Brother and sister Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn enjoyed a rare bond: they were intimate companions and theirs was one of the most significant musical relationships of the 19th century. They shared and commented on each other's compositions, each highly appreciative of the other but also offering frank, critical advice. Their travels produced some great music - Felix's best loved works, the Hebrides Overture and the Scottish Symphony, were inspired by his 1829 visit to Scotland, whilst Fanny's innovative piano cycle Das Jahr was a musical response to the tour of Italy she made in 1839-40. Combining letters and sketches with an accompanying narrative describing their journeys, this is a wonderful celebration of the two Mendelssohns and a portrait of Scotland and Italy of the time as seen through the eyes of two of the Romantic movement's most acclaimed composers.

Robert Lachmann's letters to Henry George Farmer, from the years 1923-38, provide insightful glimpses into his life and his progressive research projects. From an historical perspective, they offer critical data concerning the development of comparative musicology as it evolved in Germany during the early decades of the twentieth century. The fact that Lachmann sought contact with Farmer can be explained from their mutual, yet diverse interests in Arab music, particularly as they were then considered to be the foremost European scholars in the field. During the 1932 Cairo International Congress on Arab Music, they were selected as presidents of their respective committees.

Designed for use with the Guitar Cards Chord Starter Pack, this pack of 55 cards gives you over 50 of the coolest chords known to man. Small enough to fit into your back pocket or guitar case, they are an easy way to learn new chords - suitable for beginners, songwriters and teachers.

'This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius' - QUESTLOVE Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. He wasn't known to mainstream audiences, and when he died at age thirty-two, he had never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod, revered as one of the most important musical figures of the past hundred years. At the core of this adulation is innovation: as the producer behind some of the most influential rap and R&B acts of his day, Dilla created a new kind of musical time-feel, an accomplishment on a par with the revolutions wrought by Louis Armstrong and James Brown. Dilla and his drum machine reinvented the way musicians play. In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted Detroit childhood to his rise as a sought-after hip-hop producer to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death. He follows the people who kept Dilla and his ideas alive. And he rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of Motown soul to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. This is the story of a complicated man and his machines; his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators; and his undeniable legacy. Based on nearly two hundred original interviews, and filled with graphics that teach us to feel and "see" the rhythm of Dilla's beats, Dilla Time is a book as defining and unique as J Dilla's music itself. Financial Times Music Book of the Year 2022

Shortlisted for the 2021 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Australian History. Representing Australian Aboriginal Music and Dance 1930-1970 offers a rethinking of recent Australian music history. In this open access book, Amanda Harris presents accounts of Aboriginal music and dance by Aboriginal performers on public stages. Harris also historicizes the practices of non-Indigenous art music composers evoking Aboriginal music in their works, placing this in the context of emerging cultural institutions and policy frameworks. Centralizing auditory worlds and audio-visual evidence, Harris shows the direct relationship between the limits on Aboriginal people's mobility and non-Indigenous representations of Aboriginal culture. This book seeks to listen to Aboriginal accounts of disruption and continuation of Aboriginal cultural practices and features contributions from Aboriginal scholars Shannon Foster, Tiriki Onus and Nardi Simpson as personal interpretations of their family and community histories. Contextualizing recent music and dance practices in broader histories of policy, settler colonial structures, and postcolonizing efforts, the book offers a new lens on the development of Australian musical cultures. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Australian Research Council.

It's never too late to play piano is perfect for those who wished they'd learnt to play the piano when they were younger, or those who wish they hadn't given up. At last a truly grown-up approach to learning the piano! Pam Wedgwood, author of many popular piano series, takes you through the rudiments of piano technique and music theory in her own friendly style that's guaranteed to get results. The book is organized into clearly structured progressive units with a fabulous array of music to get you playing straight away, including Pam's own jazzy pieces, plenty of well-known classics and a smattering of pop and show tunes. Help and information is included at every step with top playing tips, technical boxes, fact files, general advice noticeboards, crosswords, recommended listening and boxes of fascinating musical history. The accompanying CD is packed with over 90 backing tracks as well as interactive activities to help you practice optional extras such as a teacher's accompaniment parts can be found below! This is an extensively revised and updated new edition for a new generation of beginners - proving it really is never too late! The ground-breaking It's never too late... Series gives adults the opportunity to learn the piano with a method devised especially for them. This best-selling tutor breaks the learning into manageable chunks, features accompanying CDs, and is packed with irresistible music and fascinating information - all the motivation needed to make learning fun!

French composer Maurice Ravel was described by critics as a magician, conjurer, and illusionist. Scholars have been aware of this historical curiosity, but none so far have explained why Ravel attracted such critiques or what they might tell us about how to interpret his music. Magician of Sound examines Ravel's music through the lens of illusory experience, considering how timbre, orchestral effects, figure/ground relationships, and impressions of motion and stasis might be experienced as if they were conjuring tricks. Applying concepts from music theory, psychology, philosophy, and the history of magic, Jessie Fillerup develops an approach to musical illusion that newly illuminates Ravel's fascination with machines and creates compelling links between his music and other forms of aesthetic illusion, from painting and poetry to fiction and phantasmagoria. Fillerup analyzes scenes of enchantment and illusory effects in Ravel's most popular works, including Bolero, La Valse, Daphnis et Chloe, and Rapsodie espagnole, relating his methods and musical effects to the practice of theatrical conjurers. Drawing on a rich well of primary sources, Magician of Sound provides a new interdisciplinary framework for interpreting this enigmatic composer, linking magic and music.

This second updated edition of Notes from a Jazz Life includes Digby Fairweather's career since the year 2000 as a jazz cornetist, band leader, educator and broadcaster, working with George Melly and leading his band the Half-Dozen. The book has much to offer to people who are even marginally interested in jazz in all its wide variety of forms as well as providing insights for regular jazz readers. The author provides revealing reflections on the personal life and career of a musician and, with a wealth of warm, hilarious anecdotes, he writes honestly about all the challenges, frustrations and rich rewards of being part of the jazz world.

The first scholarly discussion on the band, Pearl Jam and Philosophy examines both the songs (music and lyrics) and the activities (live performances, political commitments) of one of the most celebrated and charismatic rock bands of the last 30 years. The book investigates the philosophical aspects of their music at various levels: existential, spiritual, ethical, political, metaphysical and aesthetic. This philosophical interpretation is also dependent on the application of textual and poetic analysis: the interdisciplinary volume puts philosophical aspects of the band's lyrics in close dialogue with 19th- and 20th-century European and American poetry. Through this widespread philosophical examination, the book further looks into the band's immense popularity and commercial success, their deeply loyal fanbase and genuine sense of community surrounding their music, and the pivotal place the band holds within popular music and contemporary culture.