A fascinating history of the piano explored through 100 pieces chosen by one of the UK's most renowned concert pianists "Tomes . . . casts her net widely, taking in chamber music and concertos, knotty avant-garde masterworks and (most welcome) jazz."-Richard Fairman, Financial Times, "Best Books of 2021: Classical Music" "[One of] the most beautiful books I got my hands on this year. . . . About the shaping of this maddening, glorious, unconquerable instrument."-Jenny Colgan, Spectator, "Books of the Year" An astonishingly versatile instrument, the piano allows just two hands to play music of great complexity and subtlety. For more than two hundred years, it has brought solo and collaborative music into homes and concert halls and has inspired composers in every musical genre-from classical to jazz and light music. Charting the development of the piano from the late eighteenth century to the present day, pianist and writer Susan Tomes takes the reader with her on a personal journey through 100 pieces including solo works, chamber music, concertos, and jazz. Her choices include composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Gershwin, and Philip Glass. Looking at this history from a modern performer's perspective, she acknowledges neglected women composers and players including Fanny Mendelssohn, Maria Szymanowska, Clara Schumann, and Amy Beach.

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (1813-1901) was an Italian Romantic opera composer, best known for Rigoletto, Aida, and La Traviata -- which follows the life, lioves and death of a courtesan, Violetta, from tuberculosis. Francesco Maria Piave (1810-1876) was an Italian opera librettist who worked with many of the significant composers of his day, writing 10 libretti for Verdi.

Ever since Alfred Brendel bid farewell to the concert stage after six decades of performing, he has been passing on his insight and experience in the form of lectures, readings and master-classes. This reader for lovers of the piano distils his musical and linguistic eloquence and vast knowledge, and will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest in the technique, history and repertoire of the piano.

Erudite, witty, enlightening and deeply personal, A Pianist’s A to Z is the ideal book for all piano lovers, musicians and music aficionados: rarely has the instrument been described in such an entertaining and intelligent fashion.

Written by veteran music educator Peter J. Perry, Technology Tips for Ensemble Teachers presents a collection of practical tips to help today's school music ensemble director incorporate and implement technology in all aspects of large ensemble instruction. This go-to guide offers specific methods for the use of technology in ensemble instruction, identifies applicable technologies, and details proven ways to successfully use those technologies in instruction. Tips throughout the book vary in type and complexity, allowing directors of all technical abilities to use the book effectively to meet the unique needs of their ensembles and students. They also offer content-specific examples for technologies in band, orchestra, jazz ensemble, and chorus instruction, as well as emerging ensemble settings such as percussion ensembles, guitar ensembles, rock bands, a capella groups, and iPad ensembles. With a special focus on current technologies including mobile devices, Technology Tips for Ensemble Teachers is a timely and useful resource for directors as students and classrooms become ever more technology-oriented.

This book teaches performers to use the Feldenkrais Method of neuromuscular activities to ameliorate problems of tension, muscle strain, and illness in order to obtain optimal vocal performance. Singing with Your Whole Self, Second Edition contains an important and unique modularized Feldenkrais "Awareness Through Movement" lessons specifically designed for liberating function in all musicians, and singers in particular. Modularized lessons allow the user to choose between functionally useful short segments or entire lessons. The first part of the book presents the theory behind why this approach works in an easily understood and concrete fashion. The remaining chapters explore our anatomy by area and explain usage, problems, and how these relate to singing. These chapters include lessons that revolve around improving performance. Includes an index both by lesson and by problem, referring performers to the lessons most effective for a specific problem.

Adaptive Strategies for Small-Handed Pianists brings together information from biomechanics, ergonomics, physics, anatomy, medicine, and piano pedagogy to focus on the subject of small-handedness. The first comprehensive study of its kind, the book opens with an overview of historical, anatomical, and pedagogical perspectives and redresses long-held biases concerning those who struggle at the piano because of issues with hand size. A discussion of work efficiency, the human anatomy, and the constraints of physics serves as the theoretical basis for a focused analysis of healthy movement and piano technique as they relate to small-handedness. Separate chapters deal with specific alternative approaches: redistribution, refingering, strategies to maximize reach and power, and musical solutions for technical problems. Richly illustrated with hundreds of examples from a wide range of piano repertoire, the book is an incomparable resource for piano teachers and students, written in language that is accessible to a broad audience. It balances scholastic rigor with practical experience in the field to demonstrate that the unique physical and musical needs of the small-handed can be addressed in sensitive and appropriate ways.

The British composer John Stainer (1840 1901) was organist at St Paul's Cathedral from 1872 to 1888, and in 1889 became Professor of Music at Oxford. In this third edition of A Theory of Harmony he ceased to call it a theory founded on the tempered scale, as he had previously. He wrote in the Preface that he now believed the theory to be perfectly applicable to the system of just intonation. A further reason, in his view, was that the attitude of scientific men toward modern chromatic music had recently improved, as they could see that their system would never be adopted as long as it threatened the existence of a single masterpiece of musical literature. However, the system would be accepted when it rendered such works capable of more perfect performance. This influential Victorian textbook is now reissued for the benefit of those interested in nineteenth-century composition and analysis.

With Contemporary Piano: A Performer and Composer's Guide to Techniques and Resources, Alan Shockley provides a comprehensive resource for composers writing music that uses extended techniques for the piano, and for pianists interested in playing repertoire that makes use of techniques and/or implements unfamiliar to them. Shockley explains dozens of ways to prepare a piano without damaging the instrument, how to notate every standard technique and many, many obscure ones, and the specific geographies of every common concert hall piano. This will be the standard reference for pianists touring and playing inside-the-piano repertoire, and for composers at all levels of familiarity with the piano hoping to understand the mechanical miracle that is the modern piano.

One hundred years after the singer's birth, Peggy Lee: A Century of Song brings to life the eventful career of an iconic performer whose contributions to the Great American Songbook, jazz, popular music, and film music remained unparalleled. Lee stood out among her peers as an exquisite singer possessing a cool vocal style, a songwriter frequently collaborating with leading composers of American jazz and film music, and a globally-loved entertainer with star quality. Tish Oney sheds new light upon this Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner's impressive musical talents while guiding the reader through the best of Lee's fifty-plus albums, radio and TV performances, creative contributions to the film industry, and over half a century of finely-polished live performances. Oney focuses on the evolution of Peggy Lee's recorded music, vocal development, artistic achievements, and contributions to American music while interviews with Lee's family, friends, and music colleagues reveal new insights and memories of this musical icon. Peggy Lee enables readers to discover a brilliant artist's inimitable legacy in the history of American popular music.

Singing involves the correct co-ordination of the whole body. This book explains the mechanisms involved by presenting the anatomical, physiological and phonological data relevant to voice production. Scientific data and explanations are presented alongside teaching instructions, so that they can be linked to familiar experiences to the singer. The book is addressed to the singer, to teachers and students of singing and to anyone of the medical profession dealing with vocal disorders. No prior knowledge is needed. It can be used either for individual study or in lessons. A useful index is included.

A time-honored tradition just got better! The John W. Schaum Piano Course has been newly revised with 100 percent new engravings and typesetting, color highlighting for concept emphasis, updated song titles and lyrics, and full-color illustrations.

Written by ten leading scholars, this volume assembles studies of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century music under the broad rubric of communication. That such an impulse motivates musical composition and performance in this period of European musical history is often acknowledged but seldom examined in depth. The book explores a broad set of issues, ranging from the exigencies of the market for books and music in the eighteenth century through to the deployment of dance topoi in musical composition. A number of close readings of individual works by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven draw on a sophisticated body of historically-appropriate technical resources to illuminate theories of form, metre, bass lines and dance topoi. Students and scholars of music history, theory and analysis will find in this volume a set of challenging, state-of-the-art essays that will stimulate debate about musical meaning and engender further study.

Alfred's Basic Adult All-in-One Course is a greatly expanded version of Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course that includes lesson, theory, technic and additional repertoire in a convenient, "all-in-one" format. This comprehensive course adds such features as isometric hand exercises, finger strengthening drills, and written assignments that reinforce each lesson's concepts. The accompanying DVD includes an introduction to all the pages in the book and performances of the pieces by well-known teacher, Gayle Kowalchyk. Titles: Alouette * Alpine Melody * Amazing Grace * Au Claire de la Lune * Aunt Rhody * Auld Lang Syne * Aura Lee * The Bandleader * Beautiful Brown Eyes * Blow the Man Down * Blues for Wynton Marsalis * Brother John * Caf? Vienna * The Can-Can * Chasing the Blues Away * Chiapanecas * Cockles and Mussels * The Cuckoo * Day is Done * Dueling Harmonics * The Entertainer * A Friend Like You * Go Down, Moses * Good King Wenceslas * Good Morning to You * Good People * Got Those Blues * Greensleeves * Happy Birthday to You * Harmonica Rock * Harp Song * Here's a Happy Song * He's Got the Whole World in His Hands * I'm Gonna Lay My Burden Down * Jericho * Jingle Bells * Joy to the World * Kum-ba-yah * Largo (Dvorak) * Lavender's Blue * Lightly Row * Little Brown Jug * Liza Jane * London Bridge * Lone Star Waltz * Love Somebody * Lullaby * The Marine's Hymn * Mary Ann * Merrily We Roll Along * Mexican Hat Dance * Michael, Row the Boat Ashore * Money Can't Buy Everything * My Fifth * Ode to Joy * On Top of Old Smoky * O Sole Mio * Raisins and Almonds * Rock Along * Rockets * Rockin' Intervals * Rock It Away * Scarborough Fair * Shoo, Fly, Shoo * Skip to My Lou * Standing in the Need of Prayer * The Stranger * Tisket, a Tasket * Waltzing Chords * Waltz Time * What Can I Share * When the Saints Go Marching In * Why Am I Blue?