Musical Humor

  Well, everyone, it's February. And where I live, February means a lot of snow, ice, and overcast skies. Everyone can use a good laugh when it's dreary outside, so I've compiled a post of humorous music-related videos that'll make those overcast skies fade into space (pun intended).       Leonard Bernstain (and a …

Tidbit #9: New videos

It's been awhile! We finally have a few new videos for you. We would post videos more often, but as (relatively) young musicians, we never stop learning new pieces and moving forward - that makes it difficult to record very often. You know, too, that we want to publish only our best music for you. Of course, that …

Tidbit #8 – Theoretical Keys

For every key on the piano, we have a scale. However, the number of scales we commonly see in music does not match the number of keys we have to play them with. We have twelve keys in total, but we have fifteen major scales (I'll also address minor scales a bit in this post) …

The Art of Fugue

I speak for the whole of the music community when I say that fugues are daunting things. They feature multiple melodic lines, take a lot of time to perfect, and, let's be honest, they're really confusing. Fortunately, I have some good news. There is a secret to learning (and understanding!) fugues. That secret is structure and …

Warming Up (for violinists)

There are a couple of things I've learned since I started playing the violin. One of those things is the importance of warming up. By "warming up," I mean setting aside 5-10 minutes at the beginning of my practice session to fire up my brain and limber up my muscles. Today, I'm going to tell …

Tidbit #7 – Alfredo Casella and His Symphony No. 2

Alfredo Casella was a relatively recent Italian composer born in 1883. He had classical music in his blood from the start - his father, two brothers, and grandfather (who knew Paganini!) played cello. Furthermore, Casella's mother was a pianist who gave him his first music lessons.  Later, Casella was surrounded by other great musicians. He …

Tidbit #6 – the Absurdity of British Terminology

It may come as a surprise to you to learn that the British don't call quarter notes quarter notes - they call them crotchets. In fact, the Brits have their own system of music terminology when it comes to note values. Their whole note is a "semibreve", their half note is a "minim" , and their …

Musical Forms, Part I

Have you ever considered what the term allemande actually means? Or ballade? Nocturne? Gavotte? These are, in essence, templates for a piece - musical forms. The waltz is the most well-known form; everyone knows waltzes always have three beats to the measure. All these other pieces—allemandes, nocturnes, gavottes—are forms too, but we aren't so familiar with them. …

20 Iconic Works of Classical Music

"Oh, I recognize that piece!" There are some classical pieces that have not only made their way into the musician's repertoire but have also become popular in modern society. Maybe you've heard some of these pieces in movies, advertisements, or TV shows. I think you'll have heard most of them - if not all!  Sidenote: I know all the …

On Rhythm and Meter

This week, I was going to post on musical forms such as the symphony, gavotte, etc, but I soon realized that that post would have quite a bit of meter in there. Meter is kind of a tricky concept to grasp—I didn't fully understand it for a long time, myself—so I thought it would be …