Category: Genres

Music genres featured on the blog

Sixth Single from Douglas MacGregor Grasping the Wind 

Musician Douglas McGregor

London-based musician and composer using the power of music to process grief releases sixth single in a series of seven.

Douglas MacGregor, award-winning composer and guitarist, was 7 years old when he lost his mother to cancer.

Twenty-five years later, having been anchored only by music throughout his teens and twenties, MacGregor finally succumbed to grief; the result of which is Songs of Loss and Healing, a seven-part instrumental series, with accompanying music videos, which takes the listener on MacGregor’s personal journey of delayed grief.

The sixth instalment, Grasping the Wind, is released on 23 September and is about remembering someone departed. Listen to the instrumental here

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ABRSM new piano syllabus 2019-2020 review

The new piano syllabus from ABRSM

Readers of my blog will be aware that I am a pianist and I have learnt up to Grade 7 with a Grade 6 in music theory. So when ABRSM contacted me to ask if I would like to review their new piano syllabus, I was more than happy to do so! My review is written from a students point of view. I will also be doing a brief comparison along the way, of my own ABRSM books, compared to the new syllabus and as I completed my Grade 7 in 2008, I am sure that a lot will have changed in the last 10 years.

For many piano students, learning to play the piano is often the first exposure of pure classical music. This can be quite daunting in itself, purely because classical music is not listened to on a regular basis. ABRSM always make the introduction to this genre of music, a relatively smooth one as with the support of piano lessons, the way classical music is structured becomes a lot clearer through each grade.

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ABRSM releases new piano syllabus with a broader range of styles than before

ABRSM has just released their new Piano syllabus which will come into effect in January 2019.


                           
The 2019 & 2020 syllabus lists cover a breadth of styles and an attractive, varied range of music, including pieces from the teaching canon, recent favourites, popular tunes as well as new commissions. Some highlights are Close every door (Andrew Lloyd Webber) in Grade 1, Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen) in Grade 3 and Lullaby Lullaby (for Edna Trident Hornbryce), one of the new commissions, by Raymond Yiu in Grade 8. As in previous years, there has been a 100% refreshment of the repertoire lists. There’s a vast amount of piano repertoire available and ABRSM always aims to bring a balance of familiar and new pieces to the syllabus, whilst maintaining consistency in both quality and standards. Specially commissioned items feature on Grades 3, 4, 5 and 8 and there are other contemporary options at all grades.

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