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Books > Music > Musical instruments & instrumental ensembles
As the first compendium of musical instruments in the Bible, this
volume is both a reference book and a piece of serious scholarly
research based on historical facts, comparative linguistic
analysis, and careful musical study. In researching the musical
instruments in the Bible, the sources drawn on include the main
translations of the Bible both ancient and modern, the works of
rabbinic teachers, Church Fathers, medieval exegetes and
contemporary scholars. The Compendium contains a historical survey
and 34 specific entries. The survey outlines the background of
Hebrew instrumental music, its origin and links with neighbouring
cultures, the role of instruments in the religious, social, public
and private life of ancient Israel, and the system of musical
education. It also traces the development of Hebrew musical
instruments in post-biblical times, showing their new symbolic
significance in the writings of the Church Fathers, in the comments
of the Medieval and Renaissance exegetes, and culturally based
interpretations of the terms for the instruments in translations of
the Bible into different languages both ancient and modern. The
specific entries include the whole range of instrumental
terminology, including ambiguous terms that may have instrumental
meaning. The Compendium also contains indices, a glossary of
Biblical and Talmudic terms, a bibliography, a list of all the
references to musical instruments in the Bible, a table of
instrumental ensembles and a summary table of their names as found
in different Bible versions. The Compendium is intended for
specialists in various disciplines: theologians, historians,
philologists and Bible translators, as well as for all who would
like to have a deeper understanding of the Book of Books.
This book, the first of its kind, is a study of Bolognese
instrumental music during the height of the city's musical activity
in the late seventeenth century. The period"marked by a rapid
expansion of the cappella musicale of the principal city church,
San Petronio, by the founding of the Accademia Filarmonica, and by
increasingly lavish patronage of musical events"witnessed the
proliferation of repertory for instrumental ensembles. This music
not only reveals crucial stages in the development of the sonata
and concerto but also recalls the elaborate church rituals and the
opulent public and private celebrations in which they figured
prominently. Moreover, the late seventeenth century saw the heyday
of Bolognese music publishing, whose output of sonatas and related
instrumental genres easily surpassed that of the once-dominating
Venetian presses. The approach taken here departs from composer-
and genre-centered monographs on Italian instrumental music in
order to illuminate an array of topics that center on the Bolognese
repertory: the social condition of instrumentalist-composers; the
acumen of music publishers in the creation of the repertory; the
diverse contexts of the instrumental dances; the influence of
liturgical traditions on sonata topoi; the impact of psalmodic
practice on tonal style; and the innovative climate that led to
experiments with scoring and form in the earliest instrumental
concertos. In sum, this book not only illustrates the historically
significant and defining features of the music, but also links the
surviving repertory to the flourishing musical culture in which it
was created.
After decades of stagnation during the reign of his father, the
'Barracks King', the performing arts began to flourish in Berlin
under Frederick the Great. Even before his coronation in 1740, the
crown prince commenced recruitment of a group of musician-composers
who were to form the basis of a brilliant court ensemble. Several
composers, including C.P.E. Bach and the Graun brothers, wrote
music for the viola da gamba, an instrument which was already
becoming obsolete elsewhere. They were encouraged in this endeavour
by the presence in the orchestra from 1741 of Ludwig Christian
Hesse, one of the last gamba virtuosi, who was described in 1766 as
'unquestionably the finest gambist in Europe'. This study shows how
the unique situation in Berlin produced the last major corpus of
music written for the viola da gamba, and how the more virtuosic
works were probably the result of close collaboration between Hesse
and the Berlin School composers. The reader is also introduced to
the more approachable pieces which were written and arranged for
amateur viol players, including the king's nephew and ultimate
successor, Frederick William II. O'Loghlin argues that the
aesthetic circumstances which prevailed in Berlin brought forth a
specific style that is reflected not only in the music for viola da
gamba. Characteristics of this Berlin style are identified with
reference to a broad selection of original written sources, many of
which are hardly accessible to English-speaking readers. There is
also a discussion of the rather contradictory reception history of
the Berlin School and some of its composers. The book concludes
with a complete thematic catalogue of the Berlin gamba music, with
a listing of original manuscript sources and modern publications.
The book will appeal to professional and amateur viola da gamba
players as well as to scholars of eighteenth-century German music.
Since the publication of Solomon Volkov's disputed memoirs of
Dmitri Shostakovich, the composer and his music has been subject to
heated debate concerning how the musical meaning of his works can
be understood in relationship to the composer's life within the
Soviet State. While much ink has been spilled, very little work has
attempted to define how Shostakovich's music has remained so
arresting not only to those within the Soviet culture, but also to
Western audiences - even though such audiences are often largely
ignorant of the compositional context or even the biography of the
composer. This book offers a useful corrective: setting aside
biographically grounded and traditional analytical modes of
explication, Reichardt uncovers and explores the musical
ambiguities of four of the composer's middle string quartets,
especially those ambiguities located in moments of rupture within
the musical structure. The music is constantly collapsing,
reversing, inverting and denying its own structural imperatives.
Reichardt argues that such confrontation of the musical language
with itself, though perhaps interpretable as Shostakovich's own
unique version of double-speak, also poignantly articulates the
fractured state of a more general form of modern subjectivity.
Reichardt employs the framework of Lacanian psychoanalysis to offer
a cogent explanation of this connection between disruptive musical
process and modern subjectivity. The ruptures of Shostakovich's
music become symptoms of the pathologies at the core of modern
subjectivity. These symptoms, in turn, relate to the Lacanian
concept of the real, which is the empty kernel around which the
modern subject constructs reality. This framework proves invaluable
in developing a powerful, original hermeneutic understanding of the
music. Read through the lens of the real, the riddles written into
the quartets reveal the arbitrary and contingent state of the
musical subject's constructed reality, reflecting pathologies ende
The easy way to get keyed up on the keyboard Where Piano For
Dummies helps budding musicians to master the black-and-white
musical keyboard, Keyboard For Dummies helps them understand the
possibilities that unfold when those black-and-whites are connected
to state-of-the-art music technology. Keyboard For Dummies explains
the ins-and-outs of modern keyboards and helps you get the most out
of their capabilities. Key content coverage includes: an overview
of the types of keyboards available today and how they differ from
acoustic pianos; expert advice on choosing the right keyboard for
your wants/needs and how to shop and compare the various models; a
close look at the types of sounds an electronic keyboard offers and
how to achieve them; step-by-step instruction on how to use
keyboards anywhere using external speakers, amps, home stereos,
computers, and tablets; guidance on how to use keyboard software
and applications to get the most out of keyboard technology; and
much more. * A multimedia component for this title will be hosted
at Dummies.com and includes companion audio tracks that demonstrate
techniques and sounds found in the book * Step-by-step instructions
make learning keyboard easy and fun * Introduces you to the musical
possibilities of the keyboard If you're new to the keyboard or
looking to take your skills to the next level, Keyboard For Dummies
is a thorough guide to the ins and outs of this popular instrument.
Born in 1885 in Porto, Portugal, to a middle-class musical family,
Guilhermina Suggia began playing cello at the age of five. A child
prodigy, she was already a seasoned performer when she won a
scholarship to study with Julius Klengel in Leipzig at the age of
sixteen. Suggia lived in Paris with fellow cellist Pablo Casals for
several years before World War I, in a professional and personal
partnership that was as stormy as it was unconventional. When they
separated Suggia moved to London, where she built a spectacularly
successful solo career. Suggia's virtuosity and musicianship, along
with the magnificent style and stage presence famously captured in
Augustus John's portrait, made her one of the most sought-after
concert artists of her day. In 1927 she married Dr Jose Casimiro
Carteado Mena and settled down to a comfortable life divided
between Portugal and England. Throughout the 1930s, Suggia remained
one of the most respected musicians in Europe. She partnered on
stage with many famous instrumentalists and conductors and
completed numerous BBC broadcasts. The war years kept her at home
in Portugal, where she focused on teaching, but she returned to
England directly after the war and resumed performing. When Suggia
died in 1950, her will provided for the establishment of several
scholarship funds for young cellists, including England's
prestigious Suggia Gift. Mercier's study of Suggia's letters and
other writings reveal an intelligent, warm and generous character;
an artist who was enormously dedicated, knowledgeable and
self-disciplined. Suggia was one of the first women to make a
career of playing the cello at a time when prejudice against women
playing this traditionally 'masculine' instrument was still strong.
A role model for many other musicians, she was herself a fearless
pioneer.
Teach kids how to play the recorder with fun lessons and sheet
music for beginners. The recorder is the most widely taught
instrument in schools. For the majority of children, it is their
first introduction to playing and reading music. This book which is
part of a scheme is designed for teaching new notes - D, F sharp
and high D. Recorder magic is an acclaimed recorder method for
beginners, with fresh new tunes and performance opportunities right
from the start. Perfect resources for whole class teaching of
recorders in the Wider Opportunities classroom. Suitable for both
generalist and specialist teachers.
'A Compendium of Musical Instruments and Instrumental Terminology
in the Bible' draws on extensive historical research, comparative
linguistic analysis and musical study to offer the first
compilation of its kind. The volume examines the entire range of
musical instruments in the Bible - stringed, wind and percussion -
drawing on ancient and modern translations of the Bible and the
works of rabbinic teachers, Church Fathers and medieval,
renaissance and contemporary scholars. The book offers a historical
survey of Hebrew instrumental music - its origins and links with
neighbouring cultures, the role of instruments in the religious,
social, public and private life of ancient Israel, and the system
of musical education - and explores the understanding of Hebrew
musical instruments in post-biblical times. This comprehensive
volume will be invaluable to musicologists, archaeologists,
theologians, historians, philologists and Bible translators, as
well as general readers in the subject.
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.
Luck s in My Corner is a comprehensive biography of one of the
most compelling jazz musicians of the Swing Era, Oran "Hot Lips
Page. Page was the greatest of the Kansas City trumpeters, whose
crackling, growling solos made him the go-to man during Count Basie
s earliest days as a bandleader. Page went on to be a featured
trumpeter with Artie Shaw, a star of New York s 52nd street, and a
pioneer of the R & B scene of the 1950s. This book presents an
in-depth chronology of Page s career, with special attention paid
to the development of his trumpet style.
Luck s in My Corner examines the life and music of a forgotten
figure of the Swing Era and returns him to his rightful place as a
leading light in the world of jazz. Todd Bryant Weeks has combined
genealogical, musicological, discographical and historical
research, resulting in a revealing and entertaining examination of
a life that spanned major changes in American popular music. This
book includes a new and complete discography by the author and
dozens of unpublished photos. "
Hot Lips Page was a seminal figure in the history of jazz trumpet.
After making his name as the top trumpeter in Kansas City in the
middle 1930s, he moved to New York City and performed in Harlem and
on 52nd Street, headlining at the Apollo Theater and in Greenwich
Village. He was a star trumpet soloist with Artie Shaw's Orchestra
in 1941. He recorded with Billie Holiday and Pearl Bailey and made
many early TV appearances in the 1950s. Perhaps most significantly,
Page was also one of the greatest blues players of his generation.
Dizzy Gillespie may have said it best, When it comes to the blues,
don't mess with Lips, nobody not Louis, not Roy, not me.Despite his
many successes, Page's personal life was fraught with troubles. His
father died when his son was eight, and the boy was forced to leave
school and go to work to help support his family. Page's second
wife, Myrtle, who by all accounts was the love of his life, died
suddenly in New York in 1946 at the age of twenty-eight, leaving
Hot Lips as the sole parent of their young son, Oran Jr. Throughout
the 1940s, he struggled to maintain his audience as the popular
style of music changed from Swing to Bebop to Rhythm and Blues.He
died suddenly of a heart attack in 1954, at age forty-six. Through
the use of interviews, anecdotes and oral histories, author Todd
Bryant Weeks has pieced together Page's personal story. He has
contacted dozens of people (many in their eighties and nineties),
who knew Page personally, and has spent many hours interviewing
several of Page's family members, including his son, Oran Page,
Jr., who is now a Municipal Judge in Jackson, Mississippi. Weeks
has also been granted access to files, photographs and personal
scrapbooks belonging to Page at the Institute of Jazz Studies in
Newark, New Jersey. Luck's In My Corner: The Life and Music of Hot
Lips Page is the definitive work on this legendary jazz figure.
Compositional Process in Elliott Carter's String Quartets is an
interdisciplinary study examining the evolution and compositional
process in Elliott Carter's five string quartets. Offering a
systematic and logical way of unpacking concepts and processes in
these quartets that would otherwise remain opaque, the book's
narrative reveals new aspects of understanding these works and
draws novel conclusions on their collective meaning and Carter's
place as the leading American modernist. Each of Carter's five
string quartets is driven by a new idea that Carter was exploring
during a particular period, which allows for each quartet to be
examined under a unique lens and a deeper understanding of his
oeuvre at large. Drawing on key ideas from a variety of subjects
including performance studies, philosophy, music cognition, musical
meaning and semantics, literary criticism, and critical theory,
this is an informative volume for scholars and researchers in the
areas of music theory and musicology. Analyses are supplemented
with sketch study, correspondence, text manuscripts, and other
archival sources from the Paul Sacher Stiftung, the Library of
Congress, and the New York Public Library.
Isolde Ahlgrimm (1914-1995) was an important pioneer in the revival
of Baroque and Classical keyboard instruments in her native city,
Vienna, and later, throughout Europe and the United States. She
trained as a pianist at the Musikakademie in Vienna under the
instruction of Viktor Ebenstein, Emil von Sauer and Franz Schmidt.
In 1934 she met the musical instrument collector, Dr Erich Fiala,
whom she married in 1938. His activities opened up the world of
early instruments to her. Using a 1790 fortepiano by Michael
Rosenberger, Isolde Ahlgrimm began her career as a specialist on
early keyboard instruments with the first in her notable series of
Concerte fA1/4r Kenner und Liebhaber, given in Vienna's Palais
Palffy in February 1937. Ahlgrimm's career as a harpsichordist also
began in 1937, when a new instrument was commissioned from the
Ammer brothers in Eisenberg, Germany. In 1943 Ahlgrimm performed
her first all-harpsichord programme, which consisted of the
Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach. From 1949 to 1956, she devoted
herself to performing and recording nearly all of Bach's
harpsichord music for the newly-founded Dutch label, Philips,
presenting her new approach to the harpsichord to a wider audience.
Ahlgrimm's performances of Baroque music represented a radical
departure from the distinctly twentieth-century interpretations by
the much more famous Wanda Landowska and her followers. Most
obviously, Ahlgrimm's harpsichord performances eliminated frequent
registration changes (her instrument had hand stops rather than
pedals to change registers), and largely eschewed the massive
ritardandi and other anachronistic performance practices that were
hallmarks of Landowska's essentially Romantic style. Ahlgrimm
researched and emphasized rhetorical traditions on which the music
was based. This became more pronounced throughout the course of her
later performing, writing and teaching career, and it was the
beginning of an approach to the performance of eighteenth-century
music which was later further developed by Gustav Leonhardt,
Nikolaus Harnoncourt and their students. Peter Watchorn provides an
engaging study of this pioneer, and argues that Isolde Ahlgrimm's
contribution to the harpsichord and fortepiano revival was pivotal,
and that her use of period instruments and the inspiration she
instilled in younger musicians, including Nikolaus Harnoncourt and
Gustav Leonhardt, has been almost entirely overlooked by the wider
musical world.
(Willis). A comprehensive step-by-step course specifically designed
to suit the needs of all children beginning the piano. Includes:
characters and illustrations * writing exercises * sight reading
drills * review work * accompaniments * and more.
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.
Jazz Guitar Styles is an instruction book designed for the
guitarist who already knows the fundamentals but wishes to explore
the "classic" style of swing-era guitar. It offers a clear, concise
introduction to the basics of jazz guitar, built on the student's
basic knowledge of forming chords and basic picking patterns. Jazz
Guitar Styles opens this world to any guitarist who has a basic
knowledge of guitar technique and willingness to learn.
Acoustic Blues Guitar Styles is an introduction to fingerstyle
acoustic blues guitar, the style made popular by Robert Johnson,
Bill Broonzy, and Mance Lipscomb. Following the success of the
popular Acoustic Guitar Styles, Larry Sandberg's Acoustic Blues
Guitar Styles is an instructional book geared towards the
intermediate guitar player, not only to teach fingerstyle blues
technique, but also to approach the music creatively and with
feeling and rhythm. Part One teaches you the preliminaries, such as
reading a chord chart and working out a 12-bar blues in different
keys. Part Two teaches you touch, timing, and basic fingerpicking
technique. Part Three teaches you how to play stylistically, with
lessons on how to incorporate bends, vibrato, alternating
bassnotes, and rhythmic variations into your playing. All musical
exercises are presented in both standard notation and tablature,
and are supported by audio tracks. Customers purchasing the eBook
version of this title will be able to download the supporting audio
tracks. Instructions on downloading the files can be found on the
contents page.
Twelve-tone and serial music were dominant forms of composition
following World War II and remained so at least through the
mid-1970s. In 1961, Ann Phillips Basart published the pioneering
bibliographic work in the field.
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