While writing the lyrics to songs in Beauty and the Beast, Howard Ashman’s health was deteriorating. The composer, Alan Menken, recalls: By a certain point, he wasn’t well enough to travel. Once Disney knew, they brought a lot of the production over to the east coast; he made it through all the last recording sessions. […]

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach recalled his father’s (Johann Sebastian) talents as a musician: The exact tuning of his own instruments, and of the whole orchestra, had his greatest attention. No one could tune and quill his instruments to his satisfaction; he did it all himself. The positioning of an orchestra he understood perfectly. He made good use of […]

Title: Mighty Like A Moose (silent film soundtrack) Composer Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score (34 pages) Background:     Written by: Charley Chase & H. M. Walker     Starring: Charley Chase, Vivien Oakland, Gale Henry, Charles Clary, Ann Howe, Malcolm Denny     Directed by: Leo McCarey     Film released: 1926 SAMPLE:

Humorists Ilf and Petrov described a concert by Rachmaninoff In New York (November 1935): The night we went to hear him he appeared tall, bent, and thin, with a long sad face, his hair closely clipped; he sat down at the piano, separated the folds of his old-fashioned back swallowtail, adjusted one of his cuffs […]

“Of course, almost anybody can memorize things, especially music. It’s like the ABCs and, for most, fun to do. I’ve taught music in middle school programs and have been surprised at the hefty repertoires of popular music that 12- to 16- year olds commit to memory. To boot, they knew when I made a mistake […]

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TITLE: Lord, Heal My Soul TEXT: Psalm 40 (41): 2-5, 13-14. R. v.5 COMPOSER: Greg Smith INSTRUMENTATION: SATB and piano SAMPLE:  

“[The key of E-flat] was reserved mostly for moments of sublime seriousness, appropriate for dying thoughts, or of love unto death, whether human or divine.” – Heartz, Daniel (2003) Music in European Capitols. New York: Norton. Cited in: Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 144.

In the matter of practice, I never urge a student to work so many hours a day. One may be enough. The musician is like a painter, who frequently spends his time in looking at the work he has done, and in thinking what he will make of it, without so much as touching the […]

“Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.” – Norman Vincent Peale, American author and preacher Cited at QuotationsBook