Natalie’s note: This fascinating article by Mike Ellis will stretch your brain and push you outside the box, er, beat of traditional musical understanding. The more I teach, the more I realize the importance of teaching music as sound to be felt, interpreted and conveyed, not just as notes on a page to be intellectually […]
Teaching
Bigwigs of Classical Music – A Review
On its back cover Bigwigs of Classical Music promises the reader a unique, easily accessible, humorous, illustrated presentation of the fascinating story of history’s greatest music. And amazingly, author Ben Lansing delivers on every count! If I had to sum it up in two words, I would call my journey through this 310 page music […]
Take a Walk…
…down Piano Street! Wow! If you haven’t yet, you should head right over to take a walk down Piano Street! “Get instant access to the 1,512 greatest classical piano pieces (over 12,000 pages) as high quality printable PDF-files as well as acoustic recordings of the most common piano pieces.” On top of that, the website […]
MODES – The Mystery, The Myth, Part II – The Myth
[Be sure you read Part I – The Mystery of this helpful article by Mike Ellis, Dallas area music teacher, perfomer and theory method author. His perspective on modes is very enlightening!] MODES – The Mystery, The Myth, Part II – The Myth © Mike Ellis . 9/17/2006 Aeolian Mode, Dorian Mode, Mixolydian Mode!! Oh […]
MODES – The Mystery, The Myth, Part I – The Mystery
[Following is a guest post by Dallas area music teacher, performer and theory method author, Mike Ellis. He takes a closer look at modes and provides a different perspective for understanding their construction. Enjoy reading his Tale of Two Greek Boys to help unlock some of the mystery of the musical modes!] MODES – The […]
Assignment Book Pages
Each year I design a new Assignment Book/Practice Journal for my students that goes along with our theme and practice incentive program for the year. If you know how to use tables in MS Word, designing your own Assignment Book pages is pretty easy. Here are a couple basic ones I’ve designed and used in […]
