Trying Too Hard

SKU: HL.379343

ISBN 9781705151198. UPC: 196288017820. 6.75x10.5x0.036 inches.

“It's the Hard-Knock Life,” from the musical, “Annie,” expresses the hardships children face living in a depression-era orphanage. As punishment for trying to escape from the orphanage during the night, Miss Hannigan has Annie and the other orphans clean their room all night.

SKU: CF.CM9639

ISBN 9781491157114. UPC: 680160915675. 6.875 x 10.5 inches. Key: D minor. Israeli Dance Song.

Your choir will have a hard time trying to keep from dancing as they sing this joyful traditional Israeli dance song arranged by Earlene Rentz. Quoting the round Toembei, this arrangement will definitely be one the audience will find themselves humming for days to come! Also available for Two-part Treble Voices (CM9192), Three-part Mixed Voices (CM9210), SSA Voices (CM9477), TBB Voices (CM9639) and SATB Voices (CM9652).    .
ARTZA ALINU This song was a favorite of the Israeli pioneers who returned to live in the land of Israel. As they planted crops and brought the land back to cultivation, they sang and danced in the hope that the land of Israel would be rebuilt. Pronunciation Guide and general translation: Artza alinu We have gone up to our land, AHR-tzah ah-LEE-noo K'var *charashnu v'gam zaranu There we have plowed and sown, Kih-VAHR *hah-RAHSH-noo vih-GAHM zah-RAH-noo Aval **od **lo katzarnu but we still have not reaped. Ah-VAHL ohd loh kaht-ZAHR-noo *The ch is pronounced using a guttural sound (not a hard k), and uses air to begin the sound. Actually, the sound is somewhere in between an h and a k. **These words use the long o sound (i. e., like the English ode and low). TOEMBAI Toembai - There is no translation for toembai. This is a dance tune, sung in a round at celebrations. Pronounced: TOOM-bah ee (bai is actually the long I sound).
ARTZA ALINUThis song was a favorite of the Israeli pioneers who returned to live in the land of Israel. As they planted crops and brought the land back to cultivation, they sang and danced in the hope that the land of Israel would be rebuilt.Pronunciation Guide and general translation:Artza alinu We have gone up to our land,AHR-tzah ah-LEE-nooK’var *charashnu v’gam zaranu There we have plowed and sown,Kih-VAHR *hah-RAHSH-noo vih-GAHM zah-RAH-nooAval **od **lo katzarnu but we still have not reaped. Ah-VAHL ohd loh kaht-ZAHR-noo*The “ch” is pronounced using a guttural sound (not a hard “k”),and uses air to begin the sound. Actually, the sound is somewhere in between an “h” and a “k.”**These words use the long “o” sound (i. e., like the English “ode” and “low”).TOEMBAIToembai – There is no translation for “toembai.” This is a dance tune, sung in a round at celebrations. Pronounced: TOOM-bah ee (“bai” is actually the long “I” sound).

SKU: PR.16400272S

UPC: 680160588442. 8.5 x 11 inches.

My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change.   I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]   The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla.   Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional.   II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts]   This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture.   This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream.   III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts]   The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this.   Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1.   String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.

SKU: GI.G-10177

ISBN 9781622775224.

Listening Excerpts to Develop Band Musicianship is a resource that can sit near your workstation for ease and speed. I feel listening has been a great benefit to my students. I have spent a lot of time attempting to be more efficient, and I want to share the fruits of my labor with others. Incorporate listening excerpts into your teaching, and you and your students will benefit greatly. —Jim Childers Providing great listening models for band students can be an incredibly efficient and effective way to convey musical concepts—provided directors have a library of well-organized recordings that catalog everything from expressive styles (“Heroic”) to technical issues (“Double-Tonguing”). With this essential book, Jim Childers does the hard work of classifying the top wind band recordings to provide efficient excerpts for just the right concept. Imagine teaching students to do a lifting release. If they heard members of “The President’s Own” in one of their amazing recordings, students can be enlightened and inspired. With added coaching from the director, students will have a shortened trip to improved performance. In this resource, Childers collects hundreds of quality listening excerpts into tables and categorizes them both by instrumentation and by characteristics such as expressive elements, articulations, tempo, and more. This book helps directors be efficient in using small, but effective, listening to develop students’ musicianship—and is particularly helpful in a distance learning environment. When considering how much time directors spend in rehearsals trying to describe and redefine the musical effects they desire, words and their connotative meanings often fall short and fail to produce what a director hopes to hear. But providing students the opportunity to listen to great bands playing those desired elements from within great pieces of music can, and will, improve musicianship and inspire students! Jim Childers is Director of Bands at Marion (IL) Jr. High School, where he directs all band activities in grades six through eight. He has directed bands since 1991, at Marion Jr. High School since 2002 as well as Highland High School and Mt. Vernon Township High School. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale, studying trombone with Dr. Robert Weiss. He has guest conducted many camps, including ISYM at the University of Illinois, and has been invited to present at several conferences, including The Midwest Clinic.

SKU: PR.164002720

UPC: 680160573042. 8.5 x 11 inches.

My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change.   I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]   The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla.   Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional.   II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts]   This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture.   This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream.   III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts]   The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this.   Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1.   String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.