Starting Out Right: Beginning Band Pedagogy is the only complete resource for organizing, planning, and teaching beginning woodwind, brass, and percussion students. The book covers every aspect of teaching beginning band students from the first sounds on the instruments through the first full-band performances. It is the only comprehensive reference that offers step-by-step guidelines for teaching each beginning band instrument, as well as organizing and running a successful beginning band program. Based on the public school teaching experience of the author, the book is designed for use in undergraduate methods and pedagogy classes as well as for clinics and workshops at the undergraduate and graduate levels. This book is also designed to be a reference for the many novice teachers who lead beginning bands or those teachers whose expertise is not in the band realm. While the focus of the book is on teaching beginning band, much of the book can be of use to band instructors at any grade level. The book is divided into several parts, which cover the sound-to-sign-to-theory approach to teaching musical literacy; child development as it relates to teaching music; recruiting and retaining students; developing fundamental sounds and skills on each woodwind, brass, and percussion instrument; teaching students to read tonal and rhythmic music notation; and selecting and rehearsing beginning band solo, ensemble, and full-band music. The book also addresses curriculum design, scheduling, and staffing of band programs. Ideas about managing student records, inventory, and equipment are also given special attention. Written in a casual narrative style, the book features real-world examples of how the principles in the book might be applied to actual teaching situations. Another special feature of the book is a set of early field-experience application exercises. Starting Out Right guides readers as they explore a comprehensive individual and ensemble approach to teaching each woodwind, brass, and percussion instrument.

The history of musical instruments is nearly as old as the history of civilization itself, and the aesthetic principles upon which judgments of musical quality are based are intimately connected with the whole culture within which the instruments have evolved. An educated modem Western player or listener can make critical judgments about particular instruments or particular per formances but, to be valid, those judgments must be made within the appro priate cultural context. The compass of our book is much less sweeping than the first paragraph might imply, and indeed our discussion is primarily confined to Western musical instruments in current use, but even here we must take account of centuries of tradition. A musical instrument is designed and built for the playing of music of a particular type and, conversely, music is written to be performed on particular instruments. There is no such thing as an "ideal" instrument, even in concept, and indeed the unbounded possibilities of modem digital sound-synthesis really require the composer or performer to define a whole set of instruments if the result is to have any musical coherence. Thus, for example, the sound and response of a violin are judged against a mental image of a perfect violin built up from experience of violins playing music written for them over the centuries. A new instrument may be richer in sound quality and superior in responsiveness, but if it does not fit that image then it is not a better violin.

Miscellaneous Percussion Music - Mixed Levels

This text provides the first comprehensive examination of pictographic notation. Pictographic musical notation represents the relevant instruments themselves rendered visually rather than verbally. Used most extensively in contemporary publications between the 1950s and 1980s, its popularity has waned in recent years. This expertly researched work displays the resourcefulness and inventiveness of 20th century orchestrators. Providing a detailed examination of pictographic score notation, this unique book passes over 60 years of contemporary composition and score publications. Divided into three sections, this work describes instrumental pictographs, stage diagrams, and pictographic performance directives. In addition to the thoroughly researched information and extensive technique illustrations, commentary on individual examples and frequent cross-referencing of related examples, differentiate this work from other journal articles and notation texts.

In recent years the music of minimalist composers such as La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass has, increasingly, become the subject of important musicological reflection, research and debate. Scholars have also been turning their attention to the work of lesser-known contemporaries such as Phill Niblock and Eliane Radigue, or to second and third generation minimalists such as John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Michael Nyman and William Duckworth, whose range of styles may undermine any sense of shared aesthetic approach but whose output is still to a large extent informed by the innovative work of their minimalist predecessors. Attempts have also been made by a number of academics to contextualise the work of composers who have moved in parallel with these developments while remaining resolutely outside its immediate environment, including such diverse figures as Karel Goeyvaerts, Robert Ashley, Arvo Pärt and Brian Eno. Theory has reflected practice in many respects, with the multimedia works of Reich and Glass encouraging interdisciplinary approaches, associations and interconnections. Minimalism’s role in culture and society has also become the subject of recent interest and debate, complementing existing scholarship, which addressed the subject from the perspective of historiography, analysis, aesthetics and philosophy. The Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music provides an authoritative overview of established research in this area, while also offering new and innovative approaches to the subject.

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 1 provides an overview of media, industry, and technology and its relationship to popular music. In 500 entries by 130 contributors from around the world, the volume explores the topic in two parts: Part I: Social and Cultural Dimensions, covers the social phenomena of relevance to the practice of popular music and Part II: The Industry, covers all aspects of the popular music industry, such as copyright, instrumental manufacture, management and marketing, record corporations, studios, companies, and labels. Entries include bibliographies, discographies and filmographies, and an extensive index is provided.

Basic drumset rhythms for society, Dixieland, jazz, waltz, tango, bolero, pachanga, guarach, rumba, merengue, samba, la raspa, conga, beguine, lindy, Charleston, bossa nova and many other ethnic dances.

Designed as a core text for college level courses in percussion methods and pedagogy, Teaching Percussion is a comprehensive, up-to-date introduction to teaching methodology and performance techniques. Now updated, Teaching Percussion helps students and performers develop musical understanding and performance skills on some fifty percussion instruments. The Second Edition includes coverage of new developments in world music instruments and performance. In addition, Norman Weinberg, cofounder of the PAS World Percussion Network, has contributed a discussion of electronic percussion and new technology. The outstanding exercises, musical examples, photographs, illustrations, practical advice, and bibliographies - popular features in the first edition - have been retained and enhanced. Teaching Percussion, Second Edition, is an invaluable resource for students, faculty, and performers alike.

This book introduces music education majors to basic instrumental pedagogy for the instruments and ensembles most commonly found in the elementary and secondary curricula. This text focuses on the core competencies required for teacher certification in instrumental music. The first section of the book focuses on essential issues for a successful instrumental program: objectives, assessment and evaluation, motivation, administrative tasks, and recruiting and scheduling (including block scheduling). The second section devotes a chapter to each wind instrument plus percussion and strings, and includes troubleshooting checklists for each instrument. The third section focuses on rehearsal techniques from the first day through high school.