News & Views Tuesday, June 18, 2013

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!

Rachel Barton Pine has lent her expertise as an eclectic, virtuoso violin performer and teacher to several new books for serious violinists.   New Carl Fischer editions of the Wohlfahrt Foundation Studies, Book 1 and Book 2  selected and arranged in progressive order by K. H. Aiqouni, have been thoroughly reworked by Ms. Pine.  Each book also includes a DVD/MP3 disc with video and audio of her playing every etude.  These volumes replace the old Carl Fischer editions of the Wohlfahrt Foundation Studies.

She has also written a heart-felt foreword to the new violin etude book by her former teacher, Roland Vamos, called Exercises for the Violin in Various Combinations of Double-Stops.   These three books join her challenging collection of original compositions, arrangements, cadenzas and editions for violin simply called The Rachel Barton Pine Collection.

Read detailed descriptions of all these products on our sheet music website, or contact our orchestra department for more information.

Band Directors – are you struggling with intonation with your bands? Do you have limited knowledge of the tuning idiosyncrasies of certain instruments? Have you been looking for a resource to help fine-tune your ensembles? Do you know what a “flarp” is?

Look no more! The most complete intonation resource for band directors has just come off the press, and should be in every band directors library! It is called Tuning for Wind Instruments – A Roadmap to Successful Intonation by Shelley Jagow. It contains everything a music educator requires to approach fine-tuning intonation with their ensemble:

-Extensively researched, color-coded fingering charts for every instrument
-Alternate fingerings for better intonation on all instruments
-Individual instrument pitch tendencies
-The best tuning notes for each instrument
-How to properly tune brass slides
-14 steps for Tuning Chords
-Calculate the proper harmonic ratio for fine-tuning chords
-Learn the origin of our pitch tuning standard
-Understand when to apply equal tempered vs just tempered tuning
-Improve your knowledge with over 70 tuning truths and myths

And find out that “flarp” is slang for a pitch tendency that can be either sharp or flat, or so out-of-tune it is difficult to tell what the pitch direction is!

It’s time to start thinking about Festival/Contest/Adjudication – whatever your state calls it!  In Stanton’s home state of Ohio, there is an official list that is updated yearly by a committee of High School and Middle School string teachers from “the trenches.”  Here are the new titles they have chosen to add to the list for Spring, 2013.  They would make great “select” pieces even if you’re not in Ohio – they are teacher approved!

High School Full Orchestra Class A (Grade 4 and up)
TRN2012MC1 – Ghosts of Antietam

High School Full Orchestra Class B (Grade 2 1/2 to 3 1/2)
38501 – Aragonaise from Carmen
35987 – Nocturne
38451 – Resurgences

High School String Orchestra Class A (Grade 4 and up)
SO917 – Carmen Suite
ST6268 – Mare Tranquillitatis
ST6265 – Overture to Idomeneo
48030010 – Prelude

High School String Orchestra Class B (Grade 2 1/2 to 3 1/2)
38414 – Concerto a Cinque, Op. 7 #1
38444 – Habanera
04491046 – Romantic Etude
04491054 – Scherzo from Symphony #4

High School String Orchestra Class C (Grade 2 to 3)
YAS101 – Dance of Salome

Pieces shared on H.S. C and M.S. A String Orchestra (Grade 2 1/2 to 3)
38470 – March from Symphony #6
GMMOR69 – Molly Malone
TRN2011LN2 – Monterey Hills
38405 – Theme from the 1812 Overture

Middle School String Orchestra Class A (Grade 2 1/2 to 3)
ST6292 – The Lumber Camp Song

Middle School String Orchestra Class B (Grade 1 1/2 to 2 1/2)
GMMOR60 – Coiled
ST6288 – Courtly Dance
38394 – A House in Holland
FAS72 – A Pioneer’s Tale

Middle School String Orchestra Class C (Grade 1/2 to 1 1/2)
PAS3 – Chronicles
ST6279 – Twilight Reverie

If you have any questions about this list, please contact Stanton’s Orchestra Department!

String Orchestra Directors!  Looking for a refreshing select piece for upcoming adjudications/festivals that not everyone else will be programming?  Here are some excellent pieces at various grade levels that are just slightly off the beaten path and could provide some nice contrast to your required pieces.

Storm Chaser

Harrowland

Star Lake

Southland in the Springtime

Cavatina, Op 75 #1

Andante Moderato

Winconsin Tableau

Symphony #38 (Prague)

For more great recommendations, contact Stanton’s Orchestra department at 1-800-42-MUSIC, ex 2.

If you’re following Stanton’s on Facebook, you’ve probably noticed that we’re BIG fans of The Muppets (and we’ll take any opportunity to feature them on our page!).  Here’s some of our favorite Muppets music!

From the 2011 movie comes the big opening production number Life’s a Happy Song, a sunny salute to Kermit, Fozzie, Miss Piggy and gang along with their biggest fan Gary! The lyrics say it all, “I’ve got everything that I need right in front of me.”  Also check out The Muppets Choral Highlights (including “Life’s a Happy Song,” “Mah-Na Mah-Na,” “Me Party,” “The Muppet Show Theme” and “The Rainbow Connection”), and the movie songbook featuring 12 great songs from the hit-packed soundtrack.

Looking for classic, “old school” Muppets music?  Try the “John Denver and the Muppets – A Christmas Together” piano/vocal/guitar collection, “Favorite Songs from Jim Henson’s Muppets” (available for piano/vocal/guitar and easy piano), “The Muppet Christmas Carol” piano/vocal/guitar collection, “The Muppet Show Theme” (available for piano/vocal, saxophone quartet, young concert band or string orchestra), or “The Rainbow Connection” (available for MANY different instrumentations!).

For more suggestions, please contact us!

Looking at music from perhaps a different angle, it becomes apparent that the most popular “classical” music written today is not necessarily the abstract and atonal offerings of recent college graduating composition majors, but instead, orchestral renderings that are heard by a large portion of the American public – namely film scores.  Look at the huge popularity of music from the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean films – and the fact that they are scored for symphony orchestras by such luminaries as John Williams, Howard Shore, Klaus Badelt, Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman.

With that in mind, a lot of today’s educational string writers have taken to writing music for school orchestras that could be the soundtrack to some imaginary movie.  Programmatic in nature, and often with picturesque titles that bring a visual image immediately to mind, they are some of the greatest original pieces for string orchestra being written today.  Here are some of the newest and best offerings of this genre:

Elementary String Orchestra-
Storm Chaser – Kevin Mixon – Grade 1
Aspen Glow – Susan H. Day – Grade 1+
Harvest Moon – Larry Clark – Grade 1.5
Twilight Reverie – Lauren Bernofsky – Grade 1.5

Middle School String Orchestra-
The Voyage – George Sweet – Grade 2
Afterburn – Brian Balmages – Grade 2.5
Hyperdrive – Ralph Ford – Grade 2.5
In a French Garden – Richard Meyer – Grade 2.5

High School String Orchestra-
As Twilight Falls – Robert Sheldon – Grade 3
A Wisconsin Tableau – Carrie Lane Gruselle – Grade 3
Dotonbori Dash – Alan Lee Silva – Grade 4
Orange Moon – Yukiko Nishamura – Grade 4

String Teachers – It’s not too early to think about programming for your holiday concerts!  After looking at, listening to, and featuring many string orchestra titles on summer reading sessions, we’d like to recommend these outstanding new Christmas and Chanukah concert numbers that shouldn’t be missed.  They are listed here in order of difficulty.

Pastorale from Christmas Concerto

Holiday Waltz

Angels in the Bleak Midwinter

Light the Candles

We Wish You a Klezmer Christmas

Mad Russian’s Christmas

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

For more recommendations, contact our orchestra department, or browse the Holiday Orchestra section on our website.

If Stanton’s Orchestra Staff were teaching, these are the top new Grade 3.5 to Grade 4 pieces they would consider programming.  They’ve got great teaching potential, are excellently arranged and will sound great on a concert.

Themes from Concerto in A minor

Dotonbori Dash

February: Carnival

Il Re Pastore

A Little Stream

Orange Moon

Terkisher Klezmer Fest

Find more suggestions at our website: click on Orchestra Sheet Music and choose the “Best of the Newest” tab.

Attention:  School String Teachers!  Do you have a concert scheduled around Halloween and you still have one more slot to fill?  Here are some programming ideas at all grade levels.

Grade 1 – T-Rex
Grade 2 – March of the Shadows
Grade 2½ – In the Hall of the Mountain King
Grade 2-3 – Fright Night
Grade 3 – The Evil Eye and the Hideous Heart
Grade 4+ – Night on Bald Mountain
Grade 4½ – Halloween Spooktacular

For more great ideas, be sure to check out the Halloween Concert Suggestions on the Orchestra page of Stanton’s website.

We’re always talking about our knowledgeable staff—you’ll find that very phrase on much of our printed advertising, as well as on our website. Stanton’s sales staff is separated into departments to ensure that each staff member is well informed about a specific area of the wide variety of music that we carry. So when you call and ask about music for trumpet, you’ll be speaking with someone who has first-hand knowledge of repertoire, not just a phone operator with no musical experience. Here’s what you’ll find in each department:

CHORAL DEPARTMENT (ex. 1)
Choral Music for School & Church
Elementary General Music
Classical Solo Vocal
Handbell

BAND DEPARTMENT (ex. 2)
Concert Band
Marching Band
Jazz Ensemble
Orchestra
Solos for all concert instruments
Instrumental Method Books
Music Software/Technology

POP/KEYBOARD (ex. 3)
Sacred & Secular Piano
Organ
Piano Method Books
Popular/Broadway Solo Vocal
Contemporary Christian Vocal
Guitar Solos and Methods
Music for Folk Instruments

You can direct emails to the exact department you need by clicking the links above, or press the appropriate extension when you call 1-800-42-MUSIC. If you’re unsure of which department to choose, we’re always happy to direct you to whoever can best address your needs. At Stanton’s, it is important to us that you receive the most educated answers to your questions and the finest music recommendations.

At Stanton’s Sheet Music, we vicariously help teach your students with you! It’s true…We look through hundreds of new titles every summer and choose the select few that we would use if we were teaching.  These are the titles we share with you in our promotions on-line and in the mail.

So if you are thinking:
“Why should I spend my time looking at Stanton’s promotions?”
It’s because:
• Stanton’s Staff has already spent hours looking at and listening to hundreds of new titles.
• They have picked pieces at all levels that they would use if they were teaching.
• Their aim is to make your life easier and to help you succeed.

And if you are thinking:
“Why is Stanton’s Staff qualified to make these recommendations?”
It’s because:
• Stanton’s Staff is made up of college-trained musicians.
• Some of them have taught in the public schools and many teach privately.
• They know what has proven to be successful for Stanton’s customers over the years.

And if you are thinking:
“Why did Stanton’s Staff pick these particular pieces to recommend to me?”
It’s because:
Stanton’s only selects pieces that they believe are
• The most educationally valid
• The best sounding
• The most highly programmable

So if you are thinking:
“I can’t go wrong with Stanton’s Choices!”
It’s because:
• You’re right!

When your beginners deserve a treat and are ready to play “real” music, instead of the lessons in their method book, consider these easy winners that are new for Fall, 2012.

SALAMANDER SAMBA
by Lauren Bernofsky
Grade 1/2…yes, that’s one half!
Holy guacamole!  How can a piece so technically simple be so much fun and sound so good?  Using nothing but open string pizzicato, the only challenge is counting and playing the notes in the right place while keeping good hand position.  The rhythm patterns change so your students will need to stay focused.  What glues it all together is an essential, syncopated and infectiously jazzy piano part that provides a Latin feel and color  with a solid pulse and great groove while your beginner string students drop their notes in at the right time – and everybody is having fun making music.  This tune is one of the reasons why Ms. Bernofsky has become a real favorite of Stanton’s string staff.  Super!

ADORATION
by Mitchell S. Bender
Grade 1
In a folksong style that almost begs for lyrics, here is a nice, solid Grade 1 selection that provides just enough teaching material to keep it from being sightread too easily by intermediate beginners.  Great to introduce or reinforce some accidentals such as F natural, G# and A# in the comfortable string key of D.  You can work on playing octaves in tune with open strings as well as counting dotted-quarter/eighth note rhythms while enjoying the tuneful melody often presented in a call and response setting, so every part has something interesting going on.

SAHARA-ZADE
by Frank M. Rodgers
Grade 1.5
Leave it to Frank Rodgers to pull in students with a little bit of humor – although you may have to clue them in to the joke!  The corny title will give you an opportunity to play a recording of the real Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov so the students can hear the melody that Frank “borrowed” for this programmatic journey across the desert, with its contrasts of tranquility and sandstorms.  Your students will get lots of imaginative adventure as well as the opportunity to emphasize syncopated rhythms, the importance of dynamics and bowing techiniques such as accents, staccato and portamento.  You can count on Frank Rodgers, who was “in the trenches” as an inner city string teacher for 35 years, to sneak in great pedagogy while your students are having fun with other elements of his pieces.

For more great recommendations for you beginning strings, contact Dan in Stanton’s Orchestra Department!

From a first-year teacher whose instruments were stolen before entering his building, to a teacher who received “hate mail” before her first day, to a teacher whose sensitivity, flexibility and insight gained her the respect of her ensemble in only weeks, “The Music Teacher’s First Year,” a collection of true stories from first-year teachers, is a delightful description of their real world. In addition, each chapter includes discussion questions for pre-service and young teachers as they prepare for their teaching future.

Are YOU just beginning your career as a music educator?  Let Stanton’s help!  Take advantage of our summer clinics; use our 21-Day Trial program to peruse music for your ensembles; check out our YouTube channel for repertoire suggestions from our staff, as well as nationally-known clinicians; like Stanton’s on Facebook for daily updates; and, of course, continue to read our blog to keep abreast of happenings in the music education world!