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All About Pianos - The King of Instruments. That's what they call the piano, for its tonal range (the piano covers the full spectrum of any instrument in the orchestra, from below the lowest note of the double bassoon to above the top note of the piccolo), its ability to produce melody and accompaniment at the same time (try that on a flute), and its broad dynamic range. It is also the largest musical instrument (excluding the pipe organ), most versatile, and probably the most interesting. You can learn just about anything you want to know--or need to know--about a piano here. Then you can order a book and begin your lessons!
Bagpipes at Best - Where else but on a page devoted to the playing of bagpipe music could you hear a tune named "The Clucking Hen"? Bagpipes are interesting to listen to, and this page has more than two hours of bagpipe music. This can be useful. When you're trying to get everyone up early to go fishing, head to this site, choose "Scotland the Brave," and turn up the volume. Everyone will be very surprised.
Bill Powelson's School of Drums - Have you ever wondered if you have the right stuff when it comes to playing drums? Sure, you may have been good at banging on pots and pans when you were little, but what if you were able to use a real drum set? Wonder no more. Visit this site and take the drummer's aptitude test. The author says you'll be drumming before the page loads completely. There are also some free drumming lessons, plus for-fee lessons if you become really hooked.
BMG: Classics World: Beginner's Guide to the Classics - This is the place to satisfy your raging curiosity about early music, the Romantic period, the Renaissance, or even what's happening today in classical music. You can search by composer, read a short biography, and get definitions of musical terms.
Classical MIDI Archives - Take a musical tour of the greatest classical hits from the fourteenth century to the twentieth, sampling the tunes of more than 594 composers along the way. Go to the Site Map. You can choose to listen by time period or search for a composer's name. There's also a really interesting time line so you can see who might have been influenced by whom. Composers' biographies add the final flourish to this excellent site.
Dansm's Home Page, Acoustic Guitar - So you have never picked up a guitar and you're not really sure what the word "acoustic" really means. This is the place where you belong. Dan Smith, a Cornell University student and guitar player, has developed one of the greatest Web pages--if not the greatest Web page--on the subject. He explains everything you need to know. Take some time first to let Dan help you choose the guitar meant just for you. Then get yourself an instrument and play. There are lessons online, including a fascinating tutorial on chord theory.
Energy in the Air - Let the conductor be your guide as you stumble through the forest of music stands to meet various parts of the orchestra. Let's try the brass section. It says here that trumpets used to be over seven feet long! Thank goodness they changed that before they invented marching bands. You'll read about the history of each instrument, see its range on the musical scale, and even hear sound clips from famous works featuring the instrument. There's also a section on the science of sound. Did you know that sound waves look different for each instrument? This site was created by students for the ThinkQuest Junior competition.
Folk Music of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and America - Many of your favorite tunes are here, in wonderful MIDI versions. Included are interesting historical details. "Greensleeves" was popular in sixteenth-century America. "The Drinking Gourd" was from the Civil War era. "I've Been Working on the Railroad" was what the forty-niner's sang as they searched for gold in California. There are also a fair number of sea shanties and cowboy songs. Sing along, because the lyrics are provided for most of the titles.
Hooked on Symphonics - Check this site if you need a quick introduction to the symphony orchestra. There's a little bit about many of the instruments, plus links to a glossary so you can look up unfamiliar terms. Read biographies of six famous composers. The best part of the site is the guided tour to the famous musical version of "Peter and the Wolf," by Sergei Prokofiev. Listen to each character's musical theme, and you'll soon be able to identify flutes, bassoons, French horns, and other instruments. This site was created by students for the ThinkQuest competition.
Internet Movie Database Soundtracks Section Search - Parental advisory: Please preview this site. You loved a song you heard at the movies last night, but you have no idea what it's called or who sang it. Here's what you do: pop a word from the movie title into this searching machine to get all the details in a flash. You can do the same thing with your favorite group. We typed the word "Mozart" into the search box and found out his music has been in lots of movies, even Operation Dumbo Drop !
Jazz Improvisation - How does jazz work? This site can tell you. Not for performers only, these lessons on jazz theory and practice fill you in on history, fundamentals, and playing with others. You'll get new insights into the heart of jazz. Also take a look at the shorter Jazz Improvisation Primer. The rest of this site is an entire jazz library. Other links are to Pop and Commercial Music, Jazz Education resources, and World Music, where you'll find Chinese, Russian, and Bulgarian sounds, and the Mbira Home Page. Also take a look at European jazz, more photos, and jazz literature. Bring a sandwich and spend the day here.
John Philip Sousa ) - If you are listening to a band parading down the street, chances are good it is playing a tune written by John Philip Sousa. He wrote more than 130 marches during his lifetime. Although he died in 1932, Sousa is still known as the March King, and his pieces are played thousands of times each year by bands throughout the world. This site has some neat information about Sousa and sound clips of some of his more famous tunes. It also has lots of links, including ones to the bands of the U.S. military. Did you know that the United States Marine Corps band is called "The President's Own" and that it closes its weekly Washington, D.C., concert with a Sousa march? A few years ago, President Ronald Reagan named Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever" as the national march. We guarantee you'll be humming his tunes and tapping your toes before you leave this page.
Lark in the Morning - Where could you buy a hurdy-gurdy, or an Italian bagpipe, or an eighteenth-century oboe? This site specializes in hard-to-find musical instruments, music, and instructional materials. They also sell recordings from all over the world and have sound samples to entice you to buy. Their picture dictionary, describing music makers strange only to us, is complete and fascinating. Read the articles on instrument repair, the interviews with musicians, the essays on various unusual instruments, humor, and dance, and other resources. Lark in the Morning is truly more than a music store. If you don't happen to live in Mendocino, California, you can still visit via the Net.
Links to Marching Bands - Do you love a parade? If you're a fan of The Music Man or if you're in a band yourself, this is the site for you. Bands by the score, of every description, abound. You can see pictures, statistics, contest standings, and lots of homecoming celebrations from all over the U.S. You can download sound clips, too. "Professional" bands, like the West Newbury Veteran Fireman's Association Marching Band, vie with the 60 or so college bands. Even if you don't play the glockenspiel, these links are good fun.
MHN Instrument Encyclopedia - Artifacts--140 of them--from a special music collection at Michigan State University form the basis of this growing Web site. Browse the instrument family that interests you. Apparently, you can also browse by geographic region, but it was not operational when we visited. Did you know that the traditional Australian wind instrument known as a dijeridu is made from a eucalyptus branch that has been hollowed out by termites? That's only one of the fun facts to learn.
Music Magic: A Piano Exploration - This great little tutorial features 15 interactive piano lessons with an on-screen piano you can play. Learn about rhythm, time signatures, notes, and even play a few simple songs. The lessons feature numerous MIDI files so you can hear what you're supposed to sound like! There is also a glossary defining 1,000 different musical terms plus brief biographies of famous pianists and composers. You can even "go onstage" as a performer and "play" for whoever happens to be in the cyberspace audience. This site was created by students for the ThinkQuest competition.
Musical Instrument Quiz - How many instruments can you recognize if you see a picture and hear the sound it makes when played? This is your chance to test yourself. And if you just want to explore the music encyclopedia, you can stop anywhere and hear a balalaika , a harp, or a clarinet.
Native Musical Instruments - Music is fun to listen to and dance to, but it also has a place in sacred ritual and ceremony. Explore some special native instruments such as rattles, drums, flutes, and whistles. You will also learn a little about the nation that produced each artifact.
Opera Synopses/Composer Bios - Maybe you're looking for the plot summary for the opera your parents are taking you to this week. Maybe you are trying hard to remember the names of the characters in The Mikado. Or maybe you need a quick biography of a composer like Benjamin Britten or the original Engelbert Humperdinck. Remember this site!
Piano on the Net - Would you like to learn how to play the piano or maybe just how to read music? You can! The first few lessons don't even require a piano, but for later lessons you will want one. Even a small portable keyboard will do. This easy, reassuring series of modules includes QuickTime movies, audio files, and even online metronomes to keep you in time with the music.
Richard Robinson's Tunebook - Haul out your fiddle (or flute, sax, or tuba) and try some of these great tunes. This is real sheet music. If you hang out with acoustic or traditional musicians, you'll recognize some of these tunes. Jigs, reels, polkas, schottisches, and more were selected from France, Finland, Turkey, and Cape Breton, as well as lots from the British Isles. There's bound to be some bourr e or other you've never played before. The real fun comes when you share the tunes with other players. Anybody can play them. If you've been taking Suzuki method lessons for a while, try something new. It's the 32-bar pause that refreshes!
Some Peruvian Music... - The soft sound of the zampona (the South American pan pipe) is a musical signature of the Andes mountains. On this page, you will hear its haunting melodies along with other native instruments of Peru. A dozen or so sound samples give you a good feel for the music of the land. Sure, you'll have to wait a few minutes to hear them, but good things truly are worth the wait.
The Digital Tradition Folksong Database - A caution to parents: Not all songs listed at this site are for children. What makes a song a folk song? Folks sing them, of course! The Mudcat Cafe's Digital Tradition Folk Song Database is a "not-for-profit, not-for-sale, not-for-glory" collection. The 5,000-plus (and growing) songs are searchable by keyword, title, and tune. If you're interested, look at the detailed notes on how to search and on how songs are chosen to be included in the database.
The Internet Cello Society - Cellists young and old, amateur and pro, will love this site. Here's an introduction to the instrument, including an interactive multimedia presentation. You'll find out about repertoire, history, and famous artists and teachers. If you're a young cellist, there's a special section just for you on getting started and on picking what to play and what to listen to. In a photo tour, Baby Alec will introduce you to the parts of the cello. Don't miss the sound samples in the Guide for the Clueless (the harmonic wake-up bugle call would make a great start-up sound). How should you sit when you play? What about tape on the frets? How often should you change your strings? All this is answered and more!
The J. S. Bach Home Page - The home page of J. S. Bach really does lead you to his home. Under "Biography," a clickable hypermap shows you the relatively limited geographical space he inhabited from 1685 to 1750. You can travel through time and space from Eisenach, Germany, where he was born, to Leipzig, Germany, where he died. Either click on the map or go from link to link in the right order. You'll see portraits of significant people and photos of buildings. Also, check the entry for his birth in the official birth registry in Eisenach. It's quite a time capsule! You'll also find directory information on his complete works here: by catalog number, category, instrument, and title. There is a similar listing for Bach recordings and Web sites with Bach MIDI files.
The Piano Education Page - Having fun while practicing the piano--isn't that a contradiction in terms? Maybe not. The Just for Kids section of this page features piano-related advice from Taz, tips for practice fun (really!), and an interview each month with a famous (sometimes dead) composer. There's a section on how to choose a piano teacher, studio etiquette, and lots of MIDI piano files.
The Symphony: An Interactive Guide - Learn about almost 20 different composers of symphonies at this slick site. It offers access by composer name and country. Why did so many famous composers come from Germany and Austria? You can also explore a 200-year long time line in the development of the symphonic form. What's the "symphonic form"? It's all explained here, from the sonata in the first movement, to the scherzos in the second and third movements, to the rondo in the fourth. Discover the guide to the instruments of the orchestra, complete with audio files. This site was created by students for the ThinkQuest competition.
Web Operas - Ten nineteenth-century light operas are presented here, from Pirates of Penzance to H.M.S. Pinafore. You'll find all the music, the lyrics, and the dialog of these Gilbert and Sullivan (and other) operas.
Young Composers - If you think composers are all dead guys from long ago, think again. This site highlights composers who are not only alive today, but who are kids like you! Listen to all styles of music by teens: classical, rock, funk, reggae, and more. If you compose your own tunes, read how you can submit them to this online library. There is also a chat room, and if you're good at recognizing musical themes, try playing Music Match. Listen to the music and see if you can identify the composer.
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