Music is at once simple and complex. We hear it, and we are moved by the feelings the music evokes. Yet, it is also a complex matter. There are eight ingredients of music: medium (the sound), meter-tempo-rhythm (the time), melody (the tune), harmony (the chords), texture (the thickness or number of voices), form (the organization), dynamics (t...

The crescendo. It is a basic and universal musical concept, one of those words that has drifted out of the realm of music and into the everyday lexicon to describe anything that is building, increasing, gathering momentum. The concept (getting louder) is easy enough for beginners to grasp in their first lessons, yet accomplished artists expend a gr...

from the series: Let's Get Physical: Technique Pete Jutras, Editor My wife and I have spent a lot of time lately teaching our young children how to read. I've never taught anyone to read language before, and it has been a fascinating and enlightening experience. One mild surprise was that after all the work on letters, sounds, sound combi...

One of my earliest experiences as a judge was at a festival held in the Midwest at which the one piece required of all elementary contestants was Kabelevsky's popular Toccatina. To be frank, the performances were not that great. By lunch time on the first day, I felt that it would have been wise to have made up a rubber stamp ahead of time wit...