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Books > Music > Musical instruments & instrumental ensembles
This is a book to appeal to a wide range of readers - pianists of
every level from beginner to professional, piano teachers,
musicians of all kinds, and the broader community of music-lovers.
In Speaking the Piano, renowned pianist Susan Tomes turns her
attention to teaching and learning. Teaching music encompasses
everything from putting a drum in a child's hands to helping an
accomplished musician unlock the meaning and spirit of the
classics. At every stage, some fundamental issues keep surfacing.
In this wide-ranging book, Susan Tomes reflects on how her own
experience as a learner, in different genres from classical to
jazz, hasinfluenced her approach to teaching. She tells us how her
performing career has given her insight into what young performers
need to know, and how discussions with students have fed into her
own practice. She describes the brilliant and intriguing teachers
whose masterclasses opened her ears to the many ways in which music
can be brought alive and communicated. This is a book to appeal to
a wide range of readers - pianists of every level from beginnerto
professional, piano teachers, musicians of all kinds, and the
broader community of music-lovers. In a passionate contribution to
the ongoing debate about the place of music in education, Susan
Tomes argues that this most inspiring of arts can play a unique
role in personal development. This is a lovely, wise, elegantly
written book, filled with tips and anecdotes which could be helpful
and encouraging for any pianist, whether a beginner or
aprofessional. Above all it is a book in which one senses
constantly the deep love the author has for music itself, for its
ability to inspire, touch and, indeed, change lives. STEPHEN HOUGH
SUSAN TOMES is a multi-award-winning pianist whose career
encompasses solo, duo and chamber music playing; she has been at
the heart of the internationally admired ensembles Domus, the
Gaudier Ensemble and the Florestan Trio. Her lecture-recitals have
enabled many listeners to engage with the classics on a new level.
She is the author of four acclaimed books about performance: Beyond
the Notes (Boydell Press 2004), A Musician's Alphabet (Faber,
2006), Out of Silence (Boydell Press, 2010), and Sleeping in
Temples (Boydell Press, 2014).
The guitar has adapted to every musical evolution. Few musical
instruments have experienced such a wide variety of models, shapes,
colours and materials. This book features more than 160
instruments, spanning more than four centuries of guitar history.
They are the works of the great Italian and French craftsmen from
the 17th century to modern times. From the signature models such as
Les Paul and Stratocaster to the most surprising creations
(harp-guitars and Lap steel guitars), this book describes the
musical trends and features the favourite instruments of the great
masters.
1) This is the only book that is written as a coursebook for
Improv, and directed to the college classroom. 2) Brings various
aspects of the jazz learning process together -- practicing scales,
chord arpeggios and melodic motives in 12 keys, along with the
assimilation of the rhythmic nature of jazz and its related forms
of (primarily African American) music -- in one systematic,
organized and easy-to-assimilate manner. 3) Chapters are organized
with: - a paragraph or two explaining a particular scale/harmonic
basis or a common form used in jazz repertoire - suggested
exercises, from basic scales to advanced melodic motives taken
directly from recordings - a repertoire list that employs the
harmonic, melodic or formal aspects being discussed in each chapter
- concludes with a transcription of an improvised solo by a jazz
master which illustrates how theory is put into practice. 4)
Includes supplementary materials such as recordings of the
transcribed solos, relevant Aebersold Play-Along recordings, and
fake books
This book contains nine pieces from ABRSM's Grade 1 Piano syllabus
for 2021 & 2022, three pieces chosen from each of Lists A, B
and C. The pieces have been carefully selected to offer an
attractive and varied range of styles, creating a collection that
provides an excellent source of repertoire to suit every performer.
The book also contains helpful footnotes and, for those preparing
for exams, useful syllabus information. The enclosed CD features
inspiring recordings of all 30 pieces on the Grade 1 syllabus,
performed by Nikki Iles, Dinara Klinton, Robert Thompson and
Anthony Williams.
George Lawrence Stone's Stick Control is the original classic,
often called the bible of drumming. In 1993, Modern Drummer
magazine named it one of the top 25 drumming books of all-time. In
the words of the author, this is the ideal book for improving
"control, speed, flexibility, touch, rhythm, lightness, delicacy,
power, endurance, preciseness of execution, and muscular
coordination," with extra attention given to the development of the
weak hand. This indispensable book for drummers of all types
includes hundreds of basic to advanced rhythms and moves through
categories of single-beat combinations, triplets, short roll
combinations, flam beats, flam triplets and dotted notes, and short
roll progressions.
This book contains all the scales and arpeggios required for
ABRSM's Initial Grade Piano exam. It covers all the new
requirements from 2021.
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 book assesses the influence and reception of many different
forms of guitar playing upon the classical guitar and more
specifically through the prism of John Williams. Beginning with an
examination of Andres Segovia and his influence upon Williams'
life's work, a further three incisive chapters cover key areas such
as performance, perception, education and construction, considering
social and cultural contexts of the guitar over the past century. A
final chapter on new directions in classical guitar examines the
change in reception of the instrument from the mid-1970s to the
present day, and Williams' impact upon what might be termed
'standard classical guitar repertoire'. With in-depth discussion of
the cultural and perceptual impact of Williams' more daring
crossover projects and numerous musical examples, this is an
informative reference for all classical guitar practitioners, as
well as scholars and researchers of guitar studies, reception
studies, cultural musicology and performance studies. An online
lecture by the author and a transcript of the author's interview
with John Williams are also available as e-resources.
What does it mean to talk about musical coherence at the end of a
century characterised by fragmentation and discontinuity? How can
the diverse influences which stand behind the works of many late
twentieth-century composers be reconciled with the singular
immediacy of the experiences that they can create? How might an
awareness of the distinctive ways in which these experiences are
generated and controlled affect the way we listen to, reflect upon
and write about this music? Mark Hutchinson outlines a novel
concept of coherence within Western art music from the 1980s to the
turn of the millennium as a means of understanding the work of a
number of contemporary composers, including Thomas Ades, Kaija
Saariaho, Toru Takemitsu and Gyoergy Kurtag, whose music cannot be
fitted easily into a particular compositional school or analytical
framework. Coherence is understood as a multi-layered phenomenon
experienced, above all, in the act of listening, but reliant upon a
variety of other aspects of musical experience, including
compositional statements, analysis, and connections of aesthetic,
as well as listeners' own, imaginative conceptualisations.
Accordingly, the approach taken here is similarly multi-faceted:
close analytical readings of a number of specific works are
combined with insights drawn from philosophy and aesthetics, music
perception, and critical theory, with a particular openness to
novel metaphorical presentations of basic musical ideas about form,
language and time.
Music has long been a way in which visually impaired people could
gain financial independence, excel at a highly-valued skill, or
simply enjoy musical participation. Existing literature on visual
impairment and music includes perspectives from the social history
of music, ethnomusicology, child development and areas of music
psychology, music therapy, special educational needs, and music
education, as well as more popular biographical texts on famous
musicians. But there has been relatively little sociological
research bringing together the views and experiences of visually
impaired musicians themselves across the life course. Insights in
Sound: Visually Impaired Musicians' Lives and Learning aims to
increase knowledge and understanding both within and beyond this
multifaceted group. Through an international survey combined with
life-history interviews, a vivid picture is drawn of how visually
impaired musicians approach and conceive their musical activities,
with detailed illustrations of the particular opportunities and
challenges faced by a variety of individuals. Baker and Green look
beyond affiliation with particular musical styles, genres,
instruments or practices. All 'levels' are included: from adult
beginners to those who have returned to music-making after a gap;
and from 'regular' amateur and professional musicians, to some who
are extraordinarily 'elite' or 'successful'. Themes surrounding
education, training, and informal learning; notation and ear
playing; digital technologies; and issues around disability,
identity, opportunity, marginality, discrimination, despair,
fulfilment, and joy surfaced, as the authors set out to discover,
analyse, and share insights into the worlds of these musicians.
Digital technology is transforming the musical score as a broad
array of innovative score systems have become available to
musicians. From attempts to mimic the print score, to animated and
graphical scores, to artificial intelligence-based options, digital
scoring affects the musical process by opening up new possibilities
for dynamic interaction between the performer and the music,
changing how we understand the boundaries between composition,
score, improvisation and performance. The Digital Score:
Musicianship, Creativity and Innovation offers a guide into this
new landscape, reflecting on what these changes mean for
music-making from both theoretical and applied perspectives.
Drawing on findings from over a decade's worth of practice-based
experimentation in the field, author Craig Vear builds a framework
for understanding how digital scores create meaning. He considers
the interactions between affect, embodiment and digital scores,
offering the first comprehensive and critical consideration of an
exciting field with no agreed-upon borders. Featuring insights from
interviews with over fifty musicians and composers from across four
continents, this book is a valuable resource for music researchers
and practitioners alike.
The evolution of the mixed chamber ensemble of Schoenberg's Pierrot
lunaire and the growth of the Fires of London, one of the most
galvanizing groups in modern music. 2012 marked the centenary of
the first performance of Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, Op.
21, and over the last hundred years its mixed chamber ensemble has
become, in all its protean forms, a principal line-up for modern
music. This book, the first of its kind, chronicles the ensemble's
evolution from Pierrot's earliest performances, monitoring its
influence on the Continent as well as upon Walton, Britten, Lutyens
and Searle in Britain. In particular, it watches the growth of The
Pierrot Players [later The Fires of London] one of the most
galvanizing groups in post-war British music, and looks carefully
at the social dynamics among its players and composers, notably
Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle. With photos, and
drawings by Milein Cosman and David Hockney. CHRISTOPHER DROMEY
took his PhD at King's College London and is now Senior Lecturer in
Music at Middlesex University.
Winner of the Nicholas Bessaraboff Prize Musical repertory of great
importance and quality was performed on viols in sixteenth- and
early seventeenth-century England. This is reported by Thomas Mace
(1676) who says that 'Your Best Provision' for playing such music
is a chest of old English viols, and he names five early English
viol makers than which 'there are no Better in the World'.
Enlightened scholars and performers (both professional and amateur)
who aim to understand and play this music require reliable
historical information and need suitable viols, but so little is
known about the instruments and their makers that we cannot specify
appropriate instruments with much precision. Our ignorance cannot
be remedied exclusively by the scrutiny or use of surviving antique
viols because they are extremely rare, they are not accessible to
performers and the information they embody is crucially compromised
by degradation and alteration. Drawing on a wide variety of
evidence including the surviving instruments, music composed for
those instruments, and the documentary evidence surrounding the
trade of instrument making, Fleming and Bryan draw significant
conclusions about the changing nature and varieties of viol in
early modern England.
In recent years, scholars and musicians have become increasingly
interested in the revival of musical improvisation as it was known
in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. This historically informed
practice is now supplanting the late Romantic view of improvised
music as a rhapsodic endeavour-a musical blossoming out of the
capricious genius of the player-that dominated throughout the
twentieth century. In the Renaissance and Baroque eras, composing
in the mind (alla mente) had an important didactic function. For
several categories of musicians, the teaching of counterpoint
happened almost entirely through practice on their own instruments.
This volume offers the first systematic exploration of the close
relationship among improvisation, music theory, and practical
musicianship from late Renaissance into the Baroque era. It is not
a historical survey per se, but rather aims to re-establish the
importance of such a combination as a pedagogical tool for a better
understanding of the musical idioms of these periods. The authors
are concerned with the transferral of historical practices to the
modern classroom, discussing new ways of revitalising the study and
appreciation of early music. The relevance and utility of such an
improvisation-based approach also changes our understanding of the
balance between theoretical and practical sources in the primary
literature, as well as the concept of music theory itself.
Alongside a word-centred theoretical tradition, in which rules are
described in verbiage and enriched by musical examples, we are
rediscovering the importance of a music-centred tradition,
especially in Spain and Italy, where the music stands alone and the
learner must distil the rules by learning and playing the music.
Throughout its various sections, the volume explores the path of
improvisation from theory to practice and back again.
No band would be complete without a bass element giving depth and
unity. "How to Play Bass Guitar" contains everything the new or
intermediate bass player needs to perfect their playing of this
vital instrument. Highly practical, the book leads you from the
basics of how to hold, fret, pluck and play scales through to
playing chord-framing patterns and muted percussive rhythms -
understanding how the bass underpins the harmonies of a band. The
clear text is accompanied by illustrative photos and diagrams, and
the guide is complemented by a chord finder, scales and modes
finder, a glossary and further reading.
(Reference). Veteran musician and educator Mick Goodrick presents
practical information for guitarists who want to improve their
playing technique and style and simply become better musicians.
Rather than a step-by-step method book, the information is
presented in a general essay format, discussing ways that the
various techniques covered may be applied by the advancing
guitarist to enhance his/her own style of playing, some of the
areas discussed include: basic fingerboard mechanics * modes,
scales and chords * contemporary harmony * harmonica and overtone
influences * being self-critical * improvising short pieces *
different playing situations.
Teaching Strings in Today's Classroom: A Guide for Group
Instruction assists music education students, in-service teachers,
and performers to realize their goals of becoming effective string
educators. It introduces readers to the school orchestra
environment, presents the foundational concepts needed to teach
strings, and provides opportunities for the reader to apply this
information. The author describes how becoming an effective string
teacher requires three things of equal importance: content
knowledge, performance skills, and opportunities to apply the
content knowledge and performance skills in a teaching situation.
In two parts, the text addresses the unique context that is
teaching strings, a practice with its own objectives and related
teaching strategies. Part I (Foundations of Teaching and Learning
String Instruments) first presents an overview of the string
teaching environment, encouraging the reader to consider how
context impacts teaching, followed by practical discussions of
instrument sizing and position, chapters on the development of each
hand, and instruction for best practices concerning tone
production, articulation, and bowing guidelines. Part II
(Understanding Fingerings) provides clear guidance for
understanding basic finger patterns, positions, and the creation of
logical fingerings. String fingerings are abstract and thus
difficult to negotiate without years of playing experience-these
chapters (and their corresponding interactive online tutorials)
distill the content knowledge required to understand string
fingerings in a way that non-string players can understand and use.
Teaching Strings in Today's Classroom contains pedagogical
information, performance activities, and an online virtual teaching
environment with twelve interactive tutorials, three for each of
the four string instruments. ACCOMPANYING VIDEOS CAN BE ACCESSED
VIA THE AUTHOR'S WEBSITE: www.teachingstrings.online
(Faber Piano Adventures ). The 2nd Edition of this ground-breaking
book integrates of technique and artistry, giving students the
tools for expressive performance. Four effective "Technique
Secrets" open the book, followed by engaging technical exercises.
The "Artistry Magic" pieces at the end of each unit promote
expressive, pianistic playing for the Level 1 student.
Updated 2021/2, this is a step-by-step guide to playing the
electric guitar, shown in over 600 photographs, illustrations and
exercises. It shows you how to master a range of diverse musical
styles, such as funk and disco, heavy rock, indie rock, electric
blues, country guitar, jazz, lounge and reggae. It includes a
beautifully illustrated directory of over 250 electric guitars from
the 1930s up to the modern day. It discusses the complete history
of the electric guitar, from the early archtops and lap steels up
to the latest developments, including the Fender stratocaster, the
Gibson Les Paul, the electric bass and the superstrats. It contains
boxed features on influential electric heroes, such as Eric
Clapton, Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, Allan Holdsworth, B. B.
King, Jimmy Page, and many more. The electric guitar is arguably
the most important musical instrument of the modern age. This book
explains how to buy the right instrument and set it up, and how to
play. It demonstrates basic techniques and chords, and introduces
genres such as rock 'n' roll, jazz, heavy rock, metal and blues. A
history section explores the first electric guitars, and how the
great rivalry between Fender and Gibson led to an explosion in the
popularity of the instrument. With expert step-by-step
instructions, an illustrated directory of over 250 guitars, and
over 600 photographs and musical exercises, this comprehensive
manual is an essential guide for all electric guitarists.
Whether they're self-taught bashers or technical wizards, drummers
are the thrashing, crashing heart of our favorite punk bands. In
Forbidden Beat, some of today's most respected writers and
musicians explore the history of punk percussion with personal
essays, interviews and lists featuring their favorite players and
biggest influences. From 60s garage rock and proto-punk to 70s New
York and London, 80s hardcore and D-beat to 90s pop punk and
beyond, Forbidden Beat is an uptempo ode to six decades of punk
rock drumming. Featuring Tre Cool, Ira Elliot, Curt Weiss, John
Robb, Hudley Flipside, Bon Von Wheelie, Joey Shithead, Matt Diehl,
D.H. Peligro, Mike Watt, Lynn Perko-Truell, Pete Finestone, Laura
Bethita Neptuna, Jan Radder, Jim Ruland, Eric Beetner, Jon Wurster,
Lori Barbero, Joey Cape, Marko DeSantis, Mindy Abovitz, Steven
McDonald, Kye Smith, Ian Winwood, Phanie Diaz, Benny Horowitz,
Shari Page, Urian Hackney, and Rat Scabies.
Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry was originally published in 1971 and
has become the classic chord reference book for two generations of
guitarists. Whether you are just beginning to search beyond basic
barre chords or are already an advanced player looking for new
sounds and ideas this is the book that will get you there. Designed
to inspire creativity this book is a musical treasure chest filled
with exciting new ideas and sounds.
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