Shura Cherkassky's life story, like his piano playing, is provocative and captivating. At his death in 1995, Cherkassky was considered one of history's greatest pianists, as well as the last direct link to the Romantic piano tradition of Chopin, Liszt, and Anton Rubinstein. Cherkassky's story merits telling not only for his musical achievements but also for the inspiration he provided by demonstrating tenacity, integrity, common sense, and uncommon courage. Cherkassky began his concert playing life in Ukrainian Odessa at a time of lethal civil strife. Escaping with his parents to America, the child prodigy came under the tutelage of famed pianist Josef Hofmann, whose unfailing personal and professional assistance continued for more than twenty years. Cherkassky overcame poverty, prejudice against his Jewish origins, and unhappiness from his ambivalence over his homosexuality to forge an impressive touring and recording career, an enormous musical repertoire, and an intriguing personality both on stage and off. From his sensational 1923 American debut tour to sold-out concerts on six continents, Cherkassky retained his brilliance throughout a seventy-five year professional career. As a close friend for his last twenty years, author Elizabeth Carr traveled with Cherkassky on tour, attending recording and rehearsal sessions and watching him practice, plan programs, and cope with pianos, acoustics, conductors, and orchestras. Her role as confidante results in a keen understanding of Cherkassky both as a human being and a performer. Through observations, anecdotes, sixteen pages of photos, and personal correspondence reprinted in the book, this biography offers extensive research never before published, and an intimate look at the man and his music.

(Willis). This piano course provides the student the opportunity to experience the joy of playing while learning the rudiments of music in a logical order, with gradual and steady progress, presenting a challenge toward increasing pianistic facility.

In his nearly forty-year career, Johann Scheibe became Leipzig's most renowned organ builder and one of the late Baroque's masters of the craft. Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Kuhnau considered Scheibe a valued colleague. Organists and civic leaders shared their high opinion, for Scheibe built or rebuilt every one of the city's organs. Drawing on extensive research and previously untapped archival materials, Lynn Edwards Butler explores Scheibe's professional relationships and the full range of his projects. These assignments included the three-manual organ for St. Paul's Church, renovations of the organs in the important churches of St. Thomas and St. Nicholas, and the lone surviving example of Scheibe's craft, a small organ in the nearby village of Zschortau. Viewing Scheibe within the context of the era, Butler illuminates the music scene of Bach's time as she follows the life of a gifted craftsman and his essential work on an instrument that anchored religious musical practice and community.

(Willis). The tunes in the New Orleans Jazz Styles series are written for piano students of intermediate level. The composer-teacher believes that every student's musical education should include experiences in a variety of popular stylings, including jazz, as a recurring phase of his or her studies. Students should also be encouraged to deviate from the written notes with their own improvisations if desired, for spontaneity is an essential ingredient of the jazz idiom.

A piece a week Piano Grade 2 is ideal to be used alongside the Improve your sight-reading! series, graded piano books to support and improve the reading skills so fundamental to successful sight-reading. These fun, short pieces are specifically written to be learnt one per week. By continually reading accessible new repertoire, the crucial processing of information and hand-eye coordination are established and improved, developing confident sight-reading. The ability to sight-read fluently is a vital skill, enabling students to learn new pieces more quickly and play with other musicians. The best-selling Improve your sight-reading! series, by renowned educationalist Paul Harris, is designed to develop sight-reading skills, especially in the context of graded exams.

A piece a week Piano Grade 1 is ideal to be used alongside the Improve your sight-reading! graded piano books to support and improve the reading skills so fundamental to successful sight-reading. These fun, short pieces are specifically written to be learnt one per week. By continually reading accessible new repertoire, the crucial processing of information and hand-eye coordination are established and improved, developing confident sight-reading. The ability to sight-read fluently is a vital skill, enabling students to learn new pieces more quickly and play with other musicians. The best-selling Improve your sight-reading! series, by renowned educationalist Paul Harris, is designed to develop sight-reading skills, especially in the context of graded exams.

Designed to help you become a complete, all-around pianist. Can be used by anyone who has followed The Complete Piano Player or a course of similar standards. Teaches seventeen styles which are played today, from boogie-woogie to the Richard Clayderman style. Based on famous hit songs and popular standards.

(Educational Piano Library). Hal Leonard Student Piano Library mascots Spike, Party Cat and friends guide students through fun and creative assignments that introduce the language of music and its symbols for sound, silence and rhythm. Ear training and basic theory exercises help students learn to write and play the music they are learning, as well as music they create themselves. Now updated to correlate with the newly revised Piano Lessons Book 3

Part of the best-selling Improve your sight-reading! Series by renowned educationalist Paul Harris, Improve your sight-reading! Trinity Edition Piano Grade 2 has been specifically written to support the Trinity College London sight-reading criteria and reflects Trinity's parameters for Grade 2. Improve your sight-reading! Series is designed to help you overcome all your sight-reading problems. These books follow the same progressive format as previous editions where technical aspects are introduced step-by-step, firstly through rhythmic and melodic exercises, then by studying prepared pieces with associated questions, and finally by 'going solo' with a series of meticulously graded sight-reading pieces.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). The new Level 4 Technique & Artistry Book combines two elements of pianism: technical skill and artistic performance. This smooth, integrated approach builds basic elements of piano technique, always directed toward an artistic goal. Four powerful exercises called "Technique Secrets" help intermediate students build a strong technical foundation. "Artistry Magic" pieces at the end of each unit explore expressive playing.

The fast way to find just the chord or scale you need. This user-friendly reference book is jam-packed with over 1,400 chords and voicings and includes a "jam session" with 20 original songs using common chord progressions.

Perhaps the best collection of elementary duets ever written. Ideally suited for use with The Music Tree, Part B and Part C. The parts are of nearly equal difficulty so that the duets may be experienced by two elementary pianists. Federation Festivals 2011-2013 selection.

This work offers a selection of Philip Glass's most successful and best-loved pieces for solo Piano, brought together in one collection. These pieces include selections from the BAFTA-winning and 2003 Academy Award[registered] nominated film "The Hours". Also included is the "Trilogy Sonata for Piano" and pieces from the "Metamorphosis Suite". The songs include: "An Unwelcome Friend", "Dead Things", "I'm Going To Make A Cake", "Something She Has To Do", "Tearing Herself Away", "The Hours", "The Poet Acts", "Why Does Someone Have To Die?", and, "Metamorphosis". The Trilogy Sonata for piano includes: "Knee Play No.4" (from "Einstein on the Beach"); "Satyagraha" (Conclusion, Act III); "Dance from 'Akhnaten'" (Scene III); "Modern Love Waltz"; and "Opening Piece" from "Glassworks".

Play jazz piano with new facility and expression as Ray Santisi, one of the most revered educators at the Berklee College of Music - and mentor to Keith Jarrett, Diana Krall, Joe Zawinul, and thousands of others - reveals the pedagogy at the core of Berklee's jazz piano curriculum. From beginning through advanced levels, Berklee Jazz Piano maps the school's curriculum: a unique blend of theory and application that gives you a deep, practical understanding of how to play jazz. Concepts are illustrated by the accompanying practice CD, where you'll hear how one of the great jazz pianists and educators of our time applies these concepts to both jazz standards and original compositions, and how you can do the same. You will learn: * Jazz chords and their characteristic tension substitutions, in many voicings and configurations * Modes and scales common in jazz * Techniques for comping, developing bass lines, harmonizing melodies, melodizing harmonies, and improvisation * Practice techniques for committing these concepts to your muscle memory * Variations for solo and ensemble playing * Advanced concepts, such as rhythmic displacement, approach-chord harmonization, and jazz counterpoint

Notes Become Music: A Guidebook from the Viennese Piano Tradition addresses the many unwritten nuances of dynamics, articulation and agogics as an expression of fundamental principles of a common European musical language. It treats the score as an incomplete musical shorthand that outlines the compositional and interpretive imperatives implicit within it, drawing on historical records from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and detailed comparisons of works to underline the author's presentation of Viennese tradition. This book is not primarily concerned with questions of style or interpretation. Rather, it explains the many facets of musical notation that were taken for granted by composers who assumed a knowledge of the piano tradition of their day. Notes Become Music informs not only those students in countries where the central European music tradition is still unfamiliar, but also a younger generation of Europeans who have grown up without a living connection to their musical past.

This book presents figured harmony as a form of aural training. It seeks to make the student more keenly aware of chord-relationships as actual sound. It will increase the student's power to form an inward realization of what a page of music is going to sound like without having actually heard it.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). This highly effective sightreading course is developed specifically for the needs of the older beginner. There are five variations of each piece from the Accelerated Lesson Book 1, one for each day between lessons. Learning activities scattered throughout the book build pattern recognition skills. Concepts include: fundamental rhythms (including eighth notes), all the notes of the grand staff, intervals, and five-finger scale melodies in C and G.