Play Book for piano students

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Notes

Play Book has 31 pieces for beginning to intermediate/advanced piano students. The pieces use various contemporary techniques in an  approachable style.

Play Book is the result of composing and improvisation workshops at the
Pacem music studio in Lexington, MA in 2007. The students were elementary
through high school age. They got to work with a real live composer. They also
worked with melody, harmony, and rhythm –- by listening, discussing,
improvising solos and with each other. Some of them also wrote their own
pieces, which are included in the book.

Most pieces are piano solo; two include a recorder part. Each piece was
written according to the specifications of a particular student — fast,
slow, happy, mournful, angry, rhythmic, pretty, high-pitched. I had only
one disappointed response, where her idea of a galloping horse was
different from mine.

I wanted their first commissioned piece to give them the idea that new
music can be personal and a part of their lives, and that composers are
living, breathing people, rather than only old and dead. The workshops
also were designed to inspire them to create their own music, improvised
or written, and that along with the discipline of their lessons, music
is also fun!

Level: Beginner to advanced

Pieces 1-9 are beginner pieces; 10-21 are intermediate; 22-31 are more advanced with more complex rhythms. 30 & 31 interpret the student’s own poem.

44 pages

Listen On the Spindrift Bandcamp page, you can listen to all the Play Book music,
performed by composer Pamela Marshall.  You can purchase the  audio tracks on Bandcamp. There, the downloadable PDF of the sheet music is included as a bonus. Name-your-price! $10 or more, as you see fit.

More about Play Book

Read the press release about the Play Book project.