2 comments about Analog Synthesizers: Understanding, Performing, Buying- from the legacy of Moog to software synthesis.

1. This book (which I still have yet to come close to finishing) is unbelievable in the amount of information that is contained in here. Not to mention its all about analog synthesizers which is hard to believe given some text books stray away from the topic and give other useless information...
   
   If you want to learn about these things and you are down for studying once in a while this is the book!



2. This is an excellent read for anyone wanting an insight into the world of analogue synths, be it virtual or good old hardware. The author clearly knows his stuff and puts it all across in an highly readable style. Definitely money well spent if you like your synths!

4 comments about Ben Folds - Songs for Silverman (Pvg).

1. After the disappointing transcriptions for Rocking the Suburbs, with vocal lines written into the piano score, this Ben Folds edition is exactly what I was hoping for. Although it would be nice to have the other instruments represented here, as in the Ben Folds Five transcriptions, the piano part is here in it's entirety, including all of Ben's piano solos with LH comping voicings. Even the irritating, endless repeats and Codas are missing as the songs read straight though without having to turn back several pages at a time.
   
   It's nice to see a publisher like Hal Leonard listen to the fans and give them one they want. This book comes highly recommended.



2. This is a very well done book, especially considering the price here on Amazon. It's much better than the RTS transcription in that it's not plagued with the repeats that have you turning pages more than playing music. My only complaint is that it's piano only. I would have gladly paid more for a book like the old BFF books that contained the drums and bass transcriptions as well. Still, this is a must have for any Ben Folds wannabe.



3. This is a good book, with all the songs being very thorough, and long. It's just hard not being able to play the 'main' line, as well as the 'main' background notes, like the ones you hear in the songs. You'll need 3 hands if you want to play the song in its entirety. Still a good book, with all the songs being at least 5 pages long.



4. Ordered this item for a gift...it was just what I was looking for. Thank
   you for quick service.

1 comments about How to Teach Suzuki Piano (About Suzuki).

1. This 20-page book is a short introduction to the philosophy behind the Suzuki method of teaching piano. It gives very general guidelines on how piano teaching should be tackled. It provides the reader with a general idea on the Suzuki method but it is not very useful for someone interested in learning how to teach piano. It does not include any specifics and merely refers to the other books of the author about the method. The author's statements are not well justified and are only bases on the personal experience of the author. Some of them make sense but not all of them. It contains no figures nor music scores.

5 comments about Chopin: Pianist and Teacher: As Seen by his Pupils.

1. AAA++++...a must have book if you are serious about playing Chopin. A wealth of valuable information. Very highly recommanded.



2. To the general public Chopin is famous for his beautiful piano music. However, in his days he also was a renowned piano teacher with some revolutionary ideas (at least for his time) about piano technique. His students included rich, aristocratic ladies (he had to make a living) and some very talented students.
   Luckily many of the things Chopin told his students during their lessons have been preserved in various diaries and notes by his students and have now been compiled in this book.
   Also, Chopin made a start with a piano method (which he did not complete). This method is also included in this book.
   If you are a piano student this book is simply a must-have.
   If you are not a pianist, but seriously interested in Chopin's ideas about (his own) music and teaching you also should buy this book.
   JJ Eigeldinger wrote more excellent books about Chopin which unfortunately are still only available in French.



3. I satisfied with this book very much.



4. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3V2VGA1KQTPLV Chopin book review that I bought for my mother...



5. What can be better than taking lessons with Chopin? This book is very objective. The sources were his students' letters and the chapters are very well-organised.
   The higher the level you are in playing piano/music, the more you get.

1 comments about Creative Piano Teaching.

1. I found this book to be of great help, both as an educational guide to teaching and preparing for a career in piano pedagogy. In addition, what makes this book so valuable to me is it's additional resourcefulness as a bibliographical guide to further materials relating to this topic. Anyone serious about piano pedagogy and looking to further their knowledge and depth of preparation for this career aught to consider having this as part of their personal library.

3 comments about Gospel Keyboard Styles: A Complete Guide to Harmony, Rhythm and Melody in Authentic Gospel Style (Harrison Music Education Systems).

1. I was a classical pianist for most of my life and have recently gotten more acquainted with jazz, blues, rock and now gospel. This book gets you started with gospel patterns that will make you sound like a gospel pianist who has been playing for many years!
   
   This book gets you started on different patterns, which shows you how to incorporate them into gospel chord progressions and pieces with melodies such as hymns. They provide examples on how to incorporate what you learn in the book in chord progressions and hymns and provide exercises which you can practice. It also gives you information on pentatonic scales, chords, mixolydian mode, grace notes ect.
   
   The book gets you familiar with patterns used for slow gospel in 3/4 time and fast gospel in 4/4 time. This book is really good for those who can already read music and have a basic understanding of keyboard harmony. This book has some great sounding material but unfortunately does not come with a CD but if you can sight read the material, you really don't need a CD.
   
   This has got to be among the best if not the best book on gospel piano.



2. I play quite a bit, so my standards for what a book might be able to teach me are pretty high. I was pleased with this book because it doesn't keep everything so simple that even a seasoned player can't get something out of it. At the same time, it stays basic enough that someone who plays moderately well could play the examples and understand the theory with a little effort.
   
   One feature I liked was that Mr. Harrison would provide a very basic example with a chord structure and then proceed to "realize" it a couple of different ways so that you could read the notes that he might recommend you play. Because he gives you a few options of how he might play it, you really have the ability to pick up riffs and patterns that you might not otherwise.
   
   This is a well written and concieved book.



3. Though I have played piano for years, I don't know much about theory. This book is written for someone who knows a lot about theory, and is really too advanced for me, an "average" piano player. I got SOME help from this book, but have since ordered a book called "Gospel for Beginners".

5 comments about Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization.

1. Stuart Isacoff is a serious pianist and scholar, and his book, Temperament, answers the mysterious questions that those of us who are also serious pianists wish to know and probe. His book is dense with information, but at the same time accessible and clear, so that the pianist who is curious about her instrument and its place in cultural history is enriched with new understanding for the metamorphoses that have produced our modern piano. I am grateful for his impressive research and the deep insights between its covers. Carol Montparker, pianist and author



2. A good superficial read on the historical development of 12 tone equal temperament. For a more in-depth and analytical look at temperament I would recommend Harry Partch's Genesis of a Music.
   A word of warning, this book is available under 2 titles. Temperament - the idea that solved music's greatest riddle, and Temperament - how music became a battleground for the great minds of western civilization. I purchased both assuming that they were companion works, but they are identical.



3. Temperament, by Stuart Isacoff, is almost a great book. It covers a little-known aspect of music history in great depth and with delightful insights and cute 'asides.' In short, it takes a technical subject that is over the heads of most readers and makes it accessible and interesting-- and in the process of course brings it down to a level that the average person can almost understand.
   
   And there's where it fails.
   
   Without audio examples to illustrate the points being made, most of the niceties of the different kinds of scale tuning throughout history are just so much description. Unless you've *heard* the type of tuning known as 'just tuning,' you really can have no idea how strange and sometimes beautiful and sometimes alarming the sounds can be, particularly the effects that familiar harmonies can have when tweaked away from our usual experience in this way. There is a website referred to in the book where you can go and listen to some of these things, but that's just not good enough. The book cries out for an audio CD to be included, with examples tied to specific points in the text, and vice versa. I'm sure the author would have been glad to do it. The publisher goofed.
   
   The other problem in the book is that the author occasionally comes up with a 'fact' which is simply not the case. This is rare, but the fact that it happens at all is cause to wonder about the truth of some of the allegations that he makes. The book isn't scholarly [thank God] and there are no footnotes to use in checking the author's data, but I have a funny feeling that he has played a bit fast and loose with us on some points. No evidence-- just a feeling.
   
   Still-- the book is well worth reading, particularly if you have enough musical background to be able to appreciate some of the author's stories and examples. The tales about politics, philosophy, and personalities gone awry would be fascinating even if the information about music weren't compelling-- which it is.



4. I was quite impressed the first time I read Temperament. How Music became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization by Stuart Isacoff, which is the same book as Temperament: The Idea That Solved Music's Greatest Riddle. I had a the time some theoretical knowledge about temperaments and effects on music playing but I didn't had any chance to experience it until recently.
   
   A friend of mine showed me few months ago a recording called Six Degrees of Tonality. A Well Tempered Piano issued on Gasparo (GSCD-344). I liked so much what I heard that I ordered a second recording available on the same label and called Beethoven In The Temperaments. Historical Tunings on the Modern Concert Grand (GSCD-332). These recordings made by Ed. Foote (see review Not so fast, please., January 2, 2002)are a unique chance to experience other tunings than the widely spread equal temperament.
   
   Returning recently to Isacoff's Temperament after reading L'Histoire de l'Acoustique Musicale by Serge Donval, I realised that the author just wanted to justify historically how and why ET is "THE" temperament that the world has been seeking for over thousand of years.
   
   I invite readers of Temperament to listen to the four Piano Sonatas played on a Steinway D on Beethoven In The Temperaments (two tuned after Prinz and two after Young temperaments) and to compare with any other recordings performed on ET piano.
   
   They will hear how Key Colors used to sound and how triads and chords sound so differently. Listening to the same works on a ET piano make it an uncomfortable experience even if the performer's name is Arrau, Serkin or Pollini.
   
   My wish would be that Mr. Foote and Gasparo come up with more recordings of Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt on a period tempered piano.



5. 
   
   
   
   I make a practice of sending books I really enjoy to friends who have similar interests. Ordering up Temperament when it was first favorably reviewed in The Economist, and again as a gift, I saw there were some very negative reviews, which surprised me. Pleasantly, my gift book came in its newer paperback version which includes an Afterword where Isacoff addresses the critics complaints. The quite cranky complainants don't seem to "get it" that he, in this role, is an historian not an advocate of "equal temperament."
   
   The history of slicing and dicing octaves into useful bites for the keyboards of organs, harpsichords and pianos has run 2,589 years from Pythagoras to Isacoff and is still running. 99% of pianos have twelve black and white keys and tuned to equal spacing, so twelve tones seems to be in the lead. Even Pythagoras who understood 3rd and 5th could not find a mix that would come out even. It is of course a compromise, but it is not correct to assume that Isacoff has a European bias for the twelve tone systems and is antagonistic to Chinese and Asian treatments of the issue.
   
   This is a delightful read with the cultural and artistic histories of two millennia intertwined with the struggle for beautiful keyboard related music.
   
   Robert Hansman

No comments about Master Text I Keyboard strategies (Chapters I-XI): A piano series for group or private instruction.

5 comments about Tons of Runs: For the Contemporary Pianist.

1. Just when I was thinking, not another LICK BOOK! Andy Laverne has actually surpassed most other works in this category, as he organizes the book in a quick reference fashion. I keep finding myself turning back to it if I'm desperate for some ideas. You can take on "run" and usually create about 5 more if you're creative enough ;)



2. Run books are what they are. This one covers multiple difficulty levels, so some runs will disappoint experienced players, and while others will daunt beginners. Although I like the use of chapters, I wish the book went one level deeper with its categories. To digest the material, I skip around, mostly through the lengthy first chapter, with pencil in hand and assign runs to my own categories such as "blues", "ascending pentatonic sequence", "descending diminished sequence" and "ascending augmented sequence". It would help beginners if the book described a technique, such as a diminished sequence, and then gave examples of runs using that technique in order of increasing complexity/difficulty, like Bert Ligon does in his books. Armed with the concepts, a beginner could then study examples, embellish them, and use that knowledge to create original material. Then again, being forced to categorize techniques myself saved me from my own laziness. The material is usually generic, which befits this kind of book. Quirky examples would be better suited to books devoted to specific artists/periods/sub-genres. For usable material, truth-in-advertising, helpful (but not perfect) organization, and value, this book gets my recommendation.



3. One reviewer said that there weren't too many runs contained in the book, and goes on to speculate on LaVerne's motives for putting the book out. I can only guess that that reviewer is the author or publisher of a competitive book.
   
   "Tons of Runs" does deliver tons of runs. If you are a jazz player with less than a decade or two of serious woodshedding under your belt, you will find new things to add to your vocabulary. It starts off with one-bar dominant fragments, progressing through major sounds (^, 6, etc), and finally gets to the big, impressive ii V I licks toward the end.
   
   There is a great wealth of vocabulary to be gained in this book. I think the size of the fragments is perfect; the author seems to have a clear idea of how much constitutes a neat melodic idea without becoming too elaborate. Where most lick books contain the kind of stuff that you learn and then wait for the opportunity to play, and transcriptions leave you wondering how to use your favorite player's dialect in your own playing, "Tons of Runs" is really teaching you a lot of jazz "words" that you can use as you please. This book has helped me as much as any other book on the jazz language.
   
   I play guitar, and the notation presents no conflicts for me. Most of the examples are treble clef only, and they are written in the middle of the staff, usually in 3 keys each. Most runs don't even have any double-stops, so this book is really suitable for anyone who can read treble clef.



4. These "runs" are just short phrases that any serious jazz musician already knows, or can easily conceive on his/her own. For a beginning jazz improviser this book will be helpful, but for any experienced player the material is uninspiring. They do provide good material for sight-reading. Much of the language is simplistic so if you are looking to expand your harmonic knowledge this book will not help you. I would (and have) recommended this book for my students.



5. Honestly, I don't know what possessed me to buy a book of licks. I guess I was fascinated by the number of rave reviews from musicians (presumably) who saw their chops improve because of this book. As a relatively new (2 years) jazz pianist, I'm still not quite settled in my ways. I've had some success with some song books like The Real Book: Sixth Edition and instruction books like The Jazz Piano Book, as well as drills from Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises - Complete: Piano Technique and even transcriptions such as The Bill Evans Trio - Volume 1 (1959-1961): Featuring Transcriptions of Bill Evans (Piano), Scott LaFaro (Bass) and Paul Motian (Drums), so a "lick book" seemed to be the one thing I was missing. Something clicked in my mind, and when I had to pick up a jazz course textbook from Amazon due to local lack of availability, I threw this and a couple others in the cart, more as an exploratory (okay, call it impulse) purchase than anything else. This is nothing but a vaguely grouped series of melodic ideas, riffs, licks, arpeggios, shortened arpeggios, harmonic triplets, whatever, page after page after mind-deadening page. I agree it is nice to have each listed in three different keys, but I disagree that the lack of printed instructions is a blessing and not a curse. (Less is sometimes more in jazz, I know, but more is sometimes more, too.) In short, I don't know what to do with this book. I'm not sure where it fits into a practice routine, and I can't see taking it to band practice (for example) and getting any use out of it. ("Hold on guys, I think there's an E7 lick in here that's pretty cool. Hold on a sec...Now where is it...") My piano instructor suggested just taking one or two licks every now and then and trying to work them into a song after practicing them. So I suppose I will eventually take my Real Book, flip through this and match up some of the chord progressions, and then attempt a lick from the LaVerne book while rendering a song, but only because I don't know what else to do with it. Ultimately, I'll get some use out of this, because that's the type of person I am, but I can't think of a single serious musician I would recommend this book to. (So if you're not a serious musician and just want to sound predictable, but reasonably good, reasonably quickly, maybe this is for you.) Just the same, in looking to see when this book was written (composed?), I happened to notice there is no copyright mark anywhere in the book. Now I'm thinking about doing some transposing and publishing my own book of overrated riffs.

5 comments about Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing.

1. Perhaps the previous reviewer did not take note of the title - "Basic Principles in Piano Forte Playing", which is just what it is - nothing more, nothing less. Josef Lehvinne is of the old school of thinking, namely, he believes that only meisters should be teaching how to play music, although he grudgingly acknowledges that demand outstrips supply and American "method" teaching has reached acceptable standards. I dread what he would think of me trying to teach myself. I could make fun of his attitude, but in reality he is a perfectionist, and that is what it really takes to make an outstanding musician of any instrument. Furthermore, he shares in a very readable style what is important when mastering the piano. Even a beginner like me can appreciate the value of his very generous advice. Every page has at least one or more important gems, and his style of writing is such that you are sure to remember them!



2. I didn't find this book very useful, I recommend saving your money for some of the more recently written books on piano playing, such as the wonderful book by Gyorgy Sandor (On Piano Playing: Motion, Sound, and Expression), or the one by Seymour Fink (Mastering Piano Technique: A Guide for Students, Teachers, and Performers). Those are much more helpful in detailed technical and artistic suggestions.

   Actually, those others are so much better you must have a copy if you are serious about the piano.




3. This is still the most influential source on the Russian School of Piano Playing. It starts here - all other publications follow it. Still THE best book on piano playing.



4. The author wrote this with the underlying belief that not every way of hitting a piano key will produce the same sound. I can't subscribe to that, because at the end of the chain of events that produces a note, the sound is caused by a hammer hitting the string(s). Whether you hit that key with "the fleshy part of your finger", your fist or a waffle iron, it's still just hammers striking strings.
   
   When the author isn't going on and on about the theatrics of your wrist and arm motion to better hit a key so as to let him think you're producing a different tone, the rest of this book can actually be of some help to some pianists and wannabes.



5. In a way, I can understand the attitude of the reviewer below who prefers to play the piano with a waffle iron --- that is, who claims all notes sound the same no matter how the keys are struck. What a tragic attitude. But it is true, also, that in the latter half of the 20th Century, much of piano playing was reduced to the mere technicalities of hitting the right notes in the right places at the right time, the poetry of the music pretty much forgotten, displaced by waffle iron tachnique.
   
   Lhevinne truly is one of the pianistic giants of the first half of the last century, among the giants of the late Russian romantic school. Schonberg (I think it was) wrote of him as among the pantheon of performers, along with his colleagues Levitzky, Rosenthal, Rubenstein and such youngsters as Horowitz and the forever young Earl Wild. Rachmaninov said Lhevinne had the greatest left hand technique of any pianist. His few recordings, even though not re-mastered, leave you breathless.
   
   I am willing to enjoy the idiocyncratic few pages of such a giant. If you were into baseball, wouldn't you enjoy a few pages of Joe diMaggio? Of course, probably not, if you use a waffle iron instead of a bat.