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11 Mar 06 - 08:57 PM (#1690931) Subject: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: sharyn I was putting books away and got curious: what books have other musicians read that have helped you to be a better musician? What books have you learned from (to solve problems, to listen more accurately, to understand things about music, for example). Two favorites of mine are Eloise Ristad's A Soprano on Her Head and W.A. Mathieu's The Listening Book. Ristad and Mathieu both taught me to pay attention to mistakes and what I could learn from them -- to really study mistakes and make them consciously so that I could learn to stop making them. But I want to know what books you have learned from. C'mon bibliophiles. Sharyn |
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12 Mar 06 - 02:14 AM (#1691030) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: Kaleea On occasion, I have found some very old books (in thrift stores!) by some of the greatest Classical Musicans which helped me to understand better ways to play & teach. Although it's about playing Violin, "Six Lessons with Yehudi Menuhin," (the great Violinist) helped me to deal with playing some of my various instruments despite injuries. I fiddle a little (very little) with a fiddle, but I'm not at all a fiddler! One out of print autobiography of a violinist taught me that it is wasteful to use only part of the rosin-instead of making the deep groove in the middle of a cake, use it all up. oh, duh! I have found that these great Classical Musicians have been through many difficult life challenges & persevered, becoming better people & better at performing & teaching. |
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12 Mar 06 - 03:51 AM (#1691058) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: The Fooles Troupe "Singing for the Stars: A Complete Program for Training Your Voice". Author Seth Riggs et al. Publisher Alfred Publishing Co. 1992. It allowed me to not strain my voice anymore and improve my range. Now I will have to get back into practice, when I get A ROUND TUIT... |
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12 Mar 06 - 06:56 AM (#1691111) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: Peter T. "And They All Sang", Studs Terkel's new book is a great exercise in reading about excellence in musicians, and their extraordinary efforts (Segovia practiced 5 hours a day into his eighties). It is all inspiring (well, except for the interview with Bob Dylan where he lies over and over again about his llife). There aren't many books that have Birgit Nillson and Janis Joplin together! Jean Ritchie (kytrad hereabouts) gives a lovely interview in the book. yours, Peter T. |
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12 Mar 06 - 02:23 PM (#1691362) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: sharyn Thank you all. Keep 'em coming. I have a long layoff ahead of me with ankle surgery and twelve to sixteen weeks to read, play, study, listen and do anything else I can do while my left leg is immobilizwd in a cast. I'm going to print up your suggestions and see what I can get out of the local library. Has anybody read anything really good about developing harmony parts, harmonic theory? |
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12 Mar 06 - 07:51 PM (#1691565) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: The Fooles Troupe And while you're at it, try for some books on rhythms. |
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12 Mar 06 - 09:36 PM (#1691644) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: Desert Dancer If it's vocal harmony you're after, try Homespun. Not a book, but there's a book with the cds or video. They've got three different sets on harmony, and other fun stuff, too. ~ Becky in Tucson |
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12 Mar 06 - 10:39 PM (#1691678) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: sharyn Thanks, Becky: it looks good -- I love Ysaye Barnwell and Sweet Honey. I am interested in vocal harmony. I would like to study counterpoint someday. What I like best are harmonies that cross over and under the melody and harmonies that are melodic in themselves: I am trying to improve my ability to hear/improvise three-part harmonies that don't share many notes. I will also look up the Studs Terkel book. Thanks for reminding me of it, Peter. Any more, anyone? |
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13 Mar 06 - 05:00 AM (#1691801) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: GUEST,leeneia "I am trying to improve my ability to hear/improvise three-part harmonies that don't share many notes." I have started doing this more and more at church. I think the best thing for you to do is to play recordings and then try singing harmonies along with them. If a note doesn't sound good, stop singing it and try again next time. Gospel singers do this all the time. The hard thing is writing down what you did. If you wish to do that, it is a whole nother ball game. If a song is available in four parts (a hymn, for example) then you can take the tenor part and modify it some to make a nice descant. |
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13 Mar 06 - 07:30 AM (#1691890) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: Peter T. The best book I know on music theory is The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. A big wonderful book, especially if you have Beatle songs in your head -- the author uses the songs as examples of how theory works, and he is one of the great explainers. The problem is that the book is impossible to get in North America (I had to send away for it). There is a truly fine article on Counterpoint in the most recent New Grove Dictionary, if you have access to a university library. It gives you the history, the methods, etc. It is ridiculously technical in spots, but you can skip those. yours, Peter T. |
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13 Mar 06 - 10:08 AM (#1691995) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: sharyn Thanks again, Peter. I'll look for both of these. Leeneia, I can and do sing along with things and harmonize, but I have a habit of doubling the tonic periodically, or sometimes the fifth. If I write out the melody, I can write two harmony lines that work, but I am much more of an aural person -- what I want is to get better improving harmony lines in vivo -- at singing sessions, or as a harmony singer for someone. I find it helps if I slow things down and hold notes against notes, but I cannot do that with other people's recordings or in singing sessions. I am also interested in improving my overall ability to listen to details (guitar parts, fiddle parts, where the harmony vocals are in a mix) |
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14 Mar 06 - 08:58 AM (#1693066) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: sharyn I am very surprised that so few people have responded to this thread or that few have books they have picked up musical ideas from, Perhaps it was the way I phrased the question. Maybe it should have been "Best Book on Music?" or something similar. I'll keep trying for awhile longer. Sharyn |
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14 Mar 06 - 09:08 AM (#1693085) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: The Fooles Troupe You don't have to sing harmony note for note at the same pace as the melody. |
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14 Mar 06 - 09:16 AM (#1693090) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: Purple Foxx "The songwriting secrets of The Beatles" (by Dominic Pedler) is available via Amazon. |
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14 Mar 06 - 09:04 PM (#1693881) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: Peter T. This is a truly great book, even if the title is a bit offputting! yours, Peter T. |
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15 Mar 06 - 07:22 PM (#1694595) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: Pauline L To a Young jazz Musician. Letters from the Road by Wynton Marsalis. The book takes the form of letters that Marsalis writes from the road "between the bus ride, the sound check, and the gig" to an aspiring jazz trumpeter named Anthony, who is the age of a college student. Marsalis tells him, "We have to talk about music and life, because, ultimately, they end up as one and the same." So true. There are so many life lessons for us as we study and teach music. Someone once asked John Coltrane when he practiced, and Coltrane replied, “I only practice when I’m working on something.â€쳌 Marsalis advocates practicing “somethingâ€쳌 whenever you practice. It could be "your sound, a deeper swing, or just hearing bass lines." When I practice or teach, I concentrate on several things at the same time. I like the idea of practicing “somethingâ€쳌 when it helps us focus and set goals. When I assign a student a new piece, I scan it for things that are new or may be difficult. Today I was teaching a second year student (fourth grader) the music she got from her teacher at school for the spring concert. She wanted to start with something that was not too hard because it had a lot of repetition. However, it had three flats, and she hasn’t played anything with flats yet. There’s a goal. I try to get my adult students to articulate their own goals. I ask, “What aspect of your playing do you most want to improve now?â€쳌 It gives us both direction. Besides practice, Marsalis talks about some other “p words.â€쳌 One is patience. Obviously, you need to be patient with yourself as you try to learn new things and remember or improve things you’ve already learned. My students often tell me that I’m very patient, but I think that they’re the ones who are patient. I hear them try something over and over until they get it right. Another of Marsalis’s “p wordsâ€쳌 is persistence, which is very closely related to patience in my mind. He talks about other aspects of persistence. No matter how much you learn, there is always more to learn. I remind my students from time to time that when I show them new aspects of a piece of music that they’ve learned, this does not mean that they’re not playing well. On the contrary, they’re playing so well that I’m teaching them more challenging things. Marsalis also says that we need to persist because playing music means "a life replete with self-doubt and difficulties that never go away â€" they just change." If that is true for Marsalis, a very successful musician, it is true a thousand times over for me. Just keep going. I have some problems with contemporary music which Marsalis shares. He says that most music today is "neither melodic nor romantic." We need to hear some music with these qualities, even if we have to search for it. The Internet gives us opportunities to hear things we are not accustomed to hearing, but we may have to do a purposeful search for them. In other places and times, melodic and romantic music thrived, and they can thrive again. We just have to make it happen. Another p word is Pauline. ;-) |
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15 Mar 06 - 08:06 PM (#1694669) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: The Fooles Troupe "she hasn't played anything with flats yet" Ah!!!! that's why 'Classical Music Training' concentrates so heavily on Scale Playing as a basic skill! You learn to the point of it becoming totally automatic which fingers to place on which keys for each of the 36 basic scales (talking keyboard terms here), so that when you come to play a piece in that key, Major or Minor (both forms!), your fingers just fall into the right place (and do the thumb crossings!) without thinking! 'most music today is "neither melodic nor romantic."' A reasonable definition of most 'Pop' 'Rock' music... |
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15 Mar 06 - 10:37 PM (#1694757) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: Peter T. I think if you can figure out what music is for you, then the difficulties make sense, and you can cope. If not, then it is always a slog. yours, Peter T. |
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15 Mar 06 - 11:02 PM (#1694785) Subject: RE: Books Developing Your Musicianship From: GUEST,.gargoyle A gift from the piano teacher - ETUDE (a pedagoglical magazine circa turn of the 1900's)
Sincerely, |