News & Views Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Would you like funding to update your music technology resources? Do you need uniforms or instruments for the marching band? Are you searching for funding for professional development or travel to study abroad? The Educator’s Guide to Grants is designed to help schools and non-profits find funding and create proposals to access funds successfully. Novices just learning to negotiate grant writing and more experienced writers seeking million-dollar awards will find insight and assistance with this guide. A CD-ROM included with the book features a screened list of hundreds of funding sources matched to each grant area.

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Elementary General Music Clinic
Wednesday 7/31/2013, 9:00 am-12:30 pm
Columbia Heights UMC
REGISTRATION: $20.00
Stanton’s Sheet Music is excited to welcome back Cristi Cary Miller as our clinician for the 31st edition of our Elementary General Music Clinic. This is one of Stanton’s longest running and most successful clinics, showcasing the best new teacher resources, song collections, games, musicals and more! We are sure that you will find materials that will keep you and your students interested throughout the year. Get your school year started on the right foot!

Have you recently acquired a lap dulcimer, and now want to know what to do with it?   It’s not too hard to learn: there are a lot of helpful books, DVDs and CDs available!

Joyce Ochs has written a helpful method book for the dulcimer in DAD tuning.  First Lessons Dulcimer  includes a CD that will help you tune your dulcimer and what the songs are supposed to sound like. All the basics are here. Basic chords and strums are taught, and beginning melody picking is introduced.

When you are comfortable with your dulcimer,  Stanton’s has a selection of more dulcimer books to choose from. There are dulcimer hymns and books of folk songs for dulcimer.  For more dulcimer music, call us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website at http://www.stantons.com.  Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

Stanton’s was honored to be the host dealer for this year’s RPMDA Convention held May 1-4.  RPMDA is an organization of sheet music retailers and publishers who meet annually to discuss topics related to selling print product. As the host dealer for the convention, Stanton’s opened our doors for a tour of the store and a private “Tailgate Party” for our guests.

For an event of this size, we needed to secure a noise permit, a fire permit and a building permit to erect the 3200 square foot tent from Lasting Impressions event rental. With a “tailgate” themed party, we turned to JP’s Barbeque for catering and Hospitality Inc. for setting up the open cocktail party. The tent and party was set up in the South side of our ample parking lot, and guests could easily mingle and socialize inside and outside of our large store. For entertainment, we asked Ben Huntoon, Stanton’s resident “Jazz Guy,” to put together an 18-piece big band featuring some of Columbus’ top jazz players.  The “Stanton’s Reading Band” included jazz educators from The Ohio State University, Capital University,  Otterbein University, Denison University, Columbus City Schools, members of the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, as well as alumni of the Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson, Buddy Rich, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Bill Watrous and Woody Herman bands. So did we hire a good band…no, we hired a GREAT band! The band’s 2-hour set was some of the best powerhouse jazz played in Columbus, and was certainly a highlight of the convention. Over the next few days, many guests from the party told us that it was one of the best activities they’d ever attended associated with RPMDA!

Stanton’s Sheet Music is so proud to have had this opportunity to open our store up to the network of music store owners, buyers and publishers across the country. With the success of our party and the vibrancy of our Downtown, Arena District and Short North areas, we hope that all the convention participants were assured that Columbus is an exciting, metropolitan capital. Thanks to all who attended and see you next year in Dallas!

String Teachers – do you still have money left on a Purchase Order that you need to spend – or you’ll lose it? Get the best “Bang for your Buck” with one or more of the newest String Supplement books for young players:

Essential Musicianship for Strings – Fundamental Ensemble Concepts
Essential Musicianship for Strings – Intermediate Ensemble Concepts
by Michael Allen, Robert Gillespie and Pamela Tellejohn Hayes
*Rounds and Arrangements, correlating with the Essential Elements 2000 for Strings, Book 1 and 2
*The Fundamental book centers around the keys of D, G and C major
*The Intermediate book is based on the keys  D, A, F, Bb major plus g and d minor
*Through rounds, teach how different musical lines can be performed at the same time
* Establish a foundation for playing ensemble music as they learn to listen and play with other parts

Steps to Successful Ensembles
by Jeremy Woolstenhulme
*For first to second year players, loosely correlated with String Basics method book
*More advanced players can use it for sight-reading practice
*24 ensemble pieces, original compositions and arrangements, sequentially presented in order of difficulty
*Starts with short all-pizzicato selections and concludes with J. S. Bach’s Peasant Cantata
*Each piece has optional piano accompaniment, three have optional percussion

Sound Innovations – Sound Development
Warm-Up Exercises for Tone and Technique for Intermediate String Orchestra
by Bob Phillips and Kirk Moss
*Emphasis on playing with a characteristic beautiful string sound
*Tone – Bowing lanes, bow weight, bow speed
*Bowing – right hand skills and specific techniques – hooked bowings, martele, spiccato, colle
*Shifting – starting with harmonics and presented through finger patterns.  3rd & 5th and an introduction to 2nd & 4th
*Scales/Arpeggios – one or two octaves, up through 3 sharps and 3 flats, traditional and alternate fingerings
*Chorales/Rhythms – harmonized chorales and drones plus rhythm exercises in a variety of meters

and coming off the press soon…
Sound Innovations – Sound Development
Warm-Up Exercises for Tone and Technique for Advanced String Orchestra
by Bob Phillips and Kirk Moss

Contact Stanton’s orchestra department for more information on any of these products. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

You’ll Be In My Heart, the classic ballad from “Tarzan” by Phil Collins is now available in a remarkable setting for more advanced choirs! Opening as a gentle lullaby, the vocal lines build into an expansive concert work with fully voiced choral harmonies and sweeping piano arpeggios. The arrangement builds through several exciting modulations before returning to the gentle strains of the opening. This arrangement is a perfect choice for end-of-year concerts or graduation!

For more repertoire suggestions for closing out your school year, please contact us!  Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

Do you need to put a little “spark” in your choral program? Is there just too much new music out there for you to review? Join us for a fun, enriching day of music education with Andy Beck, Greg Gilpin, and Stanton’s own Jen Sper featuring music from Alfred Publications, Shawnee Press and many other choral publishers.

Stanton’s Super Session
Saturday 8/3/2013, 9:00 am-4:00 pm
at Stanton’s Sheet Music, 330 S. Fourth St, 43215
REGISTRATION: $55.00 (includes lunch)

Nowhere else will you find such a variety of new choral selections and teaching resources to inspire and motivate you and your students as you begin the school year.

Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

The Seasons, Opus 37b

This collection of twelve pieces, one for each month, came about because of a commission from N. M. Bernard, editor of the St Petersburg music magazine, Nuvellist. Each month  during 1876,   Tchaikovsky wrote a short piano piece portraying subjects  and activities typical of that month, and it was published in that month’s edition of Nuvellis.  The result is this lovely collection of character pieces.  “Troika”, written for the month of November, stands on its own. It is bright and bouncy, like riding in a troika being drawn by fast horses.  It was a favorite encore of Sergei Rachmaninoff.    “Barcarolle“, written for June, is so pretty that it has been arranged for flute, violin, viola, string bass, and orchestra.  Written on an intermediate to advanced level, this entire work is considered standard literature for today’s pianists. For more information about this collection of sheet music or other collections of piano music, please contact us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website at http://www.stantons.com.   Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs.

Not so long ago, a customer remarked to me that the accordion was “coming back” (into favor).  Momentarily, I was puzzled. For me, as a member of the folk music/dance community, the accordion never “went away!”

How do today’s players learn to play? One very helpful resource is Mel Bay’s Deluxe Accordion Method, written by Frank Zucco. How to read music , rhythms,  how to use the bass keys, and how to best control the bellows are all taught in a book that is easy to understand. Although written for children, this instruction book is easily used by adults, also. In addition, there are other books of sheet music for accordion.  There are collections of pop tunes, polkas,  international dance tunes, Irish songs, and other ethnic collections.

If you are dusting off your old accordion, or you are aspiring to become an accordionist, we have a good selection of methods and sheet music books for you! For more information about accordion music, please call us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or check out our website at http://www.stantons.com. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs.

Stanton’s Sheet Music is pleased to invite you to our 2013 “John Jacobson Workshop” on August 1st and “Joy of Singing” on August 2nd – two full days of the best new music from Hal Leonard!

John Jacobson Workshop
Thursday 8/1/2013, 9:00 am-4:00 pm
Columbia Heights UMC
REGISTRATION: $60.00 teacher/$40.00 student, Both fees include lunch

Joy of Singing
Friday 8/2/2013, 9:00 am-4:00 pm
Columbia Heights UMC
REGISTRATION: $50.00 (includes lunch)

Register now online, or contact us at 1-800-426-8742 or choral@stantons.com for more information.

Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

Have you ever done this?

To keep up your sight-singing/sight-reading skills, try this, if you haven’t already!  At church, when singing out of a hymnal (especially when there are four verses) sing the soprano line on the first verse, the alto line on the second, tenor on the third and bass on the fourth.  Your eyes have to look down for the lyrics on each verse, so push yourself a little more and read a different harmony on each verse too.  If your organist tends to freely harmonize the last verse, try going the other way – bass on the first verse, tenor on the second, alto on the third and soprano on the fourth, so the melody will still fit the free harmonization on the last verse.  It’s a fun challenge and good musical exercise!  Have fun!

Young Wolfgang A. Mozart was already composing keyboard music by the age of seven.  The Sonatas Vol. 1 (Wunderkind) were published by the end of February 1764 in Salzburg, when Wolfgang was eight years old.  Four sonatas were included: KV 6 and 7,  (called Opus 1 by the publisher) and KV 8 and 9, (called Opus 2 by the publisher).  The Sonatas Vol. 2 contains “The London Sonatas”, KV. 10-15, published as “Opus 3″  in March of 1765.  Sonatas Vol. 3 contains KV 26-31, written while the family was in The Hague, published in April of 1766 as “Opus 4″.  Note: “Wunderkind” means “wonder child”,  apt for a child prodigy!   These collections are on an early intermediate to intermediate level. The early sonatas are delightful to play.  It is interesting to note the progress of young Mozart’s maturity from Sonatas Vol. 1 to Sonatas Vol. 3.  Any one of these collections is a worthy addition to a pianist’s library.  If you would like to know more about these collections or other piano solo music, please contact us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website, www.stantons.com. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!