Denes Striny's international singing career brought him to the major opera houses of the world in leading roles. At the same time, he was evolving his vocal technique in a quest to find his full vocal potential. This book documents his struggles and successes with himself, teachers, coaches, and other singers. Striny, while maintaining his singing career, also had a full studio of singers studying with him in New York City.In this his first book, Striny confronts and explains the u...

Free Play is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms.An international bestseller and beloved classic, Free Play is an inspiring and provocative book, directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It reveals how inspiration arise...

The fascinating personal story of one of the most celebrated talents in today’s music sceneThe star of the Metropolitan Opera's recent revival of Dvorak's Rusalka, soprano Renée Fleming brings a consummately beautiful voice, striking interpretive talents, and compelling artistry to bear on performances that have captivated audiences in opera houses and recital halls throughout the world. In The Inner Voice—a book that is the story of her own artistic devel...

The Viewpoints is a technique of improvisation that grew out of the postmodern dance world. It was first articulated by choreographer Mary Overlie, who broke down the two dominant issues performers deal with—space and time—into six categories. Since that time, directors Anne Bogart and Tina Landau have expanded her notions and adapted them for actors to function together spontaneously and intuitively and to generate bold, theatrical work.The Viewpoints are a set o...

The classic instructional—and inspirational—guide for amateur pianists, filled with humor, encouragement, and advice from modern masters: “Excellent.” —The New York TimesLongtime New Yorker writer and passionate piano player Charles Cooke offers concrete routines for improving your piano performance, whether you’re experienced, starting out, or starting over.A pleasant and constant cheerleader, Cooke asks readers to practice every day, sug...

The Inner Game of Music, the breakout hit that became a standard primer in the music world, has taught thousands of musicians—professionals and amateurs alike—how to overcome self-consciousness and stage fright and to recapture a youthful, almost effortless capacity to learn. Now, in his follow-up book, The Mastery of Music, Barry Green turns his expert hand to the artistic qualities that make an extraordinary musician. Culling advice from dozens of interviews with legend...

An illustrated guide for the amateur and professional musician that teaches us how to transform practicing from an often laborious activity into an exhilarating and rewarding experienceForeword by Yehudi Menuhin • “Give this book to any musician you love and to any person who loves what music does for them and for the world.”—Richard Stoltzman, clarinetistIn The Art of Practicing, acclaimed pianist and teacher Madeline Bruser combi...

In The Naked Voice, W. Stephen Smith invites all singers to improve their vocal technique through his renowned and time-tested wholistic method. Focusing not only on the most important technical, but also on the often overlooked psychological and spiritual elements of learning to sing, his book allows readers to develop their own full and individual identities as singers. With philosophies and techniques drawn from a lifetime of teaching voice, Smith demonstrates how one can reveal the tru...

A musician's life is filled with many stressful situations: passing auditions, rehearsing and performing with difficult partners, sitting for long hours in uncomfortable chairs, going on stage to face audiences large and small, who may or may not be receptive to the performance they are presented. And yet many musicians are able to surmount these looming obstacles with grace and balance, to find satisfaction and artistry in their music and build productive and lasting careers. Indirect Pro...

Counterpoint is an approach to musical composition based on the union of independent and interdependent melodies. Counterpoint and How to Use It in Your Music is a step-by-step course in counterpoint, and shows you how to apply it in your own music, whether you write contemporary pop songs or pieces for orchestral or traditional instruments.     "I love to learn from it. A mavelous master piece. I learned a lot from each lesson. I had to tran...

The same notes can sound square or swinging, depending on how the music is phrased. This revolutionary book shows how many people misunderstand jazz phrasing and shows how to replace stiff phrasing with fluid lines that have the right jazz feeling. In this book, master pianist Hal Galper also shows how get that feeling of forward motion and also how to use melody guide tones correctly, how to line up the strong beat in a bar with the strongest chord notes, and much more!

In this well documented and highly readable book, James Stark provides a history of vocal pedagogy from the beginning of the bel canto tradition of solo singing in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to the present. Using a nineteenth-century treatise by Manuel Garcia as his point of reference, Stark analyses the many sources that discuss singing techniques and selects a number of primary vocal 'problems' for detailed investigation. He also presents data from a seri...