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Favorite music Books
BRAZILIAN CHORO: Tocando Com Jacob (Book) - Partituras and Playbacks Compilation of playalongs and full recordings from Jacob Do Bandolim’s group “The Golden Age”. This book was only published in 2010, forty-one years after Jacob Do Bandolim passed - by Jacob do Bandolim’s daughter.
ARGENTINA: Methodo de Tango (Books) Collection of Method books for various instruments (flute, guitar, etc) on how to play Argentine Tango. Comes with some sheet music and backing tracks. Hugo Satorre’s Lead Sheets - Tango and Argentine Folk Music
HISTORY OF MUSIC RECORDING: Sessions with Sinatra (Book) Fun read…Wonderfully written inside story of the recording industry from the 1930’s to the 1990’s. Besides Sinatra, vignettes about Bing Crosby (Reel to Reel tapes, prerecorded Radio Shows), Nat Cole, Nelson Riddle, Les Paul, evolution of microphones, etc make this book a fascinating read. Hardly a word about Sinatra’s personal life, just how he worked.
Helpful websites
piano-accompaniments.com Purchase professional-level Classical Standards backing tracks for Strings, Woodwinds and Brass. Paul Gardner, the Owner, is a super helpful and wonderful musician. A treasure trove of Classical backing tracks!
TodoTango.com Searchable Classic Argentine Tango Works - Sheet Music Arrangements, Recordings and Lyrics for hundreds of Tango Songs.
Pete Johns’ Youtube Channel Searchable videos - Mobile & Home Studio Recording with IPhone/IPad. These videos are a lifesaver!
FAVORITE Software (mostly FREE)
TRANSCRIPTION & ARRANGEMENTS: Musescore: free software for arranging music. Ability to generate mp3 from software. Lots of different instruments included. I use Musescore for creating backing tracks. Great forum for getting help. This seems to be open source software that is continuously being updated.
RECORDING: Garageband - free for Mac, iPad, iPhone, etc.. Very powerful software for recording. Don’t dismiss it because it is free. But…takes time to learn how to use. I haven’t yet found a way to change the speed of a pre-recorded track in Garageband. For that….I use AnyTune (see below).
GENERAL: AnyTune - in their words: “music player with additional features to learn, transcribe, practice & even perform songs by adjusting tempo, pitch, etc.
PLAYALONGS: Amazing Slowdowner - great software for manipulating backing tracks - changing keys, speed, adding loops, etc
FILES: OneImageVideo (online) - free tool to merge sound/image files, CloudConvert (online) - free sound file conversion (m4a to mp3 for example) of up to 25 files per day
Favorite SONGS in Movies:
ARGENTINE TANGO: “Scent of a Woman” & “Schindler’s List” - “Por Una Cabeza” (composed by Carlos Gardel), “El Dia Que Me Quieres” - song in movie of same title (composed by Carlos Gardel)
BRAZILIAN CHORO: “Copacabana” 1947 “Tico Tico No Fuba” (Sparrow in the Cornmeal) (sung by Carmen Miranda)
AMERICAN SONGBOOK: “Meet Me in St Louis” 1944 - “Skip to My Lou”medley, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (sung by Judy Garland) , “The Harvey Girls” 1946: “On the Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe” (sung by Judy Garland), “Top of the Morning” 1948: (lots of Irish songs sung by Bing Crosby)