A craftsman replicating large medallions has discovered medieval Scottish notation of instrumental music.  The notation is sequences of 0s, Is and IIs. Barnaby Brown, a specialist in early Scottish music, notated that, “This discovery is potentially of great significance to our understanding of medieval and Renaissance instrumental music – the normally ‘unwritten’ practice of the elite court […]

As to what concerns the knotty question in general of how far instrumental music may go in the representation of thoughts and events, many are here too anxious in their attitude. We are certainly wrong if we believe that composers set out pen and paper to realize the miserable intention of expressing, describing, or painting […]

“Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.” -Paul Simon, singer & composer Cited at Aphorism.ru. Accessed 31 March 2013. 

Title: Lord, send out your spirit Text: Psalm 103 (104):1. 24. 29-31. 34. R.v.30 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SA and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:

Title: Abstraction XVIIIComposer: Greg SmithInstrumentation: PianoProduct medium: PDF scoreRelated products: – Abstraction XVIII (mp3 audio) Sample:

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. – Plato

“Research in Finland has uncovered the benefits of feeling a bond with your instrument. 51 per cent of musicians surveyed reported that they were united with my instrument/voice during performance that there is no difference between us. When this bond is complete, performers may enter in a state of intense concentration, causing them to lose […]

Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and–if at all possible–speak a few sensible words. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Goethe, Johann (translated by Frederick Ungar & Heinz Goethe, Johann W., Frederick Ungar, and Heinz Norden). Goethe’s world view : presented in his reflections […]

Irish pianist and composer George Alexander Osburn (1806-93) was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music and a director of the Philharmonic Society. One of his most popular compositions was La Pluie de Perles (The Shower of Pearls). At a fashionable party, at which he arrived very late, he was invited to play, and […]

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. – Alexander Graham Bell Orison Swett Marden, (1901) “Bell Telephone Talk”, How They Succeeded. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Company, p. 38. Digitally archived at https://archive.org/details/howtheysucceeded00mardrich/mode/2up, accessed 11 September 2021.