Musical Spring Fever! Tuesday, March 15, 2011
After a long Winter, when Spring finally arrives and the “sap starts rising,” Stanton’s can always count on adults coming into the store, saying, “I used to play the (fill in an instrument here) back in high school or college and I’d like to get back to it after all these years.”
For lack of anything better, in the past we would usually recommend a beginner band or string class book, which, although it is aimed at youngsters, can be used as a getting-back-to-basics and brush-up-your-skills tool for an adult. When used by an individual at their own pace, band and string class books can move right along so they will quickly get an adult player back in shape after letting his/her instrumental skills languish. However, they contain lots of repetition (great for kids!) and juvenile songs that don’t appeal to adult tastes.
We mentioned this Springtime phenomenon to our publisher representative at Carl Fischer and he got together with his staff and came up with a great series of books especially for those adults who want to pull their musical instrument out of the closet and polish up their “chops.” Aiming initially at former flute, trumpet and violin players (with more to come, we hope!) they are called: I USED TO PLAY FLUTE,  I USED TO PLAY TRUMPET and
I USED TO PLAY VIOLIN.
Each book contains useful reviews of the basics of Music Theory and a wealth of exercises to get players back in shape plus over twenty fun pieces to play including classical repertoire, folk music, patriotic and sacred titles with the adult player in mind. An enclosed CD contains very hip audio MP3 files of rhythm-section accompaniments (piano, bass and drums without the melody) so studying, practicing and performing will be more satisfying. The CD also contains printable PDF files of the piano accompaniments on the CD for playing the music with a pianist friend, allowing for more performance opportunities. As a bonus, the CD contains complete performances of the songs that supply a performance standard goal.
So now there is an adult-aimed option for getting back to playing music after being away for a while. When the urge strikes, know that saying, “I used to play…” can get you on the path to the enjoyment of playing music once again. Do it for the fun of it!