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Review: Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora, Volume 1 |
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Written by Jon Ensminger
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Wednesday, 27 February 2008 |
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Oxford University Press has produced a most intriguing series. I recently received the first two volumes of Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora , compiled and edited by William H. Chapman Nyaho (available soon at www.amazon.com ). The first two volumes are labeled Early Intermediate and Intermediate, respectively, but I would probably classify them as Intermediate and Late Intermediate, based on the quality and complexity of the pieces. Background InformationOne excellent feature of both volumes is the inclusion of background information: general comments about the repertoire, biographical sketches of each composer, and performance notes for each piece. While the music speaks for itself, it is really nice to know, for example, that "Soufiane," a piece in volume 1 by Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh, uses a motive based on two very common Arabic tetrachords "Hijaz" and "Nahawand." The Middle Eastern sound is due to the Hijaz tetrachord with its augmented second surrounded by minor seconds. Similar notes and bits of information are included for all of the pieces in both volumes, and I find them to be extremely helpful. The biographical notes are also interesting, because many of these composers are not well-known, yet all have written some excellent performance and pedagogical music which is worthy of wide-spread recogition. Write Comment (0 Comments) |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 27 February 2008 )
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New Projects in the Works |
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Written by Jon Ensminger
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Sunday, 10 February 2008 |
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Even though I haven't posted an article here for a while, things have been busy. I've been trying to make some progress on the flash notes game (thanks to those who've sent me comments and suggestions!), but it is requiring a complete re-write with new program code; the latest version of 3D Flash Animator is quite different than the older versions, but much more powerful - with a more robust object-oriented programming scripting ability (uses flash Actionscript 3.0 ). I've also been working on a design for a comprehensive online, flash-based music theory and ear-training curriculum. My interest in distance-based teaching keeps increasing, fueled by some of the technology workshops at the NCKP convention in Chicago last August. I think Flash provides an excellent platform for integrating theory and ear-training in a fast-paced, fun, and effective package. The back-end design and programming is not simple, nor is it fast, but I think the results will be worth it. Of course, I'm hoping to roll out an improved version of FlashNotes soon, along with a couple of other games. More to come soon . . . Write Comment (0 Comments) |
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Written by Jon Ensminger
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Saturday, 04 August 2007 |
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I've uploaded a new version of Flash Notes. There are some significant differences from the original old game, but the concept is the same. This is "beta" in some ways. (I'm having some issues with passing variables for the high score table - so high scores aren't working yet). Try it out and let me know what you think!
http://pedaplus.com/flash_notes_2.0.html Write Comment (0 Comments) |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 04 August 2007 )
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