Basic ApproachMusicals in Focus is your essential guide to this exciting and popular genre. It investigates what is meant by 'a musical' looks at how they are constructed their most common features and why they have become such a well-loved form of entertainment.Key featuresNEW second editionFully-revisedFull-colour images throughoutNew entries on the latest musicalsBrand new index and glossary.DetailsThis book explores precursors to the musical from The Beggar's Opera through operetta to works such as No No Nanette. It then takesyou through the development of the genre looking at changes in style during its 80-year history and shows why a series of significant works have become so influential.This book offers a series of case studies with examples drawn from the more popular and familiar works including Show Boat Anything Goes Porgy and Bess Oklahoma! West Side Story Cabaret and Jesus Christ Superstar.Written to be of value during all Music and Performing Arts courses that include the study of musicals - as well as to the general reader - Musicals in Focus is an ideal introduction for those who want to learn more about musical theatre.

Drumstick Control is a snare drum technique method for the drumset player. The book introduces and explains the accented stroke types and combinations both popular and necessary for today's contemporary drummer. All the PAS International Drum Rudiments that contain accents are covered with logical drumset applications (time keeping, fills and solo ideas). This book is a comprehensive technical method organized in a realistic, step-by-step process that focuses on developing stick proficiency through an independent, 'hands-separate' approach. The exercises included represent a thorough rudimental manual with practical drumset application, while providing the framework for hand development, endurance and speed training, as well as ideas for 'chop' maintenance for life. / Batterie

Jazz In Focus - Blues Improv introduces intermediate level pianists to improvisation in the blues style.There are nine units in this book starting with the basic blues scale in C then moving to the keys of D G A and E.Each unit has four parts: a blues scale; an illustrative short original piece; a 'riff improv' where students can combine riffs in any order; and finally a free improv that allows students to use riffs already learned as well as improvise new ones.This step-by-step approach ensures progress by always building on previously learned skills. A CD featuring accompaniments is included.

Exam boards: Edexcel AQA OCR WJECRomanticism in Focus places works of music literature and art alongside one another setting them within the social and political context of their time. There are also helpful examinations of some of the main styles from the period.Suitable for both students and teachers this guide tackles questions such as whether Mendelssohn was a true Romantic why Schumann and Baudelaire both worked as journalists and Wagner???s thoughts towards Brahms.The Eroica and Symphonie Fantastique Brahms and Bruckner Emma and Hard Times Constable???s Haywain and Turner???s Fighting Temaire Byron and Baudelaire all feature and thereare also contextual definitions of the main styles of the time: nationalism impressionism naturalism and symbolism.

Exam boards: Edexcel AQA OCR WJECModernism in Focus brings together challenging but rewarding works by Picasso Matisse Joyce Eliot Stravinsky Debussy and Schoenberg examines what they have in common and how they define Modernism. Suitable for both students and teachers this guide provides some much needed insight into Modernists??? apparent obsession with strange chords characters and colours discord sex madness and violence. It also takes a look at tonality atonality expressionism and serialism from a new perspective.

The Music Factory is a comprehensive innovative and practical music course covering Key stage 3 of the National Curriculum and GCSE. The core of The Music Factory is a flexible Teacher Resource Book containing 120 practical activities for classroom music-making.This book aims to provide teachers with a comprehensive source of ideas approaches and starting points. Each of the five chapters focus on a conceptual area: Rhythm and Metre; Pitch and Melody; Harmony; Structure and Form; and Timbre and Texture.Each chapter has four sections progressing from elementary to more advanced material; and each section contains six main activities each presenting a framework for music-making focused around a particular idea and involving whole-class group or individual work. The activities explore a variety of musical styles and seek to reveal the similarities and individual characteristics of each. Some activities share a stylistic focus such as aspects of North Indian classical music or the 12-bar blues.This is a fantastic resource for teachers and whenever possible suggested listening is drawn from a range of musical cultures.

Many violists have grown up on a diet of Violin studies transcribed for Viola and plenty have thrived on them even though the studies are in many cases composed with melodic patterns and fingerings that suit the Violin better than the Viola. Robin Ireland's aim in composing this new study material was to write specifically for the Viola in ways which suit it both technically and tonally.The twelve concert études set out to be musically attractive pieces which in addition to addressing most basic aspects of technique will encourage the development of 'musical' and expressive playing.The set of études is unusual perhaps unique in that it covers a rangeof styles and thus provides a focus for developing an understanding of bowing and articulation appropriate to different periods of music. The first eight études move through baroque classical and romantic styles while the later études include material for developing confidence with metre change and other basic rhythmic skills and with atonality. The last étude introduces an improvisatory style of playing.The concert études should be appropriate for Viola students from Grade 8 upwards. Details of a companion volume of 'technical' études and their availability can be found at www.robinireland.co.uk. These studies are each focused primarily on a single area of technical development in many cases an area not specifically addressed in currently available study material.The new études do not set out to provide a comprehensive alternative to existing study material but rather to complement it and extend its range.

Featuring 17 of the biggest hits from the current charts Ultimate Chart Hits is a contemporary-focused addition to the Really Easy Piano series helping beginners to play their favourite popchart tunes.   The standard of pop songs has been steadily increasing and right now it's possibly the best it's ever been. With songwriters like Meghan Trainor John Legend and GeorgeEzra gracing the charts with their catchy hooks and heartfelt lyrics there couldn't be a better time to learn the best pop hits on the Piano. This collection of perfect pop sheet music will allow you to learn hits likeAll About That Bass Rather Be and Stay With Me as well as the amazing instant classics Shake It Off by Taylor Swift and Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson with Bruno Mars.   If you are a beginner pianist who loves the current pop output Really Easy Piano: Ultimate Chart Hits is the sheet music book for you. The simplified arrangements give you just themost important parts of the songs with lyrics and chord symbols too. Not only this but interesting background information for each song will let you know which ones got to number one while some really helpful performance hintsand tips will let you focus on the difficult bits and nail each and every performance. Whether you love a bit of Ed Sheeran Tom Odell or Take That there is something for every pop lover here.   If youare a beginning pianist who has a proclivity for pop then Ultimate Chart Hits is most definitely for you. It's a brilliant collection of that pure pop perfection that we all enjoy on the radio and televisionevery day all arranged for Easy Piano enabling anyone to play these great tunes especially if you're a beginner.

B.B. King Style-The American Blues Guitar in 6 Weeks course is designed to focus your practice towards realistic goals achievable in six weeks. Each week provides you with techniques concepts and licks to help you play and understand blues soloing at a manageable easy to follow pace.Week four focuses on the style of B.B. King and includes: Learn a blues scale pattern and a pattern for the major pentatonic scale learn the famous B.B. King vibrato learn bending and which notes to bend learn to combine scales to create great blues licks.The DVD is presented by Steve Trovato who is best known as a world class country guitarist but isequally proficient in a wide range of popular Guitar styles. He has written a number of bestselling Guitar tuition books and maintains a full time position in the Guitar Department at the University of Southern California.

Johnny Winter Style-The American Blues Guitar in 6 Weeks course is designed to focus your practice towards realistic goals achievable in six weeks. Each week provides you with techniques concepts and licks to help you play and understand blues soloing at a manageable easy to follow pace.Week two focuses on the style of Johnny Winter and includes: Blues scale patterns repetitious phrasing building licks using hammer ons and pull offs playing 'in the pocket' using triplets using pentatonic scale sequencing to create blues licks.The DVD is presented by Steve Trovato who is best known as a world class country guitarist but is equallyproficient in a wide range of popular Guitar styles. He has written a number of bestselling Guitar tuition books and maintains a full time position in the Guitar Department at the University of Southern California.

John Fahey transformed the world of the acoustic flat-top steel-string Guitar by bringing it to the concert stage as a respected solo instrument. Blind Joe Death: Volume 1 looks at theimportant people and genres that shaped him as a composer. This volume focuses on Side 1 of the original 1967 Blind Joe Death LP a collection of mostly traditional music that was adapted for solo Guitar. HintsofHints of Fahey's early influences endured throughout his career as a composer yet early on and in Blind Joe Death a unique voice is coming into focus one that is not afraid to explore theavant-garde with journeys into collage and expressionism.Six extensively edited solos from Blind Joe Death are included in Volume 1: 'On Doing an Evil Deed Blues ' 'St. Louis Blues ' 'Poor Boy a LongWays from Home ' 'Uncloudy Day ' 'John Henry' and 'In Christ There Is No East or West.' Within these transcriptions Andrew Lardner has provided admirers of John Fahey's body of work with theessential keys to launch their own journeys into replicating the sounds and style of Fahey's landmark solos from Blind Joe Death.