36 Eight-Measure Vocalises, Op. 92: Soprano (Vocal Method) [Paperback] Review

excellent compilation of vocalises which are highly suited to complement the efforts to perfect one's technique, not only under the supervision of a teacher.

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36 Eight-Measure Vocalises, Op. 92

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Buster B. Jones- In Concert Review

This guy is fantastic! I've never heard finger style rag guitar played at this intensity before. Chet Atkins is right saying Buster is the best fingerpicker he's heard since jerry reed! Just Fantastic!!

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Buster B. Jones is a hot-rod fingerpicker whose maininfluences are Merle Travis, Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins and other hot countryguitarists -- including his friend and pickin' partner Thom Bresh. On thislive session, Buster handles some wild and wooly guitar instrumentals thatwill have aspiring pickers shaking their heads in amazement! Playing hisGodin nylon string electric guitar and his acoustic Dreadnaught, theVirginia native conducts a fascinating demonstration of the fingerpickingguitar styles of his heroes. (At one point he plays in the styles ofTravis, Atkins and Reed -- all in one song!) Using the built-in synthesizeron his Godin, he runs through an amazing array of sounds -- whistles, girlsingers, banjo, trumpet, etc. -- each with an appropriate musical piece.
Buster's set has the informal feel of a back-porch session, providing anhour of entertaining conversation and dynamic guitar picking. Songs include"Buster B. Boogie," "Live at Five," "Linus & Lucy," "Jus D'Orange,""Fingers in Flight" (a haunting tribute to Marcel Dadi), "Wild Turkey,""Funky Fingers," "Wipe Out" and two hot and heavy duets with his mentor andfriend, Thom Bresh.

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Manhattan on Film 2: More Walking Tours of Location Sites in the Big Apple (Limelight) (No. 2) [Paperback] Review

My wife and I have been on NY last year using this book as guide to the locations we started to love when we were younger...We come back to Italy with plenty of pictures!!!

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For movie-living visitors as well as New Yorkers, this is a very special guide to the Big City: thirteen walking tours that lead you to the most timeless and popular of Manhattan's film locations. Organized by neighborhood, the tours cover the Financial District, Soho/Tribeca, Greenwich Village, Midtown, Central Park, the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, to name just a few. Each tour has been designed to take no more than two hours to complete and each contains photographs, its own street map and directions on how to reach its starting point by public transportation.

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Mannheim Steamroller - Fresh Aire III (Arranged for Piano, 4-Hands) [Paperback] Review

I have been a fan of the Fresh Aire series for many years.I am very happy to have this music to play on my own (though that doesn't help me play any better, I am afraid).

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Mannheim Steamroller - Fresh Aire III

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DVD - Learning To Flatpick Review

I've used several of Steve Kaufman's videos and what really sets them apart is his superb way of organizing the material and presenting it on screen. Unlike the "look at me play fast" that seems to be the norm he goes thru things at just the right pace for a beginner. You should have some basics and know your chords in first position before moving into this video, but even if you dont and have the desire then just plunge in. Listening to this guy play will keep you motivated. Excellent choice for anyone who llikes this tyle.

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Steve Kaufman's comprehensive three-DVD course in bluegrass flatpicking takes you from "Picking 101" through advanced techniques that will enable you to hold your own in any band or jam session.
On DVD #1, "From the Beginning," you'll learn a variety of essential flatpicking skills: proper pick grip, down-up strokes, rhythmic strumming and song accompaniment. Only a few minutes into the first lesson you'll be starting to pick easy versions of well-known fiddle tunes.
By DVD #2, " Building Bluegrass Technique," you'll have built a "runs vocabulary" and learned to cross pick, move up the neck, play bass runs and construct hot bluegrass solos.
DVD #3, "Developing Speed and Style," covers the finer points of style, using slides, arpeggios, bends, accents, intros and endings, and that most challenging of subjects, building up speed.
A patient and encouraging instructor, Steve pushes you forward while allowing you to advance at your own pace. He helps you develop a solid repertoire of classic tunes, including "Liberty," "Salt Creek," "Blackberry Blossom," "Ragtime Annie," "Clarinet Polka," "Home Sweet Home," "Cripple Creek," "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane," "Wildwood Flower," "Wayfaring Stranger," "Eighth of January" and "Bully of the Town."

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Classic Guitar Technique, First Supplement (Slur, Ornament and Reach Development Exercises) (Aaron Shearer Clasic Guitar Technique) [Paperback] Review

I have the full series of these books now and this is a very fine book for the serious student learning through reading sheet music. I recommend it for teachers to use with their students as well.

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Product Description:
Slur, ornament and reach development exercises.

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Massenet: A Chronicle of His Life and Times (Amadeus) [Paperback] Review

Musicologist Demar Irvine was repeatedly turned down in 1974 when he tried to publish his biography of French opera composer Jules Massenet. When no publisher would consider it, Irvine finally sent out a hundred typed copies to various places and assumed that was that. But Amadeus Press decided to offer his magnum opus, and here it is. There being no other recent book in English on Massenet, and precious little in French on the composer, it will have to do.

Irvine is conscientious about his subject to a fault, one of those writers who often does not seem to be able or willing to differentiate between what belongs in the main text, what belongs in the footnotes, and what is best left out altogether. Although the title warns us this is not merely a bio of Massenet, but one of his "Life and Times", things frequently can become a bit much. For example, whole paragraphs are taken up sorting out the locations of Parisian buildings in the last century. Endless minor artists and figures receive the luxury of short bios. At times these notes on Massenet's contemporaries threaten to overwhelm the central character! The result is a book that at 400 pages might easily be cut by scores of pages. I have no idea how much Carol Odlum, the editor, trimmed from the orignal typescript, but it most certainly wasn't near enough.

Despite these serious reservations, Irvine's work does offer an outstanding review of the life and works of Massenet. The operas are discussed in detail, with Irvine's incessant detailing paying dividends when it comes to the initial performances and casts, the public reaction, and so forth. I was most impressed with how remarkable an array of contemporary criticism is given on many works, and how sharp an eye some of the critics show - the writing on "Esclarmonde" has any number of apt phrases. Devotees of 19th Century opera will be happily served, for Irvine merrily relates for their delectation all the innumerable adventures and pitfalls of the Parisian stage of the Belle Époque.

Massenet the man emerges clearly - an extremely hard-working fellow with considerable talent. After a few tries he wins the Prix de Rome, comes back to France and marries well, survives the Franco-Prussian War, and has a Légion d'Honneur by July 1876: Throughout his life Massenet finds success and honor. An early admirer of Wagner, Massenet even at an early age shows himself to be a quick study and an artist at heart, listening to Wagner playing at the keyboard from Tannhäuser in 1860, the young Frenchman notes aprovingly how Wagner plays "like a musician, not at all like a pianist". Such charming moments - often taken from Massenet's own Memoirs, My Recollections are frequently found, delightful anecdotal oases in a larger sea of general facts.

Perhaps the most vital picture of the composer the book reveals is that of someone never satisfied, restless, willing to shift directions in a continuing almost radical path. In preparing the young American soprano Sibyl Sanderson for the title role in "Esclarmonde' Massenet worked with her every evening, while orchestrating the score mornings. At one point he pushed her so hard she quit in an uproar, returning however the next day. The same work received "twenty-two rehersals over two months at the Opéra Comique, then a full fifty-seven stage rehersals (including ten with orchestra)" over a period of another three months! Massenet scholar Gérard Condé points out how Massenet gives us large grand operas such as "le Roi de Lahore" or "Hérodiade", only to be followed up by the utterly different style and tone with "Manon". "With each new opera, Massenet seemed to reach a point of no return. By choosing subjects as antithetical as possible to the ones preceding them, he kept himself on a jagged course, continually casting aside solutions that had become outmoded." And it's so true - Massenet composes the overblown "Le Cid" after "Manon", then reverses himself completely yet again with the intimacy of "Werther" - only to create the wildly showy "Esclarmonde", a super-spectacular quasi-Wagnerian work composed for the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle.

Readers today, most curious about all those 'other' unknown operas, should be very pleased with the author's efforts on their behalf, with all manner of contemporary reviews and talk. Some of Irvine's chapters, the best ones, oveflow with so much activity and events the author's generally flat prose dazzles in reflection. Chapter 8 chronciles a historical record of such a superabundance of personal and cultural events - for once a reader might almost dare the author give more attention to details! And as the book preceeds other winning chapters emerge, chapters abounding with interest, balancing and assuaging the author's tendency to wallow in numbing minutiae.

All in all a very slow read, but an extremely useful work, perhaps to be faulted for giving us too much, sins of excess. For now Irvine's effort is surely the best introduction to Massenet. The author's enormous historical erudition does have its pluses along with its obvious tedium, and any reader wishing to put in the effort comes away with an excellent understanding of not only Massenet, but the entire Age his operas adorned. Amadeus includes a raft of photos of other composers and the many artists who appeared and premiered Massent's works. There are also original posters, some of these latter quite fabulous creations. As befits such a book, a large very inclusive 32 page index offers tremendous browsing and research opportunities. A bibliographical section, with notes and references covers the field. Finally, a short discography, several appendixes, including one listing all the peformances of Massenet operas in Paris from 1867-1915, and an appendix giving the composer's works, with all the songs listed in chronological groups.

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Conversations with Boulez - Thoughts on Conducting (Hardcover) (Amadeus) [Hardcover] Review

Both the Kirkus and other Amazon review are on the mark with this book.I read this book as a great admirer of the composer and conductor and welcome any further knowledge into his 'larger than life presence' as an artist.The book which is divided into chapters separated by various topics and developed as a Q &A format.Whereas other books on Boulez ("Orientations" or Lev Koblyakov's Analysis of Le Marteau) deal with pitch analysis (almost exclusively in the latter), this book REALLY gives you insight into the inner-workings of the former conductor of the New York Phil and LSO.You become privy to his sense of programming, which of the 'dead' composers work get programmed and why, why the predilection for French composers (berlioz and ravel).Following the interview chapters are a pretty comprehensive list of all of the programs Boulez had done through 1995.It is definitely geared toward those who want to know more about this amazing conductor.You don't need to havea huge music background to understand this book, albeit some of the 'name' references of particular scores may be a bit confusing for the non-musical layman (for ex. referring to the Dance of the Earth, some might not know this as the last movement of Part I of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring) These are minor points but shouldn't discourage possible readers.Thank you Camille Naish for getting it into English for the rest of us!

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