This month we are happy to share our newest publications, FunTime® Piano Disney and BigTime® Piano Disney. This exciting series is now complete with six graded levels. FunTime Piano Disney features current and classic Disney hits arranged for the Level 3A-3B pianist. Students will explore swing rhythm, play showy cross-hand arpeggios, shape the phrases of […]
Ready for this? Camille Saint-Saëns, born on this date in 1835, began composing less than a decade after the death of Franz Schubert, and only a smidge over that from the death of Beethoven. Yet this brilliant and prodigious composer lived to rebelliously storm out of the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in 1913. His contemporaries were […]
The Music ’Tis madness. Truly. To the Portuguese, who originated this musical form in the late 15th century, La Folia (Foh-LEE-ah) was music for singing and dancing, and the singing and dancing were often so riotous that the participants appeared “empty-headed.” The Folia was a 16-bar melodic and harmonic pattern, sometimes with a short coda, […]
The music world honours Debussy this year, the 100th anniversary of his death. Pianists have always enjoyed playing one of his most beautiful pieces, Clair de lune. It is the third in a set of four pieces grouped under a title drawn from a poem by Paul Verlaine. The poet refers to dancing “masqueraders and bergamaskers,” […]
