Here is what the experts are saying:"Donald Brinegar's deeply scholarly, highly original "Pitch Perfect" is the result of his life-long study and practice of choral tuning. His decades of workshops on this topic have become legendary and his book details numerous areas of theoretical and practical means that form the basis of his approach, including various tuning systems, scales and modes, tetrachords and the medieval hexachordal system, acoustics, text study, rehearsal techniques and many others, all carefully organized through a system of nested hierarchies grouping related topics. Brinegar then applies his theories to a number of specific compositions from the Renaissance to the present day. "Pitch Perfect" is an essential book for the library of all choral conductors, written by an esteemed choral master." -- Dr. Morten Lauridsen, Composer, University Professor, USC, National Medal of Arts Recipient, 2007."Pitch Perfect brilliantly combines two of Don Brinegar's lifelong loves - teaching and the art of comprehensive score preparation. He connects a wide variety of important technical data, puts it in his "teacher centrifuge," and the result is a unique and fresh new perspective on musical nature, with practical application to conducting, score analysis, and performance. Serious emerging and seasoned conductors need a copy of this book!" Dr. Z. Randall Stroope, Composer and University Professor"My musical life changed when I discovered that the major third my tenors were singing at the final cadence of a Renaissance motet WERE in tune, but it was in tune to a different tuning system than the tempered piano. THANK Y0U maestro Brinegar for sharing your tuning system with me more than twenty years ago and codifying it in "Pitch Perfect." The tuning system outlined in this new book (with historical musical examples from major composers) is cellular, functional, historical, lunar, mathematical, musical, natural, over-tonal, partial, philosophical, practical, scientific, solar, spiritual, tetra-chordal, under-tonal, hexa-chordal, and visual. Vocal colors emerge from a natural system of balancing and tuning chords. Functional and helpful conducting gestures suggest themselves from an understanding of the tuning hierarchy. Sharing this tuning system with my singers enabled them to sing more beautifully, more balanced, more resonant, and more expressive than ever before, and has influenced all of my compositions. "Pitch Perfect" WORKS!" Dr. Ronald Kean, Composer and Professor Emeritus."Don is a master teacher. Over the years many of us have been greatly influenced by his work through his choirs, his choral adjudications, and in his classroom. In this book, Don eloquently and systematically explains his "principles and foundations" for improved intonation through his words and numerous musical examples. This book is a compilation of his lifetime journey of listening, learning, reflecting, and teaching--as if you were sitting in his classroom or speaking to you personally." Dr. J. Edmund Hughes, University Professor of Choral Studies."I have been singing out of tune with nature. This one idea made me want to dig deeper into this book and not put it down.As a choral singer and a conductor, this book is changing how I hear, how I rehearse, and how I sing. What a journey! Thank you, Don, for sharing your knowledge and your life-long love of choral beauty." Jenny Tisi, Choral Director and Vocalist."A big thank you to Donald Brinegar for this magnificent gift to the music community. The intellectual rigor of addressing this comprehensive subject is astounding. Professor Sigrid Johnson, Renowned Choral Conductor.Coming Soon!!! The Teacher's Companion to Pitch Perfect A Theory and Practice of Choral Intonation gives step by step lesson plans for the implementation of Pitch Perfect. Lesson plans include material for: Theory classes, Choral Seminars, Choral Rehearsals, Master Classes, and Conference Presentations

Singing has been a characteristic behaviour of humanity across several millennia. Chorus America (2009) estimated that 42.6 million adults and children regularly sing in one of 270,000 choruses in the US, representing more than 1:5 households. Similarly, recent European-based data suggest that more than 37 million adults take part in group singing. The Oxford Handbook of Singing is a landmark text on this topic. It is a comprehensive resource for anyone who wishes to know more about the pluralistic nature of singing. In part, the narrative adopts a lifespan approach, pre-cradle to senescence, to illustrate that singing is a commonplace behaviour which is an essential characteristic of our humanity. In the overall design of the Handbook, the chapter contents have been clustered into eight main sections, embracing fifty-three chapters by seventy-two authors, drawn from across the world, with each chapter illustrating and illuminating a particular aspect of singing. Offering a multi-disciplinary perspective embracing the arts and humanities, physical, social and clinical sciences, the book will be valuable for a broad audience within those fields.

In this highly anticipated sequel to A Cappella Arranging, Deke Sharon and Dylan Bell provide even more tools and insights to help musicians master the craft of a cappella arranging—including new creative principles and theoretical techniques to expand the palate, as well as arranging in various musical genres spanning several decades of music. Since the publication of the original book in 2012, a cappella as a genre has grown enormously. Using conversational yet instructive tone, A Cappella Arranging 2.0: The Next Level picks up where the previous book left off, helping people deepen their a cappella arranging skills. In four parts, the book addresses a variety of topics including: The creative process An advanced understanding of vocal ranges Counterpoint and polyphony Harmonic concepts and techniques Arranging for the studio Live looping arrangements Instrumental idioms Arranging in different styles, including world styles Medleys and mashups This is the perfect resource for taking your a cappella arrangements to the next level.

As the landscape of choral education changes - disrupted by Glee, YouTube, and increasingly cheap audio production software - teachers of choral conducting need current research in the field that charts scholarly paths through contemporary debates and sets an agenda for new critical thought and practice. Where, in the digitizing world, is the field of choral pedagogy moving? Editor Frank Abrahams and Paul D. Head, both experienced choral conductors and teachers, offer here a comprehensive handbook of newly-commissioned chapters that provide key scholarly-critical perspectives on teaching and learning in the field of choral music, written by academic scholars and researchers in tandem with active choral conductors. As chapters in this book demonstrate, choral pedagogy encompasses everything from conductors' gestures to the administrative management of the choir. The contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy address the full range of issues in contemporary choral pedagogy, from repertoire to voice science to the social and political aspects of choral singing. They also cover the construction of a choral singer's personal identity, the gendering of choral ensembles, social justice in choral education, and the role of the choral art in society more generally. Included scholarship focuses on both the United States and international perspectives in five sections that address traditional paradigms of the field and challenges to them; critical case studies on teaching and conducting specific populations (such as international, school, or barbershop choirs); the pedagogical functions of repertoire; teaching as a way to construct identity; and new scholarly methodologies in pedagogy and the voice.

What goes on in human beings when they make or listen to music? What is it about music, what gives it such peculiar power over us, power delectable and beneficent for the most part, but also capable of uncontrollable and sometimes destructive force? Music has no concepts, it lacks images; it has no power of representation, it has no relation to the world. And yet it is evident in all of us–we tap our feet, we keep time, hum, sing, conduct music, mirror the melodic contours and feelings of what we hear in our movements and expressions. In this book, Oliver Sacks explores the power music wields over us–a power that sometimes we control and at other times don’t. He explores, in his inimitable fashion, how it can provide access to otherwise unreachable emotional states, how it can revivify neurological avenues that have been frozen, evoke memories of earlier, lost events or states or bring those with neurological disorders back to a time when the world was much richer. This is a book that explores, like no other, the myriad dimensions of our experience of and with music.