These intelligent conversations will be greeted enthusiastically not only by string players and serious musicians but also by advanced listeners. A musicologist and conductor, Blum knows from experience what crucial questions to ask about the medium and its practice. The members of the Guarneri Quartet discuss their backgrounds, training, cooperative efforts, problems with specific repertoire, and reactions to composers and conductors, as well as such detailed matters as bowing, intonation, vibrato, pizzicato, dynamics and the use of the left hand. Enhanced by hundreds of music examples and a detailed analysis of Beethoven's Opus 131, this is arguably the best book on the subject and one of the most important books on music issued in recent years. Performing Arts Book Club selection.

Celebrated instructor presents his philosophy of teaching and practice methods, including appropriate combination of technique and interpretation. Incorporates aspects of both the Russian and French schools in an ingenious and logical system.

One of the most respected and referenced books of its kind, this authoritative volume surveys violins and other bowed instruments from ancient to modern times. Includes 55 rare illustrations.

Throughout the Upland South, the banjo has become an emblem of white mountain folk, who are generally credited with creating the short-thumb-string banjo, developing its downstroking playing styles and repertory, and spreading its influence to the national consciousness. In this groundbreaking study, however, Cecelia Conway demonstrates that these European Americans borrowed the banjo from African Americans and adapted it to their own musical culture. Like many aspects of the African-American tradition, the influence of black banjo music has been largely unrecorded and nearly forgotten--until now. Drawing in part on interviews with elderly African-American banjo players from the Piedmont--among the last American representatives of an African banjo-playing tradition that spans several centuries--Conway reaches beyond the written records to reveal the similarity of pre-blues black banjo lyric patterns, improvisational playing styles, and the accompanying singing and dance movements to traditional West African music performances. The author then shows how Africans had, by the mid-eighteenth century, transformed the lyrical music of the gourd banjo as they dealt with the experience of slavery in America. By the mid-nineteenth century, white southern musicians were learning the banjo playing styles of their African-American mentors and had soon created or popularized a five-string, wooden-rim banjo. Some of these white banjo players remained in the mountain hollows, but others dispersed banjo music to distant musicians and the American public through popular minstrel shows. By the turn of the century, traditional black and white musicians still shared banjo playing, and Conway shows that this exchange gave rise to a distinct and complex new genre--the banjo song. Soon, however, black banjo players put down their banjos, set their songs with increasingly assertive commentary to the guitar, and left the banjo and its story to white musicians. But the banjo still echoed at the crossroads between the West African griots, the traveling country guitar bluesmen, the banjo players of the old-time southern string bands, and eventually the bluegrass bands. The Author: Cecelia Conway is associate professor of English at Appalachian State University. She is a folklorist who teaches twentieth-century literature, including cultural perspectives, southern literature, and film.

An invaluable guide to the available historical source material on playing the violin and viola.

Why pursue any skill or hobby? For the fun of it, for the love of it, and for the quality of the life lived while doing it, according to amateur cellist Wayne Booth.

"Spring focuses on the lute in Britain, but also includes two chapters devoted to continental developments: one on the transition from medieval to renaissance, the other on renaissance to baroque, and the lute in Britain is never treated in isolation. Six chapters cover all aspects of the lute's history and its music in England from 1285 to well into the eighteenth century, whilst other chapters cover the instrument's early history, the lute in consort, lute song accompaniment, the theorbo, and the lute in Scotland."--Jacket.

First published in 1925, this renowned reference remains unsurpassed as a source of essential information, from construction and evolution to repertoire and technique. Includes a glossary and 73 illustrations.

The Belwin String Builder is a string class method in which the violin, viola, cello, and bass play together throughout. Each book, however, is a complete unit and may be used separately for class or individual instruction. The material in this book is realistically graded so that only a minimum of explanatory material is required. Each melody is interesting and will provide the basis for a fine left hand technic and bow arm. Available in three levels for violin, viola, cello, bass, piano accompaniment, and teacher's manual.

'a comprehensive look at what is known about the mechanics of the violin family. In a very readable and non-mathematical style he explains the nature of sound production...and confronts the question of tone assessment. Professor Beament's book is a refreshing read full of information which goes a long way to filling a distinct gap in the market.' -The StradThroughout its history the violin has had a mystique with many curious beliefs. This book, now available in paperback, offers an explanation, without assuming any scientific background, of how a violin produces sound, and of how that sound causes what we hear. This explodes many of the long-standing myths. It also shows there is no place for modern technology in making or playing. Practical advice for players and parents is included.