Best of
Music

1962

The Art of Brass Playing


Philip Farkas - 1962
    A treatise on the formation and use of the brass player's embouchure.

Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music


Felix Salzer - 1962
    Developing and extending the Schenker approach to include modern music, it explores the phenomenon of tonal organization in Western music by means of a detailed analysis and discussion of more than 500 musical examples ranging in time from the Middle Ages to such moderns as Bartok, Hindemith, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky.Heinrich Schenker's great contribution was the discovery of fundamental principles of tonal organization, continuity, and coherence. In theory he was the first to define these organic forces of the musical language, particularly the tonal functions and relationships which form both the generative and cohesive forces of great music.Dr. Salzer, in expanding and formulating anew many of Schenker's ideas, has embarked upon a systematic approach. Using the concept of chord functions as a basis, he differentiates sharply between chord grammar (or labeling) and significance, showing that function rather than the ordinary label is really significant. Further distinctions between chords of structure and chords of prolongation, harmonic and contrapuntal uses, and the concept of musical direction provide effective tools for the analysis of music. This set, which is a standard work used in all important music schools, starts with basic definitions and simple examples, and trains the reader not only to hear successions of tones, melodic lines, and progressions of chords, but also to understand their structural coherence and significance. It is invaluable for musicians and for all who are seriously interested in music, whether as a student, critic, performer, or conductor."Since its publication in 1952 . . . has been the foundation on which all teaching in music theory has been based at this College." — Leopold Mannes, President, The Mannes College of Music. "Never likely to be improved upon for soundness and comprehensiveness." — Ernest Newman, The Times. "A thoughtful and provocative contribution to the fields of music theory, aesthetics, and criticism, and performance. Dr. Salzer is to be congratulated on having helped us take a long step out of the Dark Ages." — Norman Lloyd, Juilliard School of Music, in Notes.

Essays on Music


Theodor W. Adorno - 1962
    Adorno (1903-1969), one of the principal figures associated with the Frankfurt School, wrote extensively on culture, modernity, aesthetics, literature, and—more than any other subject—music. To this day, Adorno remains the single most influential contributor to the development of qualitative musical sociology which, together with his nuanced intertextual readings of musical works, gives him broad claim as a continuing force in the study of music. This long-awaited collection of twenty-seven essays represents the full range of Adorno's music writing. Nearly half of the essays appear in English for the first time; all of the essays are fully annotated; and the previously translated essays have been corrected and missing text restored, making this volume the definitive resource on Adorno's musical thought.

Classical Guitar Method


M. Carcassi - 1962
    It provides a table of relative value of notes, definitions and explanations about the rudimentary elements of guitar playing such as scales and tempo. This is one of the most famous guitar method books for students and teachers!

Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker


Robert George Reisner - 1962
    His brilliant handling of the alto saxophone inspired a generation of jazz musicians; without him, there would have been no John Coltrane, no Ornette Coleman, no jazz as we know it today.Parker died in 1955 at the age of thirty-five. He left behind a rich legacy of musical innovation and a legend of self-destructive dissipation that made him a votive hero of the hipsters and the beat generation.For this first full-length reminiscence, Reisner interviewed eighty-one of Parker's friends, relatives, and fellow performers. From Charlie Mingus, one of the few real innovators since Bird, and Dizzy Gillespie, whom Parker once called "the other half of my heart," to jazz historian Rudi Blesh and Parker's mother, each remembers Bird in his or her own special way.Thus from the shards and splinters of firsthand reminiscence emerges a telling mosaic of Parker's brief but intense career: the indulgences in drugs and alcohol; the legendary bouts of lovemaking; the temperamental behavior on and off the bandstand; the jam sessions at the Harlem jazz club Minton's Playhouse with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk; and the historic firing from Birdland, the club which took its name from this larger-than-life musician and man.

The Folksinger's Guitar Guide: An Instruction Manual


Jerry Silverman - 1962
    The folk singer's guitar guide-an instruction manual by Jerry Silverman based on the folk ways record by Pete Seeger

Otello in Full Score


Giuseppe Verdi - 1962
    Many composers have dreamed of such a thing — a flexible vocal line, responsive to every mood and accent of the words, and yet consistently interesting in itself, as melody, as music. Very few have attained it." — The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Written in his 74th year and first performed at La Scala in 1887, Otello, Verdi's penultimate opera, is his tragic masterpiece. Only the comic Falstaff, also adapted from Shakespeare, and also with an inspired libretto by Boito, would follow. Technically and aesthetically in their mastery of orchestration, harmony, and vocal writing, these final works represent a profound leap forward from the earlier Verdi triumphs, a summation of his brilliant compositional powers.Reproduced from the authoritative Ricordi edition, this modestly priced Dover volume makes accessible the complete, unabridged score of Otello, one of the most frequently performed and recorded operas ever composed. The original front matter — including characters, contents, and instruments — has been translated from the Italian specially for this edition.Verdi had an unfailing sense of the stage and Otello, with its superb libretto and its forceful dramatic construction, is perhaps his most accomplished theatrical work. Scholars, performers, and opera lovers will welcome this clear, inexpensive, durable volume, which reproduces one of the undisputed masterpieces of the form by the composer who not only changed the face of Italian opera but also was a major influence in the transformation of opera into music drama.

The Ring and The Fire: Stories From Wagner's Nibelung Operas


Clyde Robert Bulla - 1962
    He spent years writing and shaping his material, the result was an epic story, heroic and exalted, told through his stirring music.Clyde Robert Bulla tells the stories that make up The Ring of the Nibelung cycle: The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, The Dusk of the Gods. Magical and mysterious, they are larger than life, yet based on human emotions. He brings Wagner’s epic tale of love, hate, greed, and goodness, to life simply but dramatically.Bulla includes musical themes from the four operas, and writes of Wagner’s life and his struggles to break with tradition, creating a new form of opera—the music drama.Readers who love lore and legends, and readers who admire Wagner’s music will welcome the simple beauty of Bulla’s powerful tales. Strikingly illustrated with woodcuts by Clare and John Ross.

How to Play the 5-String Banjo


Pete Seeger - 1962
    Covers all the fundamentals of strumming, hammering-on, and pulling-off. Includes folk and traditional songs all with melody line, lyrics, and banjo accompaniment, and solos in standard notation and tablature.

Classics To Moderns For The Intermediate Grades [Songbook]


Denes Agay - 1962
    From the Baroque through the Modern periods, with each piece in its original form for piano solo..