Shades of Sound Listening & Coloring Book: America

Description

My goal in creating this curriculum is to help piano students gain an interest in and a love and appreciation for great classical music.

Aspiring pianists need to know the literature, hear the greats perform, and be inspired and excited by the great music that is available! Just as writers need to read, read, read, pianists need to listen! Through this fun curriculum, students will learn about the musical periods and the great composers and their works. Listening repertoire selected includes selections from the standard solo piano literature, as well as solo piano and orchestra literature and orchestral works.

My hope is that students can add just 5-10 minutes of listening per day to their normal practicing. Listening to great music will change their understanding of music and will vastly increase their music history knowledge. It will excite and inspire them, encourage further study and listening, give them new pieces to add to their own repertoire wish list, infuse more great music into their lives, homes and families, and will boost their musicianship and expression to the next level.

The America Shades of Sound book includes 17 different pieces, including:

• Music for the Royal Fireworks by Handel
• Philadelphia Sonata #1 by Reinagle
• Excursions by Barber
• Fireworks by Debussy
• Maple Leaf Rag by Joplin
• Variations on America by Ives
• Study No. 20 by Ives
• The Fourth of July by Ives
• The Things Our Fathers Loved by Ives
• They All Sang Yankee Doodle by Brubeck
• Fanfare for the Common Man by Copland
• Rodeo: Hoe-Down by Copland
• 3 Preludes by Gershwin
• American Sonata by Siegmeister
• Overture for an American by Mayer
• 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky
• The Stars and Stripes Forever by Sousa, arr. Wilberg

Students may use The Playful Piano – Shades of Sound: America playlist to listen along with their book. The playlist is ordered to go right along with the pieces in the book.