Whether your little one is looking to begin to learn piano, or you’re an adult who has always put off their musical dreams, finding easy-to-understand and high-quality beginner piano books is essential. Piano books made specifically for those looking to learn a new skill are a core piece of mastering the piano and using them regularly empowers individuals to become self-taught musicians. This cost-effective method gets rid of the need to invest in expensive lessons and puts the power back in your hands.

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The Birth of a Carol

One of the great standard Christmas carols, one of those most likely to be performed by the carolers who will come to your doorstep soon in observance of the season, is ‘O Holy Night.’ In the original French language version, this was known as ‘Cantique de Noël.’ Indeed, the title is a clue that we might fairly take this as the standard Christmas carol because that’s exactly what “Cantique de Noël” means!

In French, though, Cantique … Continue Reading

Musicians express themselves in many wonderful, different ways, but with professional lessons, they can learn to speak any language, no matter what culture. The lessons become more complex, but it comes easier and more quickly than you might think when you know how to write music.

There are a number of approaches. A musician can pull a melody or words from their head, play the seedling piece by trial and error on an instrument, then add to it in order to manufacture a song. Or, a formal approach is to learn … Continue Reading

In The Center of the Semicircle

By standard dictionary definition, a conductor is an individual who leads an orchestra, choir, or other musical ensemble by visual clues – we think characteristically of a conductor standing at the front of a semi-circle of musicians, posed with his back to their audience, waving his baton majestically or frenetically (one or the other depending on the style of music and the conductor’s personality).

We think in terms of such an image, but … Continue Reading

Kylie Minogue: Her Story So Far

Kylie Minogue, a global music sensation who, though she hasn’t made as big a mark in the U.S. as she might have hoped, has been a star pretty much everywhere else for more than a quarter century now, has been in the news of late for two reasons. First, she signed a management contract with Roc Nation, a music label headed by Jay-Z.  He might at last secure her props from the ‘States.

Second, she rocked a striking mustard-yellow … Continue Reading

Source: Pexels

When learning to play a musical instrument or to sing in an organized chorus or choir, a person will often be required to confront sheet music. It’s basically a road map from Point A to Point B through a piece of music in a specialized language made largely of symbols and abbreviations. To follow this virtual map involves understanding the language and being able to follow along smoothly. It isn’t easy, but it can … Continue Reading

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

September 7, 2012 is the bicentennial of the Battle of Borodino, one of the most dramatic events of the Napoleonic Wars, and a pivotal moment for both Russia’s music and its literature.

One the morning of that September 7th, in 1812, the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte and Czar Alexander I – the latter under the leadership of Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov – faced each other near where the rivers Kolocha and Voyna converged, between the villages of Novoe and Utitsa. … Continue Reading

Cathedral of Saint Joseph in Halford

I recently attended an extraordinary performance of Verdi’s Requiem, at St. Joseph’s Cathedral, in Hartford, Connecticut.

Hartford is a small but artistically distinguished city about halfway between New York and Boston. It is the site, for example, of the Hartt School, an internationally renowned conservatory, teaching music, dance, and theatre.

(The word “Hartt” in the name of the school has two “t”s, not one, because it is named after one of the founders, Julius Hartt, not after the city itself!)

St. Joseph’s … Continue Reading

In The Center of the Semicircle, Part II

Today we’ll discuss how in recent decades some conductors have become superstars. As is the case with other sorts of superstar, so with high-powered globe-trotting conductors: they are still human, they are prone to do controversial things, and they end up taking a lot of heat for their presence in their particular musical kitchen.

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein like Stokowski before him, became known to mass audiences through the new 20th century media – beginning in 1954 … Continue Reading

JustsSheetMusic Book Notes

At irregular intervals here at JustSheetMusic, we let our readers know about some of the new books on a range of musical subjects that are always falling off the presses, or downloading themselves into email in-boxes. Today is another of those days.

Hell Yeah! The best quotes in rock ‘n’ roll history By Ryan Birdland

Triple L Publishing, Sacramento, CA, 2013

eBook, 52 pages, $2.99.

… Continue Reading