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!

Violin Star is a three-book series offering beginner violinists a refreshing and inspirational choice of pieces to help build confidence and musical skills. The repertoire is imaginatively tailored to develop specific techniques through an exciting range of musical styles. This Student's book contains the solo violin parts, along with colourful illustrations, activities and a playalong CD. The Accompaniment book, available separately, includes piano and violin accompaniments for every piece. Key features of the series include: an approachable progression from beginner level to Grade 2; playalong CDs with each Student's book, which contain specially created instrumental arrangements to convey style and mood; and original compositions and arrangements by Edward Huws Jones.

This book explores historical and philosophical connections between music, leisure, and education. Specifically, it considers how music learning, teaching, and participation can be reconceptualized in terms of leisure. Taking as its starting point "the art of living" and the ethical question of how one should live, the book engages a wide range of scholarship to problematize the place of non-professional music-making in historical and contemporary (Western) conceptions of the good life and the common good. Part I provides a general background on music education, school music, the work ethic, leisure studies, recreation, play, and conduct. Part II focuses on two significant currents of thought and activity during the Progressive Era in the United States, the settlement movement and the recreation movement. The examination demonstrates how societal concerns over conduct (the "threat of leisure") and differing views on the purpose of music learning and teaching led to a fracturing between those espousing generalist and specialist positions. The four chapters of Part III take readers through considerations of happiness (eudaimonia) and the good life, issues of work-life balance and the play spirit, leisure satisfaction in relation to consumerism, individualism, and the common good, and finally, parenting logics in relation to extracurriculars, music learning, and serious leisure.

Shimmering in maximal minimalism, joyful bleakness, and bodiless intimacy, Laurie Anderson's Big Science diagnosed crises of meaning, scale, and identity in 1982. Decades later, the strange questions it poses loom even larger: How do we remain human when our identities are digitally distributed? Does technology bring us closer together or further apart? Can we experience the stillness of "now" when time is always moving? How does our experience become memory? Laurie Anderson pioneered new techniques and aesthetics in performance art, becoming its first and most enduring superstar. In this book, author S. Alexander Reed dives into the wonderfully strange making and meanings of this singular album and of its creator's long artistic career. Packed with scrupulous new research, reception history, careful description, and dizzying creativity, this book is an interdisciplinary love letter to a record whose sounds, politics, and expressions of gendered identity grow more relevant each day.

Practice makes perfect with this hands-on resource for mandolin players of all skill levels If you're looking for an accessible practice-based book to improve your playing, you've come to the right place. Mandolin Exercises For Dummies focuses on the skills that players often find challenging and provides tips, tricks and plenty of cool exercises that will have you picking with the best of them or at least much better than before! Mandolin Exercises For Dummies is packed with instruction from hundreds of exercises to drills and practice pieces. And it gets better. You'll also have online access to downloadable audio files for each exercise, making this practice-based package a complete mandolin companion. * Puts an overview of the fundamentals in perspective, helps you to use exercises to limber up, and much more * Dives into the major and minor arpeggios with triad patterns, then moves on to major 7th and minor 7th patterns * Details the major scales, then moves on to mastering the minor scales with practice exercises * Contains tips to help you practice better, including using a metronome, playing with recordings, and more Master the basics and sharpen your mandolin-playing skills with this reliable resource.

Composing with Constraints: 100 Practical Exercises in Music Composition provides an innovative approach to the instruction of the craft of music composition based on tailored exercises to help students develop their creativity. When composition is condensed to a series of logical steps, it can then be taught and learned more efficiently. With this approach in mind, Jorge Variego offers a variety of practical exercises to help student composers and instructors to create tangible work plans with high expectations and successful outcomes. Each chapter starts with a brief note on terminology and general recommendations for the instructor. The first five chapters offer a variety of exercises that range from analysis and style imitation to the use of probabilities. The chapter about pre-compositional approaches offers original techniques that a student composer can implement in order to start a new work. Based on lateral thinking, the last section of the book fosters creative connections with other disciplines such as math, visual arts, and architectural acoustics. The one hundred exercises contain a unique set of guidelines and constraints that place students in a specific compositional framework. These compositional boundaries encourage students to produce creative work within a given structure. Using the methodologies in this book, students will be able to create their own outlines for their compositions, making intelligent and educated compositional choices that balance reasoning with intuition.

Electronic Music School: A Contemporary Approach to Teaching Musical Creativity is a practical blueprint for teachers wanting to begin teaching music technology to secondary age students. Will Kuhn and Ethan Hein inspire classroom music teachers to expand beyond traditional ensemble-based music education offerings to create a culture of unique creativity and inclusivity at their schools. Part One offers an overview of the philosophical and institutional aspects of starting a music technology program, with a particular focus on the culture of electronic music surrounding digital music creation tools. Part Two dives deep into curricula for music lab classes, including several lesson examples and techniques. This section also includes abbreviated project plans for teachers who have fewer contact hours with their students. Part Three discusses how music technology courses can grow into a larger media creation program, how such a program can contribute to the broader school culture, and how project-based music learning effectively prepares students for careers in media. Electronic Music School also includes narratives from music technology students themselves, who often have an intuitive understanding of the future directions music technology programs can take.

The practices of singing and teaching singing are inextricable, joined to each other through the necessity of understanding the vocal art and craft. Just as singers must understand the physical functions of voice in order to become musically proficient and artistically mature, teachers too need to have a similar mastery of these ideas - and the ability to explain them to their students - in order to effectively guide their musical and artistic growth. With this singer-instructor relationship in mind, Richard and Ann Alderson's A New Handbook for Singers and Teachers presents a fresh, detailed guide about how to sing and how to teach singing. It systematically explores all aspects of the vocal technique - respiration, phonation, resonance, and articulation - with each chapter containing exercises aimed at applying and teaching these principles. Beyond basic vocal anatomy and singing fundamentals, the handbook also covers such understudied topics as the young voice, the changing voice, and the aging voice, along with helpful chapters for teachers about how to organize vocal lessons and training plans. Thoughtfully and comprehensively crafted by two authors with decades of singing and teaching experience between them, A New Handbook for Singers and Teachers will prove an invaluable resource for singers and teachers at all stages of their vocal and pedagogical careers.

In Teaching the Whole Musician: A Guide to Wellness in the Applied Studio, author Paola Savvidou empowers applied music instructors to honor and support their students' wellness through compassion-filled conversation tools, hands-on activities for injury prevention, mental health protection, and recovery support. Many music students are facing devastating injuries and emotional peril as they navigate the transition from student to professional. Experts are sounding the alarm for the need to educate students on the negative effects of habits such as postural misalignments, sleep deprivation, and over exertion. In this book, music teachers will learn how to help students develop skills and learn behaviors that will expand their self-awareness as they work towards a fulfilled career in the arts. With a wealth of additional movement experiences, audio files, and downloadable worksheets, the instructor can easily share movement exercises, nutrition diaries, and meditations with their students. The first guidebook of its kind to address wellness for music students in a comprehensive manner geared towards the applied instructor, this volume provides simple yet impactful techniques for approaching all things wellness.

This easy step-by-step method emphasizes correct playing habits and note reading through interval recognition. Lesson Book 5 concepts include the ornaments: long appoggiatura, short appoggiatura, trill and mordent; plus arpeggios; the A Major scale; and the keys of B minor and C minor. Also introduces the playing of minuets, sonatinas, preludes and arias.
For reinforcement of each principle as it is introduced, supplementary material is carefully coordinated, page for page, at each level of instruction. Coordinating supplemental books for Level 5 include: Classic Themes * Ear Training * Merry Christmas * Recital * Repertoire * Theory and Top Hits! Solo.

(Willis). The Modern Course series provides a clear and complete foundation in the study of the piano that enables the student to think and feel musically. It may be preceded by the Teaching Little Fingers to Play series.

This new edition contains all the scales and arpeggios required for ABRSM's Grade 2 Violin exam. Includes all Grade 2 scales and arpeggios for the revised syllabus from 2012, with bowing patterns, along with a helpful introduction including advice on preparing for the exam.

Keyboard artists in the time of J.S. Bach were simultaneously performers, composers, and improvisers. By the twentieth century, however, the art of improvisation was all but lost. Today, vanishingly few classically-trained musicians can improvise with fluent, stylistic integrity. Many now question the system of training that leaves players dependent upon the printed page, and would welcome a new approach to musicianship that would enable modern performers to recapture the remarkable creative freedom of a bygone era. The Pianist's Guide to Historic Improvisation opens a pathway of musical discovery as the reader learns to improvise with confidence and joy. Useful as either a college-level textbook or a guide for independent study, the book is eminently practical. Author John Mortensen explains even the most complex ideas in a lucid, conversational tone, accompanied by hundreds of musical examples. Mortensen pairs every concept with hands-on exercises for step-by-step practice of each skill. Professional-level virtuosity is not required; players of moderate skill can manage the material. Suitable for professionals, conservatory students, and avid amateurs, The Pianist's Guide leads to mastery of improvisational techniques at the Baroque keyboard.