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.

(Faber Piano Adventures ). Writing Book C (the companion book for Lesson Book C) provides 64 colorful, fun-filled pages of writing, ear-training, and "CLAP for Sightreading" activities. A focus on reading skips leads students to cross bridges, connect flags, meet a mouse, and skip to deep-sea treasures, to name just a few Writing Book C engages children in the lives and melodies of classical composers introduced in the Lesson Book C. Take part in Haydn's Fun Facts and Game, make after-dinner music with Mozart, tap Beethoven's rhythms, and help Tchaikovsky tell the story of a doll with a broken arm. The valuable educational activities and vibrant illustrations of My First Piano Adventure are sure to delight the young beginner and teacher.

This book recounts the story of all the electric steel guitars - or electric 'Hawaiian' guitars, as they were called during most of their tenure - that were built by Gibson between 1935 and 1967. Hawaiian guitars were the most popular form of electric guitars until the 1950s, and they contributed to some crucial developments in pickups and amplification in addition to lending their voice to the earliest solid body electrics. Esthetically, the early postwar instruments are also amongst the coolest designs ever produced by Gibson. The following are the highlights of this title: over 450 illustrations, including a wealth of color pictures, catalog reproductions, and patent drawings; a comprehensive section on dating instruments; as well as detailed shipping totals for the 1935-1967 period.

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.

This survey of the string quartet by ten chamber music specialists focuses on four main areas: social and musical background to the genre's development; celebrated ensembles and their significance; and string quartet playing. It reviews aspects of contemporary and historical practice, including "mixed ensembles." Informative appendixes and a full chronology of the mainstream repertory complete this compact guide.

When aspiring violinist Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman lands a job with a professional ensemble in New York City, she imagines she has achieved her lifelong dream. But the ensemble proves to be a sham. When the group "performs", the microphones are never on. Instead, the music blares from a CD. The mastermind behind this scheme is a peculiar and mysterious figure known as The Composer, who is gaslighting his audiences with music that sounds suspiciously like the Titanic movie soundtrack. On tour with his chaotic ensemble, Hindman spirals into crises of identity and disillusionment as she "plays" for audiences genuinely moved by the performance, unable to differentiate real from fake. Sounds Like Titanic is a surreal, often hilarious coming-of-age story. Hindman writes with precise, candid prose and sharp insight into ambition and gender, especially when it comes to the difficulties young women face in a world that views them as silly, shallow and stupid. As the story swells to a crescendo, it gives voice to the anxieties and illusions of a generation of women, and reveals the failed promises of a nation that takes comfort in false realities.

Written late in his life, J. S. Bach's The Art of Fugue has long been admired-in some quarters revered-as one of his masterworks. Its last movement, Contrapunctus 14, went unfinished, and the enigma of its incompleteness still preoccupies scholars and musical conductors alike. In 1881, Gustav Nottebohm discovered that the three subjects of the movement could be supplemented by a fourth. In 1993, Zoltan Goencz revealed that Bach had planned the passage that would join the four subjects in an entirely unique way. This section has not survived, but, as Goencz notes, it must have been ready in the earliest phase of composition since Bach had created the expositions of the first three subjects from its "disjointed" parts. Goencz then boldly took on the task of reconstructing the original "template" by putting together the once separate pieces. In Bach's Testament: On the Philosophical and Theological Background of The Art of Fugue, Goencz probes the philosophic-theological background of The Art of Fugue, revealing the special structures that supported the 1993 reconstruction. Bach's Testament investigates the reconstruction's metaphysical dimensions, focusing on the quadruple fugue. As a summary of Zoltan Goencz's extensive research over many years, which resulted in the completion of the fugue, this work explores the complex combinatorial, philosophical and theological considerations that inform its structure. Bach's Testament is ideally suited not only to Bach scholars and musicologists but also intellectual historians with particular interests in 18th-century religious and philosophical ideas.

Duet for 2 pianos This arrangement has been made from a Soprano recitative and Aria from the Birthday Cantata by Bach. The piece has a fresh and pastoral character and the arrangement for two pianos stays true to Bach's balance between the beautiful melody and tone-painting in the harmonies.

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

This definitive encyclopaedic work explores the origins of percussion through the development of the early drums and xylophones right up to the wide range of modern instruments and the sounds they make. James Blades covers these early developments globally from China and the Far East, India and Tibet, the early civilisations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Persia through to mediaeval and renaissance Europe. He continues to examine the role of percussion in the classical and romantic orchestras and finally looks at the ways composers have pushed the boundaries in modern music. Each chapter has its own photographs, illustrations and bibliography and there are comprehensive indices referencing all the composers and works discussed. This extended edition includes two important new chapters. The first covers the rise of the solo percussionist and is written by the world's leading practitioner and one of Blades' former pupils, Dame Evelyn Glennie, who also contributes a new Foreword, while recent developments in orchestral percussion are covered by Neil Percy, Head of Timpani and Percussion at the Royal Academy of Music and Principal Percussionist of the London Symphony Orchestra.

In From Bach's Goldberg to Beethoven's Diabelli: Influence and Independence, music scholar and noted pianist Alfred Kanwischer gives readers an extended exploration in which each of Beethoven's 33 pieces that comprise the Diabelli Variations (Op. 120) is caringly examined and assessed for its ingredients, actions, personality, and influence on the whole. Counterpoint abounds, not only in the fugal variations, which are closely parsed, but throughout the Diabelli, revealing the noticeably Baroque character of the technical compositional devices Beethoven employs. Throughout his study, Kanwischer integrates comparisons with Bach's immortal Goldberg Variations. Both sets stand alone as among the greatest keyboard variations in the Western canon. During their creation, both composers were nearly the same age, at the zenith of their art, and in similarly felicitous frames of mind.Kanwischer underscores twenty essential similarities, from the use of melody and melodic outline and the comparability among variations in size, parallel design, ebullient outlook, increasing contrasts, daring virtuosic flights, Shakespearean blend of comic and tragic, and their respective cumulative rises to spiritual transcendence. From Bach's Goldberg to Beethoven's Diabelli takes readers on a journey of discovery that is lively and stimulating. It considers not only questions of influence but those of insight and understanding, offering a work useful not only as a reference but as a guide to performers, music instructors and devotees. This work also includes 70 visually annotated interpretive musical examples as aids to understanding.

Sebastien Erard's (1752-1831) inventions have had an enormous impact on instruments and musical life and are still at the foundation of piano building today. Drawing on an unusually rich set of archives from both the Erard firm and the Erard family, author Robert Adelson shows how the Erard piano played an important and often leading role in the history of the instrument, beginning in the late eighteenth century and continuing into the final decades of the nineteenth. The Erards were the first piano builders in France to prioritise the more sonorous grand piano, sending gifts of their new model to both Haydn and Beethoven. Erard's famous double-escapement action, which improved the instrument's response while at the same time producing a more powerful tone, revolutionised both piano construction and repertoire. Thanks to these inventions, the Erard firm developed close relationships with the greatest pianist composers of the nineteenth century, including Hummel, Liszt, Moscheles and Mendelssohn. The book also presents new evidence concerning Pierre Erard's homosexuality, which helps us to understand his reluctance to found a family to carry on the Erard tradition, a reluctance that would spell the end of the golden era of the firm and lead to its eventual demise. The book closes with the story of Pierre's widow Camille, who directed the firm from 1855 until 1889. Her influential position in the male-dominated world of instrument building was unique for a woman of her time.

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.

Sometimes pianists would love to play popular songs they enjoy but finding quality arrangements that work for piano can be a real challenge. In The Essential Film Collection, pianist Richard Harris takes 28 classic film songs from across the decades and makes well-crafted and satisfying arrangements for intermediate pianists to enjoy. Hits included the theme song from Rocky, James Bond, Chariots of Fire, and many more!

A piece a week Piano Grade 4 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.

Gretsch electric guitars have a style all their own a a glitzy wacky retro charm that over the years has drawn players from all kinds of popular music from timeless stars to unknown teens. The Beatles Chet Atkins Duane Eddy and Brian Setzer all made their mark with Gretsch and new bands continually discover and fall in love with the Falcons Gents 6120s Jets and the rest.THEThe Gretsch Electric Guitar BookE comes right up to the present including Gretsch's alliance to the powerful Fender company a move that has done wonders for the reliability and playability of the modern Gretsch axe. Every great model is here but the book also tells the story of the lesser-known guitars and the projects that almost never happened. There are archival and fresh interviews with Gretsch personnel over the years and with many leading Gretsch players including Chet Atkins Billy Duffy Duane Eddy and Brian Setzer.THIn the tradition of Tony Bacon's best-selling series of guitar books his updated and revised story of Gretsch is three great volumes in one: a compendium of luscious pictures of the coolest guitars; a gripping story from early exploits to the most recent developments; and a detailed collector's guide to every production electric Gretsch model ever made.

The book is an outline of the Armenian duduk, a cylindrical double-reed aerophone made of apricot-wood, and its relation to the Armenian identity. It attempts to deepen our understanding of musical instruments not only through an examination of musical and constructional features, but also through the application of a sociocultural framework which allows a theorization of the idea of the instrument as social being. The discussion is centered on the different contexts in which the duduk is played. These are divided into two categories: solo and ensemble. Solo duduk performance includes the remarkable phenomenon of Armenian funeral music activity. Other contexts include special celebrations of national culture, duduk competitions, the recording studio and the film music studio. The main ensemble contexts of duduk performance are the Armenian folk orchestras. These are essentially Soviet creations designed to "advance" folk music. Their impact on folk music and folk musical life on Armenia is discussed with special attention to the "adjustments" which were necessary for the success of this institution. Folk ensembles have long been emblems of Armenian national culture which might explain how they have survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Marxist-Leninist policies which were these orchestras' very raison d'etre. The book will appeal to anyone with an interest in organological theory, Armenian culture, or world music.

This book contains nine pieces selected from ABRSM's Grade 3 Flute syllabus from 2022. Key features: Nine pieces in a range of styles, chosen from Lists A, B and C - ideal for both Practical and Performance Grade exams. -Classic repertoire and newly commissioned pieces and arrangements.- Audio performances of the nine pieces by expert musicians, plus accompaniment-only tracks for use when practising (download code included in the book) Contents: Prelude from Te Deum, H. 146 [Marc-Antoine Charpentier] Study in F (No. 7 from 30 Etudes faciles et progressives pour la flute) [Giuseppe Gariboldi] Tiptoe and Tango [Sarah Watts] Mazurka Op. 138 [Aleksandr Tikhonovich Grechaninov] Distant Shores: No. 6 from 42 More Modern Studies for Solo Flute [James Rae] Pokarekare Ana [Trad. Maori / P. H. Tomoana] Blanche-Neige au bois Dormant (from Fantaisies, No. 5) [Octave Juste] The St Louis Rag [Tom Turpin] He's a Pirate (from 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl') [Hans Zimmer / Klaus Badelt / Geoff Zanelli]

In Sonata Fragments, Andrew Davis argues that the Romantic sonata is firmly rooted, both formally and expressively, in its Classical forebears, using Classical conventions in order to convey a broad constellation of Romantic aesthetic values. This claim runs contrary to conventional theories of the Romantic sonata that place this nineteenth-century musical form squarely outside inherited Classical sonata procedures. Building on Sonata Theory, Davis examines moments of fracture and fragmentation that disrupt the cohesive and linear temporality in piano sonatas by Chopin, Brahms, and Schumann. These disruptions in the sonata form are a narrative technique that signify temporal shifts during which we move from the outer action to the inner thoughts of a musical agent, or we move from the story as it unfolds to a flashback or flash-forward. Through an interpretation of Romantic sonatas as temporally multi-dimensional works in which portions of the music in any given piece can lie inside or outside of what Sonata Theory would define as the sonata-space proper, Davis reads into these ruptures a narrative of expressive features that mark these sonatas as uniquely Romantic.