The Encyclopedia of Organ includes articles on the organ family of instruments, including famous players, composers, instrument builders, the construction of the instruments, and related terminology. It is the first complete A-Z reference on this important family of keyboard instruments. The contributors include major scholars of music and musical instrument history from around the world.

For the advanced pianist, this etude by Chopin featuring rapid arpeggios and harmonic modulations based on the key of A-flat major was named "Aeolian Harp" by Robert Schumann. The piece consists of a right-hand melody with left-hand accompaniment. The principal melody falls on the fifth finger of the right hand at the beginning of each sextuplet. Occasional polyrhythms are introduced in the accompaniment.

This book contains valuable material to help players strengthen their sight-reading skills in preparation for the ABRSM Grade 2 exam. Featuring preparatory exercises that gradually introduce key new elements encountered at Grade 2, along with a comprehensive selection of sample sight-reading pieces, More Piano Sight-Reading supports students with the transition between grades, and encourages them to integrate sight-reading into their daily practice. More Piano Sight-Reading is available for ABRSM Grades 1 to 8, offering additional support for the sight-reading requirements of the current syllabus.

This new edition of The Keyed Bugle is an expansion rather than a revision of the first edition. The performance practice discussion has been extended to cater to the needs of the reader who wishes to learn the instrument. All chapters contain new information, and the chapters on Performers, Makers and Sellers have been extensively expanded. An additional chapter offers an explanation of the peculiarly distinct acoustics of keyed bugles and provides an analysis of construction styles employed by particular makers. After closely researching instruments that have been documented by the signatures of specific firms and comparing them with unmarked examples, the author enables readers to make confident observations on the nature of regional and manufacturer's styles. The new research in this area provides the groundwork for informed speculation about the origins of undocumented keyed bugles. This work puts the best of current research on the instrument into book form and provides the collector, performer, and serious music student with a clear picture of the instrument's history, repertoire, and technique.

This book contains valuable material to help players strengthen their sight-reading skills in preparation for the ABRSM Grade 3 exam. Featuring preparatory exercises that gradually introduce key new elements encountered at Grade 3, along with a comprehensive selection of sample sight-reading pieces, More Piano Sight-Reading supports students with the transition between grades, and encourages them to integrate sight-reading into their daily practice. More Piano Sight-Reading is available for ABRSM Grades 1 to 8, offering additional support for the sight-reading requirements of the current syllabus.

This book contains valuable material to help players strengthen their sight-reading skills in preparation for the ABRSM Grade 6 exam. Featuring preparatory exercises that gradually introduce key new elements encountered at Grade 6, along with a comprehensive selection of sample sight-reading pieces, More Piano Sight-Reading supports students with the transition between grades, and encourages them to integrate sight-reading into their daily practice. More Piano Sight-Reading is available for ABRSM Grades 1 to 8, offering additional support for the sight-reading requirements of the current syllabus.

This resource considers the Baroque cello's revival as part of the period instrument movement from the viewpoints of over forty cellists from three generations and four luthiers who have worked on period cellos. What emerges is a nuanced and detailed picture of the cello in the past and present and the varied instruments now played under the label "Baroque cello." Period instruments played with appropriate techniques have become a major presence in classical music in recent decades. For the cello, which changed substantially between the end of the sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries, it is challenging to describe specific traits for certain time periods, let alone how it was played in those periods. By chronicling the searches of over forty top cellists in England, Europe, and North America, the author goes far in revealing the great variety of forms that exist. This is the first study in which the revival of a single period instrument has been considered in such qualified detail and will be of great interest to musicologists, luthiers, and anyone interested in string history.

Piano Makers in Russia in the Nineteenth Century is a richly detailed thematic study of the history of the piano in Russian society from its beginnings with the European artisans who settled in St. Petersburg in the early decades of the century through the transition to Russian-owned family firms. The piano played a defining role in the shaping of Russia's musical culture in the nineteenth century, as artisans and entrepreneurs provided the foundation for the great tradition of the Russian virtuoso in the performance and the composition of piano music. It also helped bring about a transformative change in the material culture, as the piano expanded its reach from the court and the nobility to include music enthusiasts from all social classes and Russian families in their homes. This historical study brings to light the impact of neglected piano artisans in nineteenth-century Russia, and presents a fresh view of the social and economic ties between the state and the piano-manufacturing artisans in an era largely defined by handcrafting and entrepreneurship.It contributes significantly to current issues surrounding the role of the piano and the entrepreneur-artisans in the urban centers of imperial Russia and represents an expansion of what is currently known about the piano builders who established workshops in Russia beginning in the late 1830s and 1840s, well before the heyday of the virtuoso in that country. Rare documents, including letters, memoirs, gazettes, exhibition catalogues, music journals, and administrative reports, form the nucleus of this book and provide fascinating insights about state and private patronage and the class/economic issues related to the affordability and prestige of the piano in Russia. Issues surrounding the transformation of the music industry in Russia, the role of women as patrons and performers, the exportation of instruments to the Russian Far East, and the complex system of tariffs and trade protection that benefited domestic piano manufacturers provide this book's thematic links.Conclusions indicate that while favorable tariff laws and state-imposed economic policies benefited the family-owned firms in the nineiteenth century, they remained in effect in the decades after the nationalization of the piano industry in 1917.

This book takes as its historical point of departure the radical appearance in 1779 of technically difficult keyboard music in a set of six sonatas (Op. 2) by Muzio Clementi. The difficult passages contained in this opus are unique amongst keyboard music published for a market that was understood at the time to consist almost entirely of female amateur keyboardists. Previously actively discouraged from practicing or improving their skills due to the restrictive ideologies in place, Clementi's music increasingly affords female pianists a new kind of musical expression. Clementi and the woman at the piano: Virtuosity and the market for music in eighteenth-century London maps the social, musical, and gendered implications of technically difficult music and helps to underline important changes in Enlightenment culture and keyboard practice. Clementi's activities initiated the now familiar and modern concepts of repetitive musical practice, the work-concept, virtuosity itself, and the division between amateur and professional. Additionally, Clementi promotes a radical new mode of expression for female pianists that is at first highly controversial but slowly gains acceptance due to a widespread promotion of his music, instruments, and methods. Clementi's career is in many respects a perfect case study for the tensions between Enlightenment thinking and new Romantic ideologies.

Thomas Ravenscroft is best-known as a composer of rounds owing to his three published collections: Pammelia and Deuteromelia (both 1609), and Melismata (1611), in addition to his harmonizations of the Whole Booke of Psalmes (1621) and his original sacred works. A theorist as well as a composer and editor, Ravenscroft wrote two treatises on music theory: the well-known A Briefe Discourse (1614), and 'A Treatise of Practicall Musicke' (c.1607), which remains in manuscript. This is the first book to bring together both theoretical works by this important Jacobean musician and to provide critical studies and transcriptions of these treatises. A Briefe Discourse furthermore introduces an anthology of music by Ravenscroft, John Bennet, and Ravenscroft's mentor, Edward Pearce, illustrating some of the precepts in the treatise. The critical discussion provided by Duffin will help explain Ravenscroft's complicated consideration of mensuration, in particular.

The six string quartets comprising Joseph Haydn's Opus 20 (composed in 1772) are the first works in the genre to have received consistent critical attention from writers on music. The twenty-two quartets Haydn wrote before this date, though rarely discussed by historians and theorists and seldom performed in public, are nevertheless fundamental to the development of the quartet and thus inseparable from Opus 20 itself. This thoughtful discussion provides a basis upon which to study the quartet by showing how the relationship among the four players can best be understood as a musical dialogue. A methodology is developed for analyzing these quartets by focusing on the characteristics of string instruments that inform not only the style of the music, but also the materials of the composition. The changing relationships among the instruments reveal the level of sophistication evident in Haydn's early works and attest to the affinity these works have with his later masterpieces. Music scholars and educators will appreciate the generous musical examples and clear prose that explains the more detailed analysis of the Opus 20 set.

Beethoven's middle-period quartets, Opp. 59, 74 and 95, are pieces that engage deeply with the aesthetic ideas of their time. In the first full contextual study of these works, Nancy November celebrates their uniqueness, exploring their reception history and early performance. In detailed analyses, she explores ways in which the quartets have both reflected and shaped the very idea of chamber music and offers a new historical understanding of the works' physical, visual, social and ideological aspects. In the process, November provides a fresh critique of three key paradigms in current Beethoven studies: the focus on his late period; the emphasis on 'heroic' style in discussions of the middle period; and the idea of string quartets as 'pure', 'autonomous' artworks, cut off from social moorings. Importantly, this study shows that the quartets encompass a new lyric and theatrical impetus, which is an essential part of their unique, explorative character.

The Recital Books congratulate students for a job well done by providing correlated repertoire to their Lesson Books that are based on concepts they've already learned. As a result, the pieces are quickly mastered. Included are such familiar favorites as "Clementine" and "Arkansas Traveler," and originals with a classical feel like "Divertimento in D" and "Rondo."

A method in how to play jazz and hot guitar.

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.

Music theory is often seen as independent from - even antithetical to - performance. While music theory is an intellectual enterprise, performance requires an intuitive response to the music. But this binary opposition is a false one, which serves neither the theorist nor the performer. In Interpreting Chopin Alison Hood brings her experience as a performer to bear on contemporary analytical models. She combines significant aspects of current analytical approaches and applies that unique synthetic method to selected works by Chopin, casting new light on the composer's preludes, nocturnes and barcarolle. An extension of Schenkerian analysis, the specific combination of five aspects distinguishes Hood's method from previous analytical approaches. These five methods are: attention to the rhythms created by pitch events on all structural levels; a detailed accounting of the musical surface; 'strict use' of analytical notation, following guidelines offered by Steve Larson; a continual concern with what have been called 'strategies' or 'premises'; and an exploration of how recorded performances might be viewed in terms of analytical decisions, or might even shape those decisions. Building on the work of such authors as William Rothstein, Carl Schachter and John Rink, Hood's approach to Chopin's oeuvre raises interpretive questions of central interest to performers.

This innovative study of nineteenth-century cellists and cello playing shows how simple concepts of posture, technique and expression changed over time, while acknowledging that many different practices co-existed. By placing an awareness of this diversity at the centre of an historical narrative, George Kennaway has produced a unique cultural history of performance practices. In addition to drawing upon an unusually wide range of source materials - from instructional methods to poetry, novels and film - Kennaway acknowledges the instability and ambiguity of the data that supports historically informed performance. By examining nineteenth-century assumptions about the very nature of the cello itself, he demonstrates new ways of thinking about historical performance today. Kennaway's treatment of tone quality and projection, and of posture, bow-strokes and fingering, is informed by his practical insights as a professional cellist and teacher. Vibrato and portamento are examined in the context of an increasing divergence between theory and practice, as seen in printed sources and heard in early cello recordings. Kennaway also explores differing nineteenth-century views of the cello's gendered identity and the relevance of these cultural tropes to contemporary performance. By accepting the diversity and ambiguity of nineteenth-century sources, and by resisting oversimplified solutions, Kennaway has produced a nuanced performing history that will challenge and engage musicologists and performers alike.

Affordable, versatile, portable, and popular once again, the ukulele is an ideal instrument for lifelong music making that can also be an engaging component of school music programs. At the elementary or secondary level, students can use the ukulele to explore everything from music theory, improvisation, composition, and ear training, to repertoire that includes contemporary popular music. At a lesser expense than any other instrument which can do as much, the ukulele is perfect for breathing fresh air into any music program. Uke Can Do It provides everything music educators need to develop a ukulele program in their school, including: * A guide for first-time ukulele buyers * Beginner instruction in how to play the ukulele * Playlists of ukulele music by top performers * Strategies for proposing and outfitting a ukulele program * Classroom management tips * Support for use with special learners * Learning sequences in ukulele technique * Ideas for classroom use and performance * Scales and chord charts with fingering

This book includes biographical information on Carlos Prieto, his contributions to music, as well as a detailed catalog of 72 pieces commissioned and/or dedicated to him. A graduate of MIT and a former director of Fundidora, the biggest steel company in Mexico, Carlos Prieto decided at the age of 38 to abandon his career as a business man and become a full time professional cellist. Since then he has premiered over 90 pieces, most of them commissioned and/or dedicated to him by Latin-American composers. These commissions and dedications represent about 50 percent of the music written for the cello by Latin-American composers. This is the first time a study has been conducted on this body of music.

In 1942, drummer Viola Smith sent shock waves through the jazz world by claiming in Down Beat magazine that "hep girls" could sit in on any jam session and hold their own. In Women Drummers: A History from Rock and Jazz to Blues and Country, Angela Smith takes Viola at her word, offering a comprehensive look at the world of professional drumming and the women who had the courage and chops to break the barriers of this all-too-male field. Combining archival research with personal interviews of more than fifty female drummers representing more than eight decades in music history, Smith paints a vivid picture of their struggles to overcome discrimination-not only as professional musicians but in other parts of their lives. Women Drummers outlines the evolution of female drumming from pre-biblical times when women held important leadership roles to their silencing by the church during the Middle Ages to spearheading the fight for women's rights in the modern era. The stories and personal accounts of female drummers who bucked tradition and societal norms are told against the backdrop of the times in which they performed and the genres they represented, from rock and jazz to blues and country. Although women have proven time and time again that they can more than hold their own against their male counterparts, female drummers not only remain a minority, but their contributions have been obscured by the traditional chauvinistic attitudes in the music business and gender stereotypes that surround the drum itself as a "male" instrument. Women Drummers takes a major step forward in undoing this misconception by acknowledging the talent, contribution, and growing power of women drummers in today's music environment.

"The Premier Oboist of Europe": A Portrait of Gustave Vogt describes the life and achievements of the most prolific composer of oboe music in the nineteenth century. This book attempts to stimulate appreciation of Gustave Vogt (1781-1870) as musician and historical personality. It brings together portraiture, personal correspondence, concert reviews, autographs, and countless other documents including Vogt's Conservatoire exam reports, a detailed work list of Vogt's compositions, and the first complete transcription and translation of his unpublished oboe method. Despite his exceptional career and the seminal position in the history of the oboe, Vogt's long and active career have been largely passed over. He is remembered primarily for being the teacher of oboists who took up posts in France and England. In truth, however, during his long life Vogt witnessed huge transformations, affecting not only musical fashion but the social fabric of the world about him. After being trained at the Paris Conservatoire, he earned considerable repute from his appearances in concert hall and salon. Like most artists of his day, Vogt performed his own compositions but was also praised for his skill as a chamber musician, most notably in the wind quintet that premiered the works of Anton Reicha. As well as reawakening appreciation of a musician, known in his day as Europe's greatest oboist, this book posits an alternative viewpoint by writing history from the perspective of a musician caught up in the flow of his times-an extraordinary personality who was representative of the place and time in which he lived, rather than an exception to them.

40 really easy arrangements of popular classical tunes graded in order of increasing difficulty. Children (and adults ) will enjoy learning them as a welcome break from slogging away at all those exam pieces.

The (Well) Informed Piano addresses the technical, musical, artistic, ethical, and philosophical issues in piano methodology. Adding a new perspective and approach criteria to piano methodology, this book is essential reading for musicians, teachers, scholars, and music students. This text maintains continuity with the major contributions of Ludwig Deppe, Tobias Matthay, Grigory Kogan, Heinrich Neuhaus and George Kochevitsky.

A vivid (and startling) example of the "new musicology", Beethoven's Kiss is an interdisciplinary study of romantic pianism in relation to gender and sexuality, ultimately underscoring the extent to which the piano resonates with intimations of both homosexuality and mortality. The first chapter, on the amateur pianist, scrutinizes the way Andre Gide and Roland Barthes discuss piano playing, their favorite composers - and their homosexuality. Situating these discussions within the histories of sexuality and amateur pianism, the author argues that connections between musical and sexual mastery are shaped by the "performance" of class and gender. The second chapter examines the homoerotic basis of the creation of nineteenth-century piano music and the equally homoerotic basis of the twentieth-century recreation of this music. The title of the third chapter, "Beethoven's Kiss", refers to the apocryphal story that Beethoven kissed Liszt, then eleven, in public. The author recounts other quasi-sexual myths about nineteenth-century child prodigies, examining how and why these stories used to circulate and why they no longer do so. The next chapter examines the different ways nineteenth- and twentieth-century audiences sexualize famous pianists and polarize them along gender and sexual lines. The fifth chapter describes the gender, sexual, and class positioning of the "maiden" piano teacher in a variety of texts - interviews, memoirs, short stories, novels, and films. The book concludes with a far-ranging analysis of Liberace, who (with his silver candelabra) tried to perform upper-class status, who (with his devotion to Chopin) tried to perform highbrow taste, and who (with his closetedlifestyle) tried to perform heterosexuality.