students first explore skips aurally and
kinesthetically across the full range of the keyboard. A delightful
variety of songs follow which carefully and comfortably guide the
child toward line-line and space-space staff recognition. The new
CD for Book C offers a unique listening experience with outstanding
orchestrations and vocals. The recordings demonstrate a key
principle of the course: when children listen, sing, tap, and move
to their piano music, they play more musically.
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.
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