SKU: HL.346743

UPC: 840126925258. 5.0x5.0x0.15 inches.

Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet remains a holiday fixture due in large part to its haunting timbre and instantly recognizable musical motifs. Pentatonix arranged a Grammy winning a cappella version in 2014, and this choir adaptation captures the mysterious, moody feel of source material.

SKU: MB.31008M

ISBN 9781513467016. 8.75x11.75 inches.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was a trail blazer, both as a singer and guitarist, but also as a commercial phenomenon, for he was the first blues musician to establish the tremendous appeal that blues, as played and sung by rural African American folk, had for the record-buying public. It is no exaggeration to say that the sales of Lemon’s records paved the way for a host of other solo rural blues musicians to record in his wake and made the record companies more willing to give other musicians a chance, in the hopes of achieving similar success. 

Lemon’s record sales weren’t what made him a great musician, though - that could only be attributed to his startlingly virtuosic guitar - playing and soulful singing, developed over years of busking, building on his natural gifts with a great deal of practice and work. In the Guitar of Blind Lemon Jefferson author John Miller presents transcriptions, in standard notation and tablature, of 22 of Lemon’s greatest performances, with an additional essay examining Lemon’s senses of time and phrasing and his picking techniques. Also included is a download link to all the original recordings. 

To present a picture of Lemon the man, noted blues researchers Alan Governar and Kip Lornell have contributed an essay focusing on Lemon’s early life, the origins of his music, and his time spent in a musical partnership with Lead Belly. Links are provided to downloadable performances of the songs in the book from which the transcriptions were made, so that you can have Lemon’s sound in your head as you learn to play his songs.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was remarkable, even in a style that abounded in great musicians, and some measure of his influence can be seen in the fact that musicians recorded in the 1960s, more than thirty years after his death, were still covering his songs and stealing guitar licks from him. The Guitar of Blind Lemon Jefferson gives you the resources needed to learn what was so special about Lemon’s music, and to experience his musical excellence from inside the music itself.

Titles include: One Dime Blues, Got The Blues, Dry Southern Blues, Big Night Blues, Rabbit Foot Blues, Shuckin' Sugar Blues, Where Shall I Be, Wartime Blues, Black Horse Blues, Prison Cell Blues, Piney Woods Money Mama, See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, He Arose From The Dead, Beggin' Back, Broke And Hungry, Bad Luck Blues, Matchbox Blues, Lemon's Worried Blues, That Crawlin' Baby Blues, Easy Rider Blues, Stocking Feet Blues and Right of Way Blues

Level 2/3 • 160 pages • Direct download link to audio files. 

SKU: CA.336510

ISBN 9790007243982. Language: Portuguese.

This is a Brazilian popular melody compiled by Mário de Andrade (1893-1945) in his collection Ensaio sobre a música brasileira (1928). He was an ethnomusicologist who traveled around his country collecting data in order to preserve the ancestral memory of indigenous tribes, slaves from Africa and Portuguese settlers. He was one of the most important musicologists of the 20th century in Brazil, as well as a poet and writer who contributed alongside to Heitor Villalobos (1887-1959) to establishing Brazilian Nationalism. This song Cana-fi ta is a work song from Pernambuco which has the 'coco' rhythm and describes life at a sugar plantation. The choral version of Eduardo Lakschevitz, uses the main melody in a set of variations, alternating from the high to the low register of the choir. The percussion accompaniment of the instrumental group enhances the body percussion which the choir is asked to perform.