An authoritative account of the 500-year history of the bassoon, with new research findings and dozens of rare illustrations This welcome volume encompasses the entire history of the bassoon, from its origins five centuries ago to its place in twenty-first-century music. James Kopp draws on new archival research and many years' experience playing the instrument to provide an up-to-date and lively portrait of today's bassoon and its intriguing predecessors. He discusses the bassoon's makers, its players, its repertory, its myths, and its audiences, all in unprecedented detail. The bassoon was invented in Italy in response to the need for a bass-register double-reed woodwind suitable for processionals and marching. Composers were quick to exploit its agility and unique timbre. Later, during the reign of Louis XIV, the instrument underwent a major redesign, giving voice to its tenor register. In the early 1800s new scientific precepts propelled a wave of invention and design modifications. In the twentieth century, the multiplicity of competing bassoon designs narrowed to a German (or Heckel) type and a French type, the latter now nearly extinct. The author examines the acoustical consequences of these various redesigns. He also offers new coverage of the bassoon's social history, including its roles in the military and church and its global use during the European Colonial period. Separate historical chapters devoted to contrabassoons and smaller bassoons complete the volume. Published in association with the William Waterhouse Archive

Music from all three films arranged for string instruments. Desirable and collectible, these instrumental folios are loaded with full-color photos of scenes from all three films. They are printed on top-quality antique paper stock, and the covers showcase the new "trilogy" artwork. The string series was written especially for violin, viola, and cello. Each book features a piano accompaniment and a carefully crafted removable string part complete with bowings, articulations, and keys well suited for the Level 2-3 player. A fully orchestrated accompaniment CD, with demo tracks (featuring live string performances) and play-along tracks, completes each package. The string books are completely compatible with each other and can be played together or as solos. Due to level considerations, the string books are not compatible with the books in the wind series. Titles are the twelve major themes from the blockbuster trilogy: from The Fellowship of the Ring: The Prophecy * In Dreams * Concerning Hobbits * Many Meetings * The Black Rider; from The Two Towers: Gollum's Song * Rohan * Evenstar * Forth Eorlingas; from The Return of the King: Into the West * The Steward of Gondor * Minas Tirith.

This book contains nine pieces selected from ABRSM's 2018-2021 Grade 6 Flute syllabus. Key features: Nine pieces in a range of styles, chosen from Lists A, B and C with piano accompaniment Classic repertoire and newly commissioned pieces and arrangements Footnotes with helpful information about the pieces Audio performances of the nine pieces by expert musicians plus accompaniment-only tracks for use when practising (download code included in the book)

This book brings together - for the first time - selected exam pieces, scales and arpeggios, sight-reading and audio downloads, to support ABRSM's 2018-2021 Grade 5 Clarinet syllabus. Key features: Nine pieces in a range of styles, chosen from Lists A, B and C with piano accompaniment Classic repertoire and newly commissioned pieces and arrangements Footnotes with helpful information about the pieces All the new scales and arpeggios from 2018 Sample sight-reading tests for the new requirements from 2018 Audio performances of the nine pieces by expert musicians plus accompaniment-only tracks for use when practising (download code included in the book)

The Woodwinds: Perform, Understand, Teach provides comprehensive coverage about the woodwind family of musical instruments for prospective instrumental music teachers. What sets this book apart is its focus on how to teach the instruments. Preparing students in the how of teaching is the ultimate goal of the woodwind class and the ultimate goal of this book, which organizes information by its use in teaching beginning instrumentalists. In developing performance and understanding, pre-service teachers are positioned to learn to teach through performance-contrasted with an "old-school" belief that one must first spend much time tediously trying to understand how things work before playing the instruments. The book is organized in three parts: Preliminaries, Teaching the Instruments, and Foundations. Chapters in Teaching the Instruments are organized by instrument (flute, clarinet, saxophone, oboe, bassoon) and, within each instrument, according to how an effective teacher might organize experiences for novice learners. Basic embouchure and air stream are covered first, followed by instrument assembly, then hands and holding. Embouchure coverage returns in greater depth, then articulation, and finally "the mechanism," which includes sections on the instruments of the family, transposition, range, special fingerings, tuning and intonation, and reeds. In Foundations, topics are situated in big picture contexts, calling attention to the broad applicability of information across instruments.

"...this work is likely to become a standard work very quickly and is to be recommended to all schools where recorder studies are undertaken" -Oliver James,Contact Magazine. A novel and comprehensive approach to transferring from the C to F instrument. 430 music examples include folk and national songs (some in two parts), country dance tunes and excerpts from the standard treble repertoire of Bach, Barsanti, Corelli, Handel, Telemann, etc. An outstanding feature of the book has proved to be Brian Bonsor's brilliantly simple but highly effective practice circles and recognition squares designed to give, in only a few minutes, concentrated practice on the more usual leaps to and from each new note and instant recognition of random notes. Quickly emulating the outstanding success of the descant tutors, these books are very popular even with those who normally use tutors other than the Enjoy the Recorder series.