The Clef Studies by Vladislav Blazhevich, composed in 1925 are a staple of the Trombone repertoire. Their quality is superb, not only for teaching the clefs, but solid technique and musical style as well.

Karl Lyden has brilliantly arranged Three Studies for Trombone Quartet inspired by the Blazhevich Clef Studies for Trombone based on numbers 56, 54 and 65 (subtitled Five Etude having a funk feel to it). They are very musically interesting, rhythmically challenging and fun to perform.

Here is a description of the Three Studies by arranger Karl Lynden:

"The seed for the Blazhevich Three Studies for Trombone Quartet came from my desire to write for my trombone quartet during undergraduate studies at Nebraska-Lincoln. I was tinkering with study No. 64 from Blazhevich?s Clef Studies for Trombone book and began to imagine pulsating trombone chords and ostinatos. The original was in 5/8 so I dubbed that arrangement ?Five Etude?.

Several years later, I had similar experiences with two other works from the book (No. 54 and 56). For the latter No. 56, I originally imagined it as a mournful duo between trombone and cello. I then flushed out the implied harmony to allow for four trombones.

No. 54 is more harmonically dense with an active bass line. It should be played majestically but come to rest in a subsided manner.For all three studies, I deviate slightly from the written form. However, the melody always remains constant as a means of generating new textures, harmonies, and rhythms. My hope is that trombonists in quartets will experience these familiar etudes in a new light."

Here?s a great way to explore some of the most popular European dance music of the early seventeenth century. This book contains easy piano arrangements of several dances from dance collection entitled Terpsichore published by Michael Praetorius in 1612. At the time he was one of the most famous musicians in Germany and the publication consisted of over three hundred dances in four, five and six parts. The name is pronounced ?terp-SI-cory? and rhymes with the word ?hickory?. Although the dances were probably conceived for string ensemble Praetorius was well aware that in practice, they would be played by any instruments that happened to be available. The five dances in this set actually include eight different numbers. These arrangements are based on the original 1612 publication, which did not include dynamics, phrasing or articulations. Any shown in these arrangements are the suggestion of the arranger. The keyboard parts have been fully fingered though fingering is omitted from repeated sections to encourage the player to memorize them. If the music is being played on a digital piano, the harpsichord sound (if available) might sound more authentic. The music is printed in fairly large easy-to-read notation and this collection would be ideal for the elementary keyboard player. The audio sample contains (1) Volta (2) Two Courantes and (3) La Bour�e.