Sonic Crossroads

I was in the neighborhood hardware store the other day (I looove going to neighborhood hardware stores) and it struck me - this is kind of what this Listening class is like. It may not be super fancy-tech - sometimes…

This post shares content from the Listening Around the World class and also a piece included on the Piano Exams repertoire list. After listening to the bell rhythm and feeling that rhythm in both duple and triple groupings, we also…

In the most recent class we followed up with some rhythm drills to practice patterns heard in some of the listening examples. This class focuses on listening but one of the most important strategies for conveying elements of a style…

I'm used to presenting listening material like this as geographically distinct modules, but I'm enjoying the freedom of making connections between musical attributes rather than adhering to any geographical borders.  And so, it doesn't seem like much of a leap…

Actually the impetus for this latest listening class was to provide some additional content for some theory lessons I was teaching. I thought Why not spend some time online listening to different kinds of polyphony rather than just learning chord…

I usually like to start a class like the Listening class with some introduction to sound qualities. What are we listening to when we hear and recognize different instruments? How do instruments - and the human voice - produce sound…

In conjunction with the new online classes, I am providing a brief synopsis of some material covered each week here in these posts. 

In yesterday's group class we took a tour of various keyboard instruments with stops in Poland…

Knowing how much my students like to watch piano video tutorials, I thought I'd share a unique one that was posted on a new music community site recently. "Haiduceasca" is a traditional song form from Bessarabia (Moldova/Romania) and is translated…

The newest publication from Sonic Crossroads is a beginning level lesson book for piano by Kathryn Woodard that doubles as a children's song book. I'm A Big Red Bird is a simple, pentatonic tune that can be played on the…

The second set I performed at the Cicada Consort Marathon Benefit concert featured a short piece I composed in 2014 as part of the set Royal Portraits entitled "Count Belisarius (The Basilica Cistern)," in between Diary of a Madman by…

I had the great privilege of performing recently on the Cicada Consort Marathon Benefit Concert at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The purpose was to raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation to support research into Parkinson's Disease…

The final issue of 2015 is here! We start with a work that actually does refer to the season (as the culmination of our previous post about various "Falls"), Autumn Music for woodwind quintet by Jennifer Higdon. Purchase score…