Playing Beyond the Notes: A Pianist's Guide to Musical Interpretation demystifies the complex concepts of musical interpretation in Western tonal piano music by boiling it down to basic principles in an accessible writing style. Author and veteran piano instructor Deborah Rambo Sinn tackles a different interpretive principle, explaining clearly, for example, how to play effective ornaments and rubatos. As a whole, the book helps pianists understand concrete ways to apply interpretive concepts to their own playing and gives teachers practical ways to teach interpretation to their students. The book is illustrated with over 200 repertoire excerpts and supplemented by a companion website with over 100 audio recordings. Playing Beyond the Notes is essential reading for all performing pianists, independent piano teachers, and piano pedagogy students.

This book demystifies the complex topic of musical interpretation by boiling it down to basic principles in an accessible writing style. The book targets pianists, piano teachers, and piano pedagogy students and incorporates over 200 musical examples from the intermediate and advanced piano repertoire.

Describes the life of the dedicated professional musician more vividly and honestly than any other work I've read. ALAN RUSBRIDGERSusan Tomes, a rare example of a leading musician who writes about the craft of performance, describes her experience of twenty years of rehearsal, concerts and recording. Her performing life has been centred on chamber music and the need to communicate it fully to an audience hungry for meaningful musical experience. Susan Tomes was a founder member and the pianist of both Domus and the Florestan Trio, award-winning groups at the top of their field. Part One is a series of diaries describing their travels and performances: Domus in the 1980s with its own portable concert hall, struggling to create the conditions for informal but intense concert performances, and the Florestan Trio, currently one of the world's finest piano trios. Part Two is a collection of thought-provoking essays about teachers, making records, practising and rehearsing, audiences, earning a living, and the particular challenges of being a concert pianist. Beyond the Notes gives an unusually candid view of the complexities of a life in music.SUSAN TOMES, alongside her packed concert schedule, is a frequent contributor, on music and other subjects, to the Guardian.

Susan Tomes, a leading musician, describes her experience of twenty years of rehearsal, concerts and recording.

This book demystifies the complex topic of musical interpretation by boiling it down to basic principles in an accessible writing style. The book targets pianists, piano teachers, and piano pedagogy students and incorporates over 200 musical examples from the intermediate and advanced piano repertoire.

A uniquely illuminating memoir of the making of a musician, in which renowned pianist Jeremy Denk explores what he learned from his teachers about classical music: its forms, its power, its meaning - and what it can teach us about ourselves. In this searching and funny memoir, based on his popular New Yorker article, renowned pianist Jeremy Denk traces an implausible journey. Life is difficult enough as a precocious, temperamental, and insufferable six-year-old piano prodigy in New Jersey. But then a family meltdown forces a move to New Mexico, far from classical music’s nerve centers, and he has to please a new taskmaster while navigating cacti, and the perils of junior high school. Escaping from New Mexico at last, he meets a bewildering cast of college music teachers, ranging from boring to profound, and experiences a series of humiliations and triumphs, to find his way as one of the world’s greatest living pianists, a MacArthur 'Genius,' and a frequent performer at Carnegie Hall. There are few writers working today who are willing to eloquently explore both the joys and miseries of artistic practice. Hours of daily repetition, mystifying early advice, pressure from parents and teachers who drove him on – an ongoing battle of talent against two enemies: boredom and insecurity. As we meet various teachers, with cruel and kind streaks, Denk composes a fraught love letter to the act of teaching. He brings you behind the scenes, to look at what motivates both student and teacher, locked in a complicated and psychologically perilous relationship. In Every Good Boy Does Fine, Denk explores how classical music is relevant to 'real life,' despite its distance in time. He dives into pieces and composers that have shaped him – Bach, Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms, among others – and gives unusual lessons on melody, harmony, and rhythm. Why and how do these fundamental elements have such a visceral effect on us? He tries to sum up many of the lessons he has received, to repay the debt of all his amazing teachers; to remind us that music is our creation, and that we need to keep asking questions about its purpose.

Describes how to improvise melodies over any chord progression, covering such topics as the chord theory, phrasing, melodies, scales, soloing, articulations, and rhythms.