Daily Listening Assignments ~ August 6, 2023

 

 

Today’s piece is Hungarian Dance #5 by Johannes Brahms.  It’s available in Alfred Premier Piano Course Book 4 and many anthologies of classical music.

The Hungarian Dances are a set of 21 lively dance tunes based mostly on Hungarian themes, completed in 1869.

They vary from about a minute to five minutes in length. They are among Brahms’s most popular works and were the most profitable for him. Each dance has been arranged for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles. Brahms originally wrote the version for piano four hands and later arranged the first ten dances for solo piano.

Orchestra

 

Piano Duo

This has been embellished quite a bit

 

Violin

Ragtime (Bill Edwards)

 

Daily Listening Assignments ~ August 2, 2023

 

Today’s piece is from a TV show my son used to love to watch: Inspector Gadget. The show followed the adventures of a powerful but dimwitted cyborg police inspector named Gadget as he investigates the criminal schemes of Dr. Claw and his organization, MAD, as they fruitlessly attempt to stop him. However, neither side was aware that it is Gadget’s niece, Penny, and her dog, Brain, who are truly responsible for thwarting MAD.

 

Find the theme in Alfred Premier Pop and Movie Hits 1B as well as other books

 

Now, for just the theme

One of my favorite piano duet (I have the sheet music!)

For guitar

 

Did you know… Inspector Gadget was inspired by Edvard Grieg’s piece “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, July 18th Daily Listening Assignment.

Can you spot the differences?

 

 

 

 

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 30, 2023

 

 

 

 

Today’s piece is a fine baseball standard “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer.  The song’s chorus is traditionally sung during the middle of the seventh inning of a baseball game. Fans are generally encouraged to sing along, and at some ballparks, the words “home team” are replaced with the team name.

Find it in Piano Pronto Songs I love to Play 2 and Alfred Premier 2B among others.

Below are the lyrics to the chorus of the 1908 version, which is out of copyright.

Chorus

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don’t care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win, it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.

 

From the movie Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Muppets

Organ

 

Ragtime Piano

 

Player piano

 

Orchestra

 

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 25, 2023

 

Today’s piece is Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. It was made popular in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick science-fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The organ part in this snippet looks pretty easy.

 

Just the main theme for piano

One-quarter speed

 

A piano reduction of the whole orchestral score

Tee orchestra playing the entire word

 

Just the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Blue Danube Waltz composed by Johann Strauss (no relation) was also used in this movie.

 

 

 

 

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 23, 2023

 

Today we will listen to Minuet in G.  Several people composed a Minuet (a slow, stately ballroom dance for two in 3/4 time, popular especially in the 18th century) in the key of G including Beethoven, Mozart and Bach.

How are the same?  How are they different?

JS Bach’s version

 

The Bach version also was “acquired” for a popular song in the 1960s

 

Beethoven

Rowlf from the Muppets plays the Beethoven Minuet

 

Mozart

 

So – never say to your teacher that “I already played that” – you never know which version s/he has in mind!

 

 

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 18, 2023

 

 

hall-mountain

 

“In the Hall of the Mountain King” is a piece of orchestral music composed for the sixth scene of act 2 in Henrik Ibsen’s 1867 play Peer Gynt. It was originally part of Opus 23 but was later extracted as the final piece of Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1, Op. 46. Its easily recognizable theme has helped it attain iconic status in popular culture, where it has been arranged by many artists, including for the piano.

Borrow a copy of the sheet music from the O’Connor Music Studio.  I have this arranged for piano, duet, 2-piano, simplified…

 

8 part vocal orchestra (plus a tiny pair of cymbals)

 

Pianist Paul Barton

 

Solo piano sheet music – Video Score

 

Orchestral version

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 14, 2023

 

“The Entertainer” is a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin. It was sold first as sheet music, and in the 1910s as piano rolls that would play on player pianos.

It was used as the theme music for the 1973 Oscar-winning film The Sting by composer and pianist Marvin Hamlisch.
The Sting was set in the 1930s, a full generation after the end of ragtime’s mainstream popularity, thus giving the inaccurate impression that ragtime music was popular at that time.

Find the sheet music in a variety of levels including Songs I Love to Play, Volume 1 and Alfred Premier Piano Course Book 4.  It’s also available in Piano Maestro and to borrow from the O’Connor Music Studio

 

 

As played in The Sting

 

Adam Swanson

 

Piano Duet

On an older piano

 

At Disney

 

Player piano

Harder than it needs to be

From a 4-year-old

Violin and piano

 

String Quartet

On guitar

 

Saxophone quartet

Miss Piggy sang The Entertainer

And, everyone’s favorite – the ice cream truck!

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 1, 2023

 

Today’s piece is the other one of two pieces that are so often played incorrectly that they have the distinction of being banned from competition in Northern Virginia Piano Teacher competitions.

The first was Fur Elise.  This one is Spinning Song by Albert Ellmenreich.  It’s in many, many piano method books.  When I was in 5th or 6th grade, I tore it out of my book, put it in a construction paper cover and played it for some Girl Scout talent show.  I have no idea why I couldn’t leave it in the book.

The left hand is supposed to sound like the foot pumping the wheel to make it move

 

This is part of a larger work called Musikalische Genrebilder, Op.14 which can be downloaded at IMSLP:

Spinnliedchen (Spinning Song), the best known item from the set, seems to be universally referred to as number four. The announcement of the first edition in Hofmeister’s Monatsberichte lists it as the fifth item. In Schirmer’s 1878 edition (see cover: here) of Op.14 it appears that items two and three were possibly combined into one number (entitled Sorrow and Consolation) so that Spinnliedchen became number four. Perhaps, this is the origin of the re-numbering.

To learn this sheet music, it’s available in Piano Pronto Movement 4 and Alfred Premier Piano Course Book 6

Here’s a sample:

 

A tutorial

With scrolling sheet music

For organ

How to conduct(?)

While this piece is not usually popular with other instruments, a trumpet quartet gave it a try

The DMS Percussion Ensemble

Singers from the Londonderry Middle School gave it a try:

The first half of this video is flute tuning. After that is a lovely flute duet.

 

For clarinet “quartet”.  Quartet is in quotes because the performer wrote “This is a ‘cover’ I did of Spinning Song by Albert Ellmenreich. I played all the parts on my clarinet, using the really crappy camera I have. So the sound quality sucks… Also, I don’t have a bass clarinet, so the low part is edited down… and it sounds like a saxophone… oh well. lol!”

I can’t take any more of these!

 

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 18, 2020

 

 

hall-mountain

 

“In the Hall of the Mountain King” is a piece of orchestral music composed for the sixth scene of act 2 in Henrik Ibsen’s 1867 play Peer Gynt. It was originally part of Opus 23 but was later extracted as the final piece of Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1, Op. 46. Its easily recognizable theme has helped it attain iconic status in popular culture, where it has been arranged by many artists, including for the piano.

Borrow a copy of the sheet music from the O’Connor Music Studio.  I have this arranged for piano, duet, 2-piano, simplified…

 

8 part vocal orchestra (plus a tiny pair of cymbals)

 

Pianist Paul Barton

 

Solo piano sheet music – Video Score

 

Orchestral version

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 14, 2020

 

“The Entertainer” is a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin. It was sold first as sheet music, and in the 1910s as piano rolls that would play on player pianos.

It was used as the theme music for the 1973 Oscar-winning film The Sting by composer and pianist Marvin Hamlisch.
The Sting was set in the 1930s, a full generation after the end of ragtime’s mainstream popularity, thus giving the inaccurate impression that ragtime music was popular at that time.

Find the sheet music in a variety of levels including Songs I Love to Play, Volume 1 and Alfred Premier Piano Course Book 4.  It’s also available in Piano Maestro and to borrow from the O’Connor Music Studio

 

 

As played in The Sting

 

Adam Swanson

 

Piano Duet

On an older piano

 

At Disney

 

Player piano

Harder than it needs to be

From a 4-year-old

Violin and piano

 

String Quartet

On guitar

 

Saxophone quartet

Miss Piggy sang The Entertainer

And, everyone’s favorite – the ice cream truck!