Schaum Sight Reading (Schaum Method Supplement) [Paperback] Review

Helpful with regular piano books to help teach sight reading. No note numbers or letters on it.

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A progression of book one, this is a valuable teaching tool.There are a variety of styles, rhythms and keys, making sure that the student cannot just guess and play. Of course, there are no finger numbers, so students must read the notes. And there is the typical Schaum mix of serious and humorous lyrics. Revised, newly engraved, beautifully illustrated in full color - it's a fine book!

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Music for Little Mozarts: Music Discovery Book 1 Review

I'm a music teacher with over 12 years experience teaching young children.I useThe Music For Little Mozart's Series for my youngest students first.To ensure that you have adequate coverage of all the materials presented, make sure you get most of the books in the series.The Lesson Book is a great start, but this is the next most important book.It has Great songs to sing and play along with.Don't worry if you don't sing, your child will, with encouragement, and the help of the CD that comes as a two CD set (the other CD goes with the Lesson Book).These are very important for teaching steady beat and the joy and fun of music, and can "bring them back" to the keyboard when interest wanes.No kid can resist the racing car song with the Glissando's where they run their fingers over the keys after the song says, "Ready, set, go!"

The next most important book is the workbook that gives the student the chance to show off their new skills and has some great listening exercises you can do with them.It is not the coloring book, which is really just a coloring book. Lastly, I recommend also the Recital book.It tells you at the top of the page which page in the Lesson book it corresponds with (they all do), and it gives the student one more song to practice their skills with.

I recommend sitting down with the student for no more than 1/2 hour breaking it up into 5 min. each of review of previous topics, lesson book, recital book, workbook and Music Discovery Book with CD.You can play the CD with the lesson book to review the material on a later date and the CD of the Music Discovery Book at any time while they are playing with their toys or doing "homework" in their workbook.

I like Book 2 set as well, and you can continue through 3&4 or move to Alfred's other Piano books 1A-6 .

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The unique Music Discovery Book contains songs that allow the students to experience music through singing, movement and rhythm activities. Music appreciation is fostered through carefully chosen music; Mozart, Beethoven and Sousa are introduced. Melodies to sing, using either solfege or letter names, help students learn to match pitch and discover tonal elements of music. Correlates to the Music Lesson Book 1. Familiar songs include If You're Happy and You Know It, Mexican Hat Dance and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

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Best Christmas Music (Big Note Songbook) [Paperback] Review

This is one step up from Easy Play, where the book gives you 1 note melodies for the right hand only and easy chords.This book gives mostly easy chords and a line for each hand.Occasionally there are two notes for one hand instead of only one.Some songs have either one sharp or one flat.I mainly bought this book because it has the Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), but I enjoy many of the songs.
Contents:(There's No Place Like) Home For The Holidays; A Holly Jolly Christmas; Angels We Have Heard On High; Away In A Manger; Blue Christmas; Bring A Torch, Jeannette, Isabella; C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S; Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus; Coventry Carol; Deck The Hall; Ding Dong! Merrily On High!; Frosty The Snow Man; Go, Tell It On The Mountain; Good Christian Men, Rejoice; Good King Wenceslas; Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer; Grandma's Killer Fruitcake; Happy Holiday; Hark! The Herald Angels Sing; He Is Born; Hymne; I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day; I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus; I Saw Three Ships; I'll Be Home For Christmas; Infant Holy, Infant Lowly; It Came Upon The Midnight Clear; It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas; Jingle Bells; Jingle-Bell Rock; Jolly Old St. Nicholas; Joy To The World; Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!; Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming; Mary Had A Baby; Mister Santa; O Christmas Tree; O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles); O Holy Night; O Little Town Of Bethlehem; Please Come Home For Christmas; Pretty Paper; Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree; Rocking; Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer; Silent Night; Silver Bells; Sussex Carol; Suzy Snowflake; The Chipmunk Song; The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire); The Christmas Waltz; The First Noel; The Friendly Beasts; The Holly And The Ivy; The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year; Up On The Housetop; We Need A Little Christmas; We Three Kings Of Orient Are; We Wish You A Merry Christmas; What Child Is This?; Wonderful Christmastime.
I recommend this book if you are looking for an easier but not completely simple Christmas carol book.

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A giant collection of 62 Christmas favorites for big-note piano. Songs include: Away in a Manger ¥ Blue Christmas ¥ The Chipmunk Song ¥ The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) ¥ The First Noel ¥ Frosty the Snow Man ¥ Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer ¥ Happy Holiday ¥ I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus ¥ ItÕs Beginning to Look Like Christmas ¥ Mary Had a Baby ¥ Mister Santa ¥ Pretty Paper ¥ Silver Bells ¥ Suzy Snowflake ¥ Wonderful Christmastime ¥ and more.

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Jazz Improvisation: Tonal and Rhythmic Principles [Paperback] Review

This serious, authoritative book turned me on to jazz.The author presents the material inbite size chunks.He has a gift for pulling structure from the chaos. This is not Jazz-For-Dummies.The reader isexpected to be hard working, but needs no previous experience with jazz. The reader should have access to a piano to play the various chordsequences, but the lessons are invaluable to all instrumentalists.
Onedownside to this book it that you have to learn the author's unusualnotation (figured bass), but the power of this notation is also the book'sgreatest strength.The notation reveals the structure of jazz and thesimilarities between the songs.And, hey, Bach used the same notation, soit can't be all bad.
The author gives the chord changes to many commonjazz songs.Usually no particular artist or recording is referenced.So,the reader has to hunt around to find performances that resemble thechanges the author has given.
Once again, this is my favorite book on thesubject.It is never unnecessarily pedantic.It never waters downdifficult concepts.The way the book talks about music is how musiciansthink about music.If this book is not enough, other books in this seriesby John Mehegan pick up where this one leaves off.

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The fundamentals of jazz are here explained and systemized in 70 lessons based on 60 jazz standards. It covers the styles of musicians from Buddy Bolden to Dizzy Gillespie.

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Five Graphic Music Analyses [Paperback] Review

While the technique Heinrich Schenker used for analyzing tonal music is no longer as controversial as it once was, it is still a much more complex, and much more rewarding, way of looking at musical works than simple harmonic methods.It is much simpler to stick roman numerals to notate chords in their various inversions and think that the piece has yielded its mysteries.Not so.The great composers were also geniuses at their voice leading methods that not only provided delight on the surface, but also to the medium and long range structure of their works.

But what practical purpose does this type of analysis yield?It certainly can and should inform they way we play the pieces.For example, in the foreward he discusses how the Bach Chorale he analyzes unifies the piece despite a surface pause at the fermata.His analysis of the first prelude of Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier Book I" is full of wonderful insights that can enhance anyone's performance of the piece.

Felix Salzer, a student of Schenker, provides a short and interesting introduction as well as a glossary of the terms used (not the symbols).A word of warning, while this notation looks like musical notation gone mad, it is adapted from musical notation but does not mean the same thing as the notation you use to play a piece.You will also find much of this opaque without a solid grounding in counterpoint and harmony.The voice leading matters most here, but you do need to have some idea of functional harmony as well.

You can spend a great deal of time with these analyses even though they are only a page or a few pages long.The notation communicates a great deal in a small space and that is its power and beauty.However, it yields its bounty only after serious study.Once you get a handle on how it works, it is wonderfully informative.

It is not necessary to agree with everything Schenker says about a given piece.I have seen skilled analysts take different views and approaches.However, I have also seen people who originally took a different approach, after consideration, come back to Schenker's view.

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Voice-leading, tonal coherence in graphic notation, entire works: J. S. Bach, "Chorale" from St. Matthew Passion; "1st Prelude," Well-Tempered Clavier; Haydn: E-flat Major Sonata; Chopin: Etudes 8, 12, Opus 10.

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FastTrack Keyboard Songbook 1 - Level 1 (Fasttrack Series) [Paperback] Review

This book is great.Just remember to shift your hands as indicated by the finger numbers and be sure to master those notes as they teach you before moving on too fast.But you'll be surprised how fast you learn.But everything in this book is on playing notes and scales on Treble Clef.There is no bass clef in this book or the second (Keyboard Chords & Scales)... I just bought it 3 weeks ago and am loving it.The book does teach you music notes.It just gets confusing when it renumbers the notes (not explaining that your hand is moving over a key for a while and then back again.They make it sound like you just reach your finger while keeping your hand in place.This is not true after the first page of learning A and B notes in Middle C.)But I am wonderfully surprised at how fast you pick up and start playing.I never read music before and now I am.That in itself is amazing.

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A supplement to the FastTrack instruction books, this great songbook/CD pack features 8 great songs in rock score format: Brown Eyed Girl * Great Balls of Fire * I Want to Hold Your Hand * Oh, Pretty Woman * Wild Thing * Wonderful Tonight * You Really Got Me * Your Song.

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Music by the Masters [Paperback] Review

I used this book about 20 years ago as a student.Now, I use this book with my students. It is a great book full of short classical studies by prolific composers of the Baroque-Romantic Eras.This book contains a wide variety of music selections that teach various and sundry musical techniques and articulations.Great for the young pianist who is trying to bridge the gap into the Classical literature.

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This consistent top-seller includes 65 works by these famous composers: C. P. E. Bach, J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Schubert , Schumann and Tchaikovsky. Excellent, motivating literature for the intermediate pianist.

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Joe Pass Chord Solos: For Guitar, Vibes & All Keyboard Instruments [Paperback] Review

These are not "Chord Melodies". Rather they are chord improvisations over the changes of six tunes: Misty, Billie Joe, a Blues in Bb, Watch What Happens, Sunny and The Days of Wine and Roses.
Very dense chord arrangements showing different harmonic possibilities with the basic changes. I recorded these as I learnedthem, so I could listen to them to really absorb the material.
Joe gives no harmonic analysis at all, so it is up to the reader to figure out the theory, and boy, there's lots of it.
I'm a professional jazz guitarist and teacher....playing nearly forty years, and I still review these and pick chord licks that I like, transpose them to other keys, positions and strings, analyze the voice leading, chord substitutions, etc. I've had this book for years, and lots of it has slowly seeped into my playing. I'll play a piece, pick a chord lick that I like (like any one of them), and then try to apply it to my improvisations in other tunes.
In my opinion, for advanced players, this is one of the best books out there to dig into some really lush and melodic chord playing. I found it tough reading....and I'm a pretty advanced player. But I have worked through most of the major guitar books out there and this one is one of my mainstays.
While I'm here, I'll also recommend:
Fusion - Joe Diorio
Joe Pass on Guitar
Howard Roberts Guitar Manual Chord Melody
For players new to jazz and not so advanced, a standard book is
Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar Volume 1.

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The art of improvising chord-style solos is an important part of any musician's resources. This book has been written to improve that art for guitar, vibes and all keyboard instruments. A careful study of these solos will give you a thorough understanding of chordal playing and substitutions. It is great for voicing as well as improvisation.

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