News & Views Friday, March 29, 2024

Stanton's Sacred Organ Reading Session! 29 July, 2011

Please join us for a Stanton's Sheet Music sponsored Sacred Organ Reading Clinic! Brian Johnson, organist at Broad Street United Methodist Church, will be our featured clinician, and will be presenting music at various difficulty levels from some of the most popular publishers. Spend the morning listening to new selection for Advent and Christmas along with many other recommendations for your church services.

Stanton's Sacred Organ Reading Clinic, Saturday September 10th, 2011
Broad Street United Methodist Church
501 East Broad Street
Columbus, OH 43215

Registration begins at 8:30 am
Clinic is 9:00 am-12:30 pm
Cost: $10.00

For additional information or to pre-register, please contact the Stanton's keyboard staff at 614-224-4257 ext. 3.

Some funny stuff that's been gathering… 28 July, 2011

We had a harried music teacher call and order a piece of music for a student just before adjudications.  She said, without much forethought “Could you set the music aside.  Either I will come in and get it or have my student’s parent come – can you file it under both of our names?”  We don’t know about other places, but we use alphabetical order by last name when we file things for pickup – shall we pull a King Solomon and tear the music in half?

We had another customer call.  The conversation went something like this:
Customer – “Has my music come in? I was supposed to get a call from you when it came in…”
Employee, after checking our records – “Yes – we called you ten days ago to tell you it was in.  We left a message.”
Customer – “Oh – I suppose I should check my voice mail…”

A number of years ago, we called a customer’s cell phone to tell them that a piece of instrumental music that they had ordered had come in for them.  “Well, that’s lucky – I’m at Stanton’s right now shopping for choral music!”  That was topped a few weeks ago when the customer who was called said, “I’m six feet away from you looking at conducting batons!”

A piece of music was temporarily out of print for quite a while, so we called the publisher to check the reprint status.  Our representative there checked their computer for that information and said, “Well, it was due off the press three weeks ago, but we don’t have it ready yet…so it will probably be next Thursday!”  And you know this how…?

Excellence Clinic-ONE MONTH AWAY! 27 July, 2011

Stanton’s Sheet Music is pleased to announce our 18th annual Excellence in Choral Literature Clinic on Saturday, August 27, 2011! This session was designed to help you select concert and contest literature from some of choral music's most distinguished composers, featuring the best in new music for mixed, treble, and men’s choirs at all levels of difficulty. Registration fee includes a complimentary packet of over 30 titles. Come join us to discover beautiful music and share ideas with colleagues and friends! For more information, please check out our video below, contact us by email, or call us at 1.800.426.8742.

Click here to watch video

It's Calendar Time! 26 July, 2011

Stanton’s knows it’s time to start thinking about the next school year when the new appointment calendars are delivered. The order is placed in April and every year we are kept in suspense as to what color they will be. This year it’s sky blue!

This handy-dandy little calendar has a following of customers who “cannot live without it.” Throughout the summer we receive dozens of calls asking if we have the new ones in yet. Â It is not based on the typical “calendar” year, but rather the school year, starting August ’11 through November ’12.  The nice thing about the calender is its size–3.5 x 6.5–that fits perfectly in your pocket, purse or briefcase.  It also features hundreds of composers’ birthdays, from Debussy to Malcolm Arnold.

The calendars are free and available to any customers in the store, and of course, we’ll pass them out at all of our clinics and workshops. If you are interested in one, please give us a call at 1-800-42-MUSIC and we’ll be glad to send it to you!

It's Christmas in July! 25 July, 2011

It may be hot and humid OUTside, but here INside Stanton's Sheet Music we're decking the halls and getting ready for the winter holidays!  I know, I know…you want to enjoy your summer break and not even THINK about going back to school yet - but this is a great time to get a leg-up on your concert programming and make the beginning of your school year run as smoothly as possible.  Here are just a few of our favorite new choral publications for the upcoming holiday season:

FOR HIGH SCHOOL CHOIRS
Gaudete!
Have You Seen the Baby?
I Saw Three Ships
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!
FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL CHOIRS
Banuwa, Sing Noel!
A Candle's Light
Swingle Bells
Wassail!
FOR WOMEN'S CHOIRS
Ding Dong! Merrily On High
Dormi, Dormi, O Bel Bambin
Santa Mash-Up
FOR MEN'S CHOIRS
And the Angels Sang
We Three Kings

For more fantastic suggestions for your holiday concerts, visit us online.

2012 OMEA Concert Band Lists Announced 22 July, 2011

We know it's still summer, but we also know that in between the backyard cookouts and family reunions, vacations and road trips, visits to the local zoo or amusement park, etc. that some of you are secretly (or not-so-secretly) beginning to plan for next school year.  To that end, Stanton's is happy to help by letting you know that the OMEA Concert Band committee met at the end of June, and has chosen the pieces for the 2012 required adjudication lists.  You can view and listen to the works here.  Please remember that we provide all the audio that we have; if there is no icon next to an item, we unfortunately do not have a recording of it. 

In other concert band news, we have upgraded and expanded the listing of titles in the Marches section of the concert band site.  In the coming months we plan to do the same type of upgrade for the Pop/Novelty, Christmas/Holiday, and Solo/Section/Ensemble Features sections as well.  Also, we will be announcing our Top Choices for Young Bands (grades 0.5-2.5) soon, so check back often.  A tab featuring these titles will be added to the Concert Band webpage in addition to our promotional mailing hitting your mailbox at the beginning of the school year.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the rest of your summer!  Now it's off to write-up the Top Choices for Young Band and begin listening to the new grade 3+ titles so we can make even more recommendations for a successful school year!

Stanton's attends the OSU String Workshop 21 July, 2011

 

The 2011 Ohio State University Summer String Teacher’s Workshop, which Stanton’s Sheet Music is honored to help sponsor,  ran from July 10 through July 16 this year, attracting 72 string teachers representing 32 states, Aruba, Puerto Rico and Italy. The week was crammed full of informative pedagogical sessions, lessons on secondary instruments, “my favorite piece” reading sessions, minor instrument repair classes and much, much more.

 

Dan Clark, Stanton’s string specialist, was pleased to serve as a resource person for a group presenting a panel discussion on correlating string solo literature with string orchestra literature. His main participation, however, was to select 35 brand new string orchestra pieces from hundreds of new issues for the 2011/2012 school year to conduct at two New Music Reading Sessions during the course of the week, which were met with rave reviews! Some of the highlights were The Code, a pseudo spy movie score by Alan Lee Silva; an arrangement of the Allegretto from Beethoven’s Symphony #7 by Robert Longfield; Bayou Self, a Cajun flavored crowd-pleaser with snippets of classical quotes by Cathy Morris and a surprisingly authentic rendition of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s Hawaiian ukulele version of Harold Arlen’s Over the Rainbow. The teachers were naturally excellent sight-readers and read the notes right off the page while the rosin dust flew! A fine time was had by all.

 

The workshop participants got a free afternoon on one day and many of them chose to come to Stanton’s to browse and buy. Many had never been in the store before and were amazed at its size as well as the scope of music that Stanton’s stocks. Many of them vowed they had now become regular Stanton’s customers. We truly appreciate their business and would like to thank all the participants who came to Columbus, Ohio for this amazing workshop. We hope to see many of you back in the years to come!

Amen, amen… I say AMEN!!! 20 July, 2011

W20110629-114147.jpge get many, many requests for instrumental arrangements of contemporary Christian music. Regrettably, most of the arrangements heard in worship settings are not published. To the rescue comes Hal Leonard, the publisher of the highly acclaimed Real Book series! One of the newest additions to the series is The Real Worship Book. Although it doesn’t contain full-blown arrangements, it is chock full of highly accurate lead sheets to many of today’s most popular contemporary Christian tunes.

The Real Worship Book contains 200 of CCLI‘s top-ranked songs plus a large selection of both new and classic favorites by songwriters such as Chris Tomlin, Paul Baloche, Matt Redman, and many others. Each song includes melody,chords and lyrics, in both singable and guitar-friendly keys whenever possible. (Guitar capo chords are provided when needed.)

Currently the C Instrument book is the only one available but the transposed books should soon follow.

Buy multiple copies of The Real Worship Book from Stanton’s Sheet Music and take your jammin’ at church up a notch!

Mark Hayes presents new sacred piano music! 19 July, 2011

Plan to attend:

Stanton’s 11th Annual
Sacred Piano Reading Session
with Mark Hayes
Saturday, August 13, 2011
2:00-4:30

Stanton’s Sheet Music
James E Strouse Workshop Hall
330 S. Fourth Street
Columbus, OH 43215

For more information on this FREE session, please contact our keyboard department!

Yiruma's “River Flows in You” is now in print! 18 July, 2011

After 10 years, there is finally an authorized edition of “River Flows in You” by Yiruma.  It is his number one song, and was included on two more albums after his first one, which was “Love Scene” .  Hal Leonard has published this beautiful piano piece, and we have some copies on order!  Its catalog number is 00354210.  The price is only $3.99.  Call Stanton’s at 1-800-42-MUSIC or email us at keyboard@stantons.com to order your copy!

Mark Your Calendar: Sacred Choral Clinic! 18 July, 2011

Stanton's is pleased to welcome back Mark Hayes as our clinician for the August Church Choral Music reading session! Hayes’ personal catalog of over 700 vocal and instrumental compositions is widely acclaimed and performed across the nation. He is well-known for his unique choral settings which draw from such diverse styles such as gospel, jazz, pop, folk, and classical to achieve a truly “American sound.” His music can be found in the music libraries of the finest churches and universities in the country, and he is in increasing demand for choral clinics and concerts.

Click to watch video

Your registration includes a packet of over 40 new choral anthems that are hand-picked from the hundreds published each year. We look forward to seeing you on August 13th for a wonderful morning of singing with one of the nation's most sought after church music experts.

SmartBoard Resources for Elementary Music 15 July, 2011

Do you have access to a SmartBoard for your elementary music classes? Stanton’s is now carrying a groundbreaking series of SmartBoard tools created by teachers, Debbie Anderson and Phyllis Thomas, that will help you get the most out of your lessons!

SmartBoard Now, Volume 1
Using your interactive whiteboard just got a whole lot easier! This collection of ten interactive lessons is designed specifically for use in the K-5 music education classroom. Developed by music educators Debbie Anderson and Phyllis Thomas, these exciting materials are student tested and proven to be effective in teaching music concepts. Lesson topics include: beginning notation, steady beat, and audiation, rondo form, pitches of the treble staff, reading and singing sol, mi, and la from a three-line staff, writing your own ostinato, beginning dictation and more!

SmartBoard Now, Volume 2
Harness your students' love of the interactive whiteboard and expand their learning opportunities with this set of ten original lessons from notable educators and IWB aficionados Debbie Anderson and Phyllis Thomas. Lesson topics include: concepts of sound/no sound, reading rhythms with iconic notation, using a hand staff to teach and compose with melodic notation, reinforcing rhythmic notation and more!

SmartBoard Now, Volume 3
Get in on the action and build your interactive whiteboard repertoire with this engaging set of activities from creators Debbie Anderson and Phyllis Thomas. They continue their run of best-selling interactive blockbusters with several classroom games, and lesson topics including: dynamics, composing your own sol-mi melodies, ABA form, tempo and more!

SmartBoard Now, Volume 4
Are your students clamoring for more interactive whiteboard lessons? We're here for you! Debbie Anderson and Phyllis Thomas have listened to your feedback about their first three volumes of lessons and have created another set to fit your teaching needs. As always, they tested these lessons in their classrooms, and they passed with flying colors! In this volume you will find the following lesson topics: basic melodic and rhythmic notation and principles, conducting, stick notation, meter and more!

DooZie
A Musical Dice Game
Debbie Anderson, creator of numerous best-selling lessons for interactive whiteboards, presents this competitive game featuring note values. If your students love Yahtzeeâ„¢, they'll have a blast with DooZie. And, best of all, everything that's needed is right at your fingertips. Pop the disc into your computer and your students can start playing today!

For more information on these and other classroom music products, contact us!

Not quite the Virgin Mary, but… 14 July, 2011

20110608-020132.jpg

You know how the image of the Virgin Mary appears on burnt toast in Guatemala? Well, it’s not quite the same but a treble clef sign appeared in the form of a broken rubber band on our stockroom floor.

We think customers would be amazed at the amount of packing materials we go through in a year. Thousands of rubber bands and envelopes. Miles of tape and wrapping paper. Stacks upon stacks of cardboard sheets. AND to make it all work, we have a packing/shipping expert who has been working at it for thirteen years! Imagine… shipping everything from Boomwhackers to pitch pipes to all corners of the earth including Thule AFB in Greenland and Beijing, China!

Harry T. Burleigh - American Masterpieces: Choral Music 13 July, 2011

The National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative is designed to celebrate our national musical heritage by highlighting significant American choral composers and their works of the past 250 years.  Stanton's Sheet Music is proud to present this series highlighting the composers and their works featured in this groundbreaking project.

(from NEA.gov)
In 1892, the great Bohemian composer Antonín Dvořák accepted an invitation to take directorship of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. Before long he was spending many an evening listening with increasing fascination to the songs and spirituals of African-Americans as sung to him in the rich baritone of one of his students, Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949). Dvořák would use some of these melodies the next year in his most famous symphony, No. 9, From the New World. Decades later Burleigh's still expressive voice had a similar effect on Darius Milhaud, who incorporated influences of African-American music in his ballet La Création du Monde.

Burleigh was born just after the Civil War in Erie, Pennsylvania. As a child he heard his partially blind grandfather, a former slave, sing the old spirituals and plantation songs, and he developed a lifelong passion for music. As a youth he sang in his own Presbyterian church choir and at a Jewish temple. A scholarship enabled him to attend the National Conservatory where he studied voice, harmony, and counterpoint.

In 1894 he became the first African-American soloist hired by St. George's Episcopal Church in New York City. Befriended by the entrepreneur and philanthropist J. Pierpont Morgan, Burleigh stayed at St. George's for 52 years, enabling him to spend the rest of his time following his muse. In addition to composing and performing, he helped foster the careers of other singers, most notably Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson. He was recognized with the NAACP Spingarn Medal and was a founding member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
 
Burleigh is remembered today principally for his innumerable arrangements of spirituals, more than a hundred of them, many of which have become regarded as the standard versions.

Selected Works:
Deep River
Go Down Moses
My Lord, What a Mornin'
Nobody Knows de Trouble I've Seen
Were You There?

For more distinguished choral repertoire suggestions, please contact us.

“Won't You Be My Neighbor?” 12 July, 2011

Celebrate the classic PBS television series “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” with Won't You Be My Neighbor?, a choral suite of his much loved songs in colorful settings for high school through adult ensembles! Highly entertaining (and sure to bring a smile to every face!), it includes: “It’s Such a Good Feeling,” “It’s You I Like,” “What Do You Do?,” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor (It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood).”

For more creative programming suggestions, please contact Stanton's!

FREE Session for Piano Teachers! 11 July, 2011

Mark your calendars now:

Piano Teacher’s Clinic
with Melody Bober
Friday August 12, 2011
9-12:30

Stanton’s Sheet Music
James E Strouse Workshop Hall
330 S. Fourth Street
Columbus, OH 43215

For more information about this FREE session, please contact our keyboard department!

Letters from Camp 3 08 July, 2011

20110706-122618.jpg

Greetings again from the Aebersold Summer Workshop!

Well the homework of last night paid off! After listening numerous times to John Coltrane playing “Countdown” and finding the harmonic patterns in the changes, I was able to navigate the musical minefield relatively unscathed in rehearsal today. Whew!

Theory this morning with David Baker was just as enlightening and intense as it was the first day. Much of the material he’s covering can be found in his book one of How To Play Bebop, published by Alfred Publishing Company.

One of the afternoon sessions every day is a master class for each of the individual instruments. Dr. Ansyn Banks, jazz trumpet professor at the University of Louisville, used a number of books in his session that may be found on the shelves at Stanton’s Sheet Music. In particular the Jamey Aebersold Play Along Series, volumes 16, 21, 24, 47 and 84. Also The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine and Dr. Banks’ own book, Trumpet Synthesis.

I need to give a shout out to Columbus’ own world class jazz organist, Bobby Floyd. Bobby was one of the featured musicians during the faculty concert tonight and absolutely brought the house down. When you’re in Columbus, you need to find out where Bobby Floyd is playing and give yourself a treat.

This will be my last blog from the Jazz Workshop. If you want to find out more about the educational opportunities available through Jamey Aebersold check out Jamey’s website.

That’s all for now!
The Jazz Guy

Letters from Camp 2 07 July, 2011

Wow! The end of the first full day at the 2011 Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop!

I’ve been fortunate enough to be placed in the theory class with David Baker (that’s him in the picture) and Jerry Coker’s combo. Those gentleman are two of the absolute giants in jazz education and literally wrote the book(s). It’s a real honor and the chance of a lifetime to get to work one on one with both of them.

Tomorrow promises to be more of the same… theory classes, combo rehearsals, piano classes, masterclasses, etc. One very cool thing tomorrow will be the opportunity to jam with the rhythm section instructors!

I’m afraid this blog is a bit short. It’s 11:00pm and I have reading and study to do before turning in.

More tomorrow!

The Jazz Guy

20110704-110605.jpg

Ben's Letters from Camp 06 July, 2011

Greetings from the 2011 Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop! I’m here with over 370 participants at the University of Louisville for an intense week of clinics, combos and concerts. The student musicians range in age from pre-teen to octogenarians (thankfully I’m somewhere in the middle) and come from 27 different countries.

Today, all of the attendees arrived on campus and auditioned for combos between noon and 4pm. We also took a theory placement test to determine the most appropriate set of sessions for the week. We’ll find out the results in the morning when we show up at 8:30am for the first session.

This evening we were treated to a concert in Comstock Hall from 7:30pm to 10pm by a number of the workshop clinicians. The teaching staff is really an all-star group including Rufus Reid, Lynn Seaton, Tyrone Wheeler, Ed Soph, Bobby Floyd, Steve Allee, Dan Haerle, Jim Carroll, Jim Snidero, Pat Harbison, Jim Ketch and of course, Jamey Aebersold.

All of the fun starts tomorrow morning with an 8:30am theory class (sounds like some early college classes I once took) followed by jazz musicianship sessions, combo rehearsals, master classes, piano voicings class and evening faculty concerts. The day wraps up with jam sessions from 10pm to 11:30pm.

AND, just in case you’re worried, I do plan to try out some of the local cuisine during the hour and a half we get for dinner.

The Jazz Guy

20110703-111233.jpg

Why should I attend a Stanton's Reading Session? 05 July, 2011

Summer is here (finally!)… You've wrapped up your end-of-the-year concerts and lessons and you’re enjoying some well-earned time off. Here at Stanton's, we're gearing up for our summer workshop series! Yes, it can be hard to think about starting up a new school year, and we hear lots of excuses…ahem, I mean reasons…as to why people want to skip out on attending a summer workshop this year:

“It's summertime! I don't want to think about work.”
We hear ya. Summer sunshine…sandy beaches…grilling out on the patio…spending time with family and friends… These are all worthwhile summertime pursuits. But think about it - spending just one day at a Stanton's workshop this summer can give you repertoire and teaching ideas for your entire school year! By devoting a few hours to work with us in the summer, you could free up evenings and weekends during the year so that you can: A) spend more time with your family and friends, B) work on that novel or symphony you've been meaning to write, or C) regain your sanity from spending all day with those rowdy kids!

“I can find everything I need to know on the internet/in a catalog.”
The internet is a wonderful tool in finding new music for your ensembles and classrooms - it helped you find this blog, right? Stanton's Listening Library contains thousands of recordings to help you find the perfect piece of repertoire, many items on our newly redesigned main website have sample pages you can view, and our Digital Delivery website allows you to find and print music immediately. But…none of those benefits outweighs the value of holding a new piece of music in your hands and experiencing it for the first time as your students do. At Stanton's summer clinics and reading sessions, you can identify music your students will love to sing and find resources and repertoire to teach important musical concepts. NOTHING compares to looking at the entire piece and singing it with a group - THAT'S how you know if it will work for you! No 30-second sample recording or three-sentence catalog write-up can do that.

“I have such a small budget. Why learn about new music that I can't afford?”
You're not alone. Music budgets are shrinking across the country, and our clinicians know that you need to make every penny count. We've got ideas for affordable costuming and set design for your elementary musicals. We've got budget-stretching, reproducible choral collections with lots of repertoire options. And best of all, we've got many other teachers at our clinics so you can meet and share ideas that really, truly work in the classroom with each other! You could meet someone with great ideas for nurturing a successful booster group, or someone with tips for garnering community support and sponsorship, or someone with suggestions for marketing your program to your school board. Colleagues and peers in the education field are one of your greatest resources - join us and take advantage of that!

We also know that many schools won't reimburse teachers for your registration fees, and it's always painful to shell out your hard-earned money. To help with this issue, Stanton's is offering a $25 gift certificate to new attendees who qualify; contact us for more details. And talk to your tax guy - workshop fees for teacher enrichment and continuing education may be tax deductible.

“I live in Pennsylvania/Kentucky/Illinois/Anytown, U.S.A. It's too far for me to drive to Columbus.”
We often have a pair of wonderful music teachers from CANADA who come to our clinics here in Ohio! Make it really worth your while by attending multiple workshops during “School Choral Week 2011.” Bring the family! Workshops each day are completed by 4 p.m., so you have the evening to explore all that Central Ohio has to offer. The Stanton's staff can recommend our favorite local restaurants, movie theaters, and cultural hot-spots for you to visit - the cooler summer evenings are perfect for a trip to the Ohio State Fair (open July 27-August 7, 2011); maybe your spouse can take the kids to COSI or the Columbus Zoo while you're enjoying your workshop during the day; the Columbus Metroparks are great for hiking or sunset picnics; or check out the CAPA Summer Movie Series at the historic Ohio Theatre.

I’ve been teaching for 10/20/30 years. I know what I'm doing and I don't need help.”
It's true - experience can breed wisdom. But we find that the wisest teachers know that in order to keep students engaged they need to refresh, renew and revamp their teaching every single year! Keep your teaching style fresh and innovative by getting new ideas from our nationally-known, experienced, expert clinicians. Yes, there are probably great resources already in your library that work as well today as they did 30 years ago - but we'd venture a guess that there are just as many things that now seem dated and over-used. Mixing in new titles with the old standards keeps your lessons and concerts interesting for your students and - just as importantly - for YOU!

“I'm a first-year teacher. I have no idea WHAT I need yet!”
Stanton's workshops are perfect for you! The first thing a beginning teacher needs is a strong support system around them - start building that support system by joining the dedicated community of teachers who know the benefits of attending our workshops. You may not have heard your choirs or met your classes yet, but by arming yourself with information and repertoire ideas you're ready to face whatever challenges await you. PLANNING is your best defense against the dreaded feeling of being overwhelmed by all the “newness” of starting your teaching career. Also, by developing a relationship with Stanton's, you'll have US on your side! We're staffed with veteran teachers and college-trained musicians, so we've got your back!

So stop making excuses! Check out our previous posts on School Choral Week 2011, Stanton’s Elementary General Music Clinic, the Joy of Singing, the John Jacobson Workshop, and Stanton's Super Session, and register today for Stanton's summer workshops! We also have sessions available for instrumental teachers, church musicians, pianists and college and community choir directors; contact us for more info.

Happy Fourth of July! 04 July, 2011

Stanton’s is closed today so that our staff may celebrate with their families and friends! You can still shop and place your order online, or contact us by email with any questions or concerns, and we’ll be back at it first thing in the morning.

In the meantime, please enjoy the finale of 2010′s “Red, White & Boom” fireworks display from right here in downtown Columbus, OH