Art Song Central

Ricci Adams’ musictheory.net is not only the best online resource available for learning and reinforcing basic music theory, it is probably the best single tool available for that purpose anywhere. And it’s free.

Lessons and drills are all Flash-based, so you must have Macromedia’s plugin for your browser. However, the benefits are many; the pages load quickly, the lessons are both clear and aesthetically pleasing, and it provides a web based platform to present the training modules.

Site offerings are split into three categories: Lessons, Trainers, and Utilities. The former offers theory instruction from the absolute basics to more advanced topics like Neapolitan chords and Analysis. Trainers include drills on the notes in the staff, intervals, and triads, and also offer instrument specific drills for Keyboard, Guitar and Trumpet. Utilities include a matrix generator for tone rows, a chord calculator, and a staff paper generator.

This ear training applet has been online for many years, but in case you haven’t already heard of it:

Big Ears is a free web-based program that drills you on intervals.

There’s not much more to be said. It works. It’s free.

I just came across a fabulous resource for singers who want to improve their sightreading. (Or for sight-singing teachers looking for a good, inexpensive text.)

Ben Crowell, a professor of physics and astronomy at Fullerton College, put together a wonderful graded sight-singing book and has made it available for free on his website. (The work is released under a creative-commons license.) Printed copies are also available for purchase at Lulu.com. At present, they are less than $8 per copy.

Find more information and download it here: Eyes and Ears: A Book of Music for Sight-Singing

It is worth noting that Google Books also has a searchable, downloadable copy of the 1919 edition of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. This is a useful resource, especially because many musicians who are now relatively obscure were still well known enough to be included. The 1905 edition is also available.

William Shakespeare (the voice teacher, not the playwright) wrote this treatise on singing and published it in the early 20th century. Of the various methods from this era, I find this one of the most accurate, concise and useful. (On the other hand, I can barely understand why a teacher would confine themselves to a generic set of exercises when every student presents a unique set of issues. For me, the second half of the book is wasted space, as it merely presents a series of “progressive” exercises that have little to offer in the way of instruction.)

I bought and scanned a copy of this book, only to discover that it was already available on Google’s Book Search. Since Google allows one to download a searchable PDF file of public domain books for which it offers “full view”, there is little point in me adding my own, non-searchable version. Here is a link to the Google’s copy:

The Art of Singing

Update: There is also a complete copy, split into two pdf files, at The University of Rochester: The Art of Singing

I’ve been putting together a booklet of public domain Christmas Carols for a sing-along on Christmas Eve. While some wonderful carols were written since 1923, most of my favorites are public domain in the US. Using only these carols allows me to publish them without having to negotiate rights or limit distribution, and, of course, I can then post the book here when I’m finished. (At which point I will probably rewrite this post.)

However, finding public domain sources for all of my favorites has been an interesting challenge. Some hadn’t yet become standards. Others were well known, but not widely disseminated in four part arrangements.

For a few, like “Ding Dong Merrily on High,” there are popular arrangements which aren’t verifiably in the public domain. I know I’ll have to arrange those myself if I want to include them.

For others, however, I have deepened a search I began several years ago for public domain sources. I’ve found a number of helpful sites, and a dozen or so good offline sources. I’m going to enumerate a few of them here.

The most comprehensive resource available, online or off, is A Treasury of Christmas Carols; The Hymns and Carols of Christmas. At first, the unusually heavy amount of advertising led me to believe it was one of the many spam sites designed to attract Google traffic without actually offering anything. However, it quickly became apparent that the site is both heavily researched and dedicated to the widespread propagation of this material. I have come to truly appreciate the depth of committment and research that has gone into the site, and it continues to grow. Many pieces have been transcribed and offered as NWC, PDF, and XML files. This year, I was pleased to see that scans were added for some of the source material.

Other sites I’ve found useful include ChristmasCarolMusic.org the Online Christmas Songbook, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, and the Choral Public Domain Library.

I’ve been able to scan a few of the public domain resources I’ve found in libraries or bought for my personal collection. I will post a few of them here temporarily, though I may move them to a site like the Internet Archive which can handle the more intense bandwidth requirements:

Carols; Their Origin, Music, and Connection with Mystery-Plays by William J. Phillips. Published in 1921 by Geo. Routledge & Sons in London and E. P. Dutton in New York.

The Story of the Carol by Edmondstoune Duncan, published in 1911 by The Walter Scott Publishing Co. in London and Charles Scribner’s Sons in New York.

And, Christmas Carols and Hymns for School and Choir Ed. by Hollis Dann, published in 1910 by the American Book Company.

This book is a standard reference work for vocal literature. It lists thousands of songs, along with information about their character and range, and who publishes them.

Music for the Voice is still in copyright in the US, and not something I can offer here. However, the Internet Archive has apparently been given permission to host a digital copy on their site.

Information Page: Music for the Voice by Sergius Kagen

It is being hosted in the relatively obscure djvu format, but there is free reader software available for most major platforms.

Would you like to help spread the word about this site? In a moment of whimsy, I used an image from the wonderful book Letters and Lettering to create a flyer for Art Song Central. I claim no great artistic merit for this creation, but if it brings this site to the attention of a few more people, it will have been worthwhile.

Download: Advertising flyer for Art Song Central

Designed for my studio classes at UC Davis at a time when there was no diction class offered, this quick guide to IPA is a short and occasionally irreverent introduction to the sounds and symbols of the International Phoenetic Alphabet.

Download (3 page PDF):Quick Guide to IPA

I would feel remiss if I didn’t offer the following caveat: The IPA offered on these pages is not sufficient to properly pronounce any of the languages in question. In fact, even in the context of a diction course, it is still insufficient. At best it is a handy reference to remember the broad strokes of the language, and a way of correcting serious flaws. I can think of several famous singers who have been mocked for their English diction, despite singing with nearly flawless IPA.

To truly sing well in a foreign language, one must become familiar with the cadence of its speech and the subtleties of pronunciation that reach beyond the bounds of what IPA describes. Learn the language. Practice speaking it with native speakers. And, of course, listen to great singers of all voice types singing in their native languages and imitate.

To inaugurate the “special resources” category, I am posting a one page primer showing the notes on a keyboard and as they appear on the staff in both bass and treble clef. It is extremely basic. However, I have encountered a number of beginning singers who have no knowledge of notation or how to find a note on the keyboard. For such students, this can be a handy reference.

Download: Note primer

For a more in-depth look at basic music theory, I highly recommend Ricci Adam’s musictheory.net, which uses flash animation to teach all the basics in a clear and visually pleasing way.

Also look for additional resources which will be added here soon, including sightreading practice sheets and vocalises.

On the off chance that you haven’t already discovered it, Project Gutenberg is the premiere site on the Internet for downloadable public domain texts. It has been in existence since the mid 70′s, but had only amassed a few dozen texts by the mid 80′s. At that point, volunteer efforts began to pick up steam, and really started to thrive with the advent of Distributed Proofreaders, an organization dedicated solely to processing texts for inclusion in the PG archive. There are now nearly 22,000 texts in the archive, all completely free.

I’ve been involved with PG for over a decade, and made it a goal of mine to expand its selection of music related offerings. Here are a few books in the collection which might be valuable to the teacher or singer:

The Head Voice and Other Problems by D. A. Clippinger

• Very useful book which significantly addresses one of the principal problems that continues to plague singers; comfortably accessing and integrating the “head” voice. However, this book is of more use to the teacher than the student of singing, as the teacher has a reference base from which to absorb good ideas from the book and discard those which may be less helpful.

Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing by Caruso and Tetrazzini
The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song by F. W. Mott
Voice Production in Singing and Speaking by Wesley Mills
Resonance in Singing and Speaking by Thomas Fillebrown

• More books on vocal anatomy and technique.

Vocal Mastery by Harriette Brower
Great Singers, First Series by George T. Ferris
Great Singers, Second Series by George T. Ferris
The Great German Composers by George T. Ferris
Great Italian and French Composers by George T. Ferris
The World’s Great Men of Music by Harriette Brower

• Biographies and talks with famous singers and composers, with a smattering of technique.

Style in Singing by W. E. Haslam

• Book on stylistic singing and interpretation.

Piano and Song by Friedrich Wieck

• Book on teaching music from the father and teacher of celebrated pianist Clara Schumann. (The expanded title reads: “How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of Musical Performances”)

Sixty Years of California Song by Margaret Blake Alverson

• Though Ms. Alverson’s memoir tends to delve more often than not into shallowly concealed egotism, it has much to offer as an insight into the musical and vocal world of the 19th century. I particularly find interesting the references to “hit” songs that are now completely forgotten, such as Harrison Millard’s “Vive L’America.”

Musicians of To-Day by Romain Rolland

• Contemporary accounts of the lives and music of Berlioz, Wagner, Saint-Saëns, D’Indy, Strauss, Wolf and Debussy from a celebrated author and opinionated critic.

A Book of Operas by Henry Edward Krehbiel
A Second Book of Operas by Henry Edward Krehbiel
The Opera by R. A. Streatfeild
Stories of the Wagner Opera by H. A. Guerber
Parsifal by H. R. Haweis
The Standard Operas by George P. Upton

• Though dated, these give cast lists and detailed plot summaries of dozens of operas. I love the passage in one entry of the latter that mentions that Verdi “is rumored to be working on a libretto by Shakespeare.”

Also note Chapters of Opera by Henry Edward Krehbiel, which gives an historical narrative of Opera in New York City.

Some of PG’s collection has been catalogued by category, as well. Do browse their sections of:
Music
Music Literature
and
Musical Instruction and Study