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Today's musical theatre world rocks. Now that rock 'n' roll music and its offshoots, including pop, hard rock, rap, r&b, funk, folk, and world-pop music, are the standard language of musical theatre, theatre singers need a source of information on these styles, their origins, and their performance practices. Rock in the Musical Theatre: A Guide for Singers fills this need. Today's musical theatre training programs are now including rock music in their coursework and rock songs and musicals in their repertoires. This is a text for those trainees, courses, and productions. It will also be of great value to working professionals, teachers, music directors, and coaches less familiar with rock styles, or who want to improve their rock-related skills. The author, an experienced music director, vocal coach, and university professor, and an acknowledged expert on rock music in the theatre, examines the many aspects of performing rock music in the theatre and offers practical advice through a combination of aesthetic and theoretical study, extensive discussions of musical, vocal, and acting techniques, and chronicles of coaching sessions. The book also includes advice from working actors, casting directors, and music directors who specialize in rock music for the stage.

This pioneering book reveals how the music classroom can draw upon the world of popular musicians' informal learning practices, so as to recognize and foster a range of musical skills and knowledge that have long been overlooked within music education. It investigates how far informal learning practices are possible and desirable in a classroom context; how they can affect young teenagers' musical skill and knowledge acquisition; and how they can change the ways students listen to, understand and appreciate music as critical listeners, not only in relation to what they already know, but beyond. It examines students' motivations towards music education, their autonomy as learners, and their capacity to work co-operatively in groups without instructional guidance from teachers. It suggests how we can awaken students' awareness of their own musicality, particularly those who might not otherwise be reached by music education, putting the potential for musical development and participation into their own hands. Bringing informal learning practices into a school environment is challenging for teachers. It can appear to conflict with their views of professionalism, and may at times seem to run against official educational discourses, pedagogic methods and curricular requirements. But any conflict is more apparent than real, for this book shows how informal learning practices can introduce fresh, constructive ways for music teachers to understand and approach their work. It offers a critical pedagogy for music, not as mere theory, but as an analytical account of practices which have fundamentally influenced the perspectives of the teachers involved. Through its grounded examples and discussions of alternative approaches to classroom work and classroom relations, the book reaches out beyond music to other curriculum subjects, and wider debates about pedagogy and curriculum. Contents: Introduction; The project's pedagogy and curriculum content; Making music; Listening and appreciation; Enjoyment: making music and having autonomy; Group cooperation, ability and inclusion; Informal learning with classical music; Afterword; Appendices; Bibliography; Index. Lucy Green is Professor of Music Education in The Institute of Education, University of London, UK.

So You Want to Sing Light Opera is a concise handbook for performers, teachers, and directors who want to learn more about light opera, including Viennese operetta, English comic opera, French opمaera bouffe, and Spanish zarzuela. Award-winning opera director and singer Linda Lister brings clarity to this often misunderstood and overlooked category of music with detailed information on how to prepare and perform roles with stylistic and musical sensitivity and to deliver spoken dialogue and choreography with confidence. Lister focuses on the attributes of a light opera performer, light opera singing style, historical references, audition advice, directing insights, and extensive repertoire recommendations. Singing professionals, teachers, students, conductors, stage directors, coaches, and choreographers will find this book an ideal resource for the style--back cover.

Black Music Matters: Jazz and the Transformation of Music Studies is among the first books to examine music studies reform through the lens of African American music, as well as the emergent field of consciousness studies. It is inspired by conversations on race and a rich body of literature on the place of black music in American culture.

Popular musicians acquire some or all of their skills and knowledge informally, outside school or university, and with little help from trained instrumental teachers. How do they go about this process? Despite the fact that popular music has recently entered formal music education, we have as yet a limited understanding of the learning practices adopted by its musicians. Nor do we know why so many popular musicians in the past turned away from music education, or how young popular musicians today are responding to it. Drawing on a series of interviews with musicians aged between fifteen and fifty, Lucy Green explores the nature of pop musicians' informal learning practices, attitudes and values, the extent to which these altered over the last forty years, and the experiences of the musicians in formal music education. Through a comparison of the characteristics of informal pop music learning with those of more formal music education, the book offers insights into how we might re-invigorate the musical involvement of the population. Could the creation of a teaching culture that recognizes and rewards aural imitation, improvisation and experimentation, as well as commitment and passion, encourage more people to make music? Since the hardback publication of this book in 2001, the author has explored many of its themes through practical work in school classrooms. Her follow-up book, Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (2008) appears in the same Ashgate series. Lucy Green is Professor of Music Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. Her other books include Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (2008); Music, Gender, Education (1997) and Music on Deaf Ears (1988). Contents: Foreword, Robert Fripp; What is it to be musically educated?: Research methods; Concluding thoughts; Skills, knowledge and self-conceptions of popular musicians: the beginnings and the ends: The ’beginnings’; Professional musicianship: the ’ends’; Some self-conceptions of popular musicians; Learning to play popular music: acquiring skills and knowledge: The overriding learning practice: listening and copying; Peer-directed learning and group learning; Acquiring technique; Practice; Acquiring knowledge of technicalities; Summary; Attitudes and values in learning to play popular music: Discipline and osmosis; Enjoyment; Valuing musicianship; Valuing oneself; Attitudes to ’other’ music; Summary; Popular musicians in traditional music education: Classical instrumental tuition; Traditional classroom music education; Summary; Popular musicians in the new music education: Popular music instrumental tuition; The new classroom music education; Popular music in further and higher education; The musician’s views of popular music in formal education; Summary; The formal and the informal: mutual reciprocity or a contradiction in terms?: The neglect of informal learning practices in formal music education; Informal learning practices, attitudes and values: their potential for the formal sphere; What can teachers do?; Appendix: summary profiles of the musicians; Bibliography; Index.

This book covers the entire group education process, from initial planning, to delivery and evaluation. Topics include agreeing aims and objectives and structuring a session, to considering practical aspects such as setting, managing challenging group members and participant expectations, as well as evaluating and refining a session plan for future use. It also provides an overview of the key evidence base for group learning, relevant theories and models, peer support, and e-learning opportunities.

In this volume, pioneering composer and Cambridge University alumnus John Borstlap explores the burning question of Western classical music's relevance in a troubled modern world. Why have classical music at all? Is it elitist, or racist, or misogynistic? Should it adapt to modern needs - and, if so, what are they? While Western classical music is booming in Latin America and East Asia, in the West, performers, orchestras, opera houses, promotors, managements, and educators are struggling to explain why this type of music belongs to society as an important common good. What does classical music do to the listener? What is its relationship with Nature, and human nature? Practitioners and music lovers will find in this book a thorough analysis of these problems, a surprising relationship between music and the human mind, and suggestions for solutions which will help to affirm the art form as one of the great achievements of humanity.

Blending creative insights with wisdom of the masters, professional violinist Maureen Taranto-Pyatt shares practical guidance in her new methodology, Progressive Form. With The Living Art of Violin Playing , violinists will learn to appreciate the physics and geometry of movement to facilitate a nuanced flow of compression and release in the playing. A gradual building of technique begins from sitting or standing, moves through the torso into the left arm first, sets up an effective bow arm, and then combines the two in a holistic context. Imagery invigorates each of the technical moments, instilling new patterns that are now memorable and integrating each component into larger forms. Featuring nearly 400 photos and music examples to illustrate technical elements through balance and gesture, Progressive Form can be used as a step-by-step retooling of technique or as a reference for targeted issues. A comprehensive exploration of method in service of musical expression, The Living Art of Violin Playing offers the aspiring and serious violinist a path toward a more liberated musical world.