Glee Songbook!

Can’t get enough of the music from Glee? Now you can learn all the hit songs for fun or performance with the Glee piano/vocal/guitar songbook!

This collection of 16 songs from the show is written for solo vocalist with piano or guitar accompaniment. (If you are looking for choral versions of songs from Glee, check our previous blog.) The songbook includes: Alone, Bust Your Windows, Confessions Part II, Don’t Stop Believin’, Gold Digger, Halo, Hate on Me, It’s My Life, Keep Holding On, No Air, Push It, Rehab, Somebody to Love, Take a Bow, Walking on Sunshine, and You Keep Me Hangin’ On. The hyperlinked titles are also available as singles for immediate download from Stanton’s Digital Delivery.

Check back regularly as we continue to update whenever new songs from Glee become available!

NY or Bust!

Stanton’s is packing up and heading to Rochester for the NYSSMA Conference December 3rd-6th—look for us in the exhibition hall if you’re going to be there too! We’ll be bringing lots of sheet music of all kinds for you to browse and purchase, as well as several of our helpful and educated staff members to answer whatever questions you may have.
If you’re already a Stanton’s customer, stop by and say hello so that we can put faces with names. Or, if you’ve never shopped with us, please come by our booth and allow us to give you the full “Stanton’s experience!”
For more information about all of our planned traveling this winter, check our previous blog.

Piano Methods

Piano teachers, would you like to find a great selection of the most used and best known piano methods available in the market today?  Alphabetically from Aaron to Thompson, check out Stanton’s Sheet Music for a  complete listing of our offerings.

Thompson’s Modern Course for the Piano, beginning with the primer, called “Teaching Little Fingers to Play”,  and continuing to a level five, is still one of the top selling methods in the USA.  The Teaching Little Fingers to Play book has been updated, and has many new supplementary books.  The Grades 1-5 have new supplementary books also. Some include popular music and there is a new set of Christmas books for each level. Check it all out at stantons.com!

Alfred’s Basic Piano Library is a comprehensive method that begins at the primer level and continues to level six.  Each level includes the Lesson, Technic, Theory, and Recital books. Supplementary books include classical solos and popular songbooks at most of the levels. The popular music books are called “Top Hits”  from movies and Broadway, with several songs included in each book.

The Alfred  Adult All-In-One Course continues to level 3. Each book contains lesson pages and some theory and technique pages. Each of the course books are self-contained, and there are supplementary books of popular and sacred songs to go along with each level. “Great Hits” start at level one and go through level three.  Titles in those books include movie and Braodway hits, such as ”Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” “Yesterday,” “Hello Dolly,” “My Heart Will Go On,” and more.  The Sacred Piano Books are on level 1 and 2, and contain about 40 familiar hymns in each book.

Bastien Piano Basics begins at the primer level and goes to level 4. Each level includes the lesson book (called “Piano”), Technique, Performance and Theory books.   There are 2 series of Christmas books, one called “Popular Christmas” and another called “Christmas Favorites” that match the levels of the lesson books.

 Bastien’s “Piano for Adults” has a level one and two. This is another self-contained course, with the basics all between 2 covers, but there are supplementary books for this course as well.  “Easy Piano Classics” has 159 pages of favorites such as “Fur Elise,” MacDowell’s “To a Wild Rose” and several Bach Minuets. “Favorite Melodies the World Over” has 2 books, at levels one and two.  They have a fun blend of tunes: singalong favorites, Christmas songs, classics, patriotic songs and hymns are included.

The Faber and Faber Piano Adventures continue to a level 6. Each level includes Lesson, Theory, Technique and Artistry, and Performance books.  This series emphasizes reading, both reading notes and reading intervals. The multi-key approach is well thought out and is easy for students to grasp.

The Adult  Piano Adventures from Faber and Faber is finally back in print!  Both levels one and two have been reissued. The strengths of the approach used in the children’s methods have been used in the adult method. The material is logically laid out for easy comprhension. The level one book can be bought with a CD, which plays examples of the songs in the book.

One of the most-used series of  early piano technique books is the Schaum Fingerpower series. The series begins at the primer level and continues to level 6.  It remains one of the few series that start at such an early level and continue to an advanced level.  For early reading and finger coordination, Fingerpower is hard to beat!   Legato playing and triads are introduced in the primer level. As the books progress, the student learns scales, arpeggios, broken chords, minor and major chords. Fingerpower can be used with any piano teaching series.

For a more complete list of the piano methods we carry, visit our website.

Happy Thanksgiving!

As you celebrate with family and friends today, let this piano solo set the mood. The sheet music is available in the collection George Winston Piano Solos, or you can download and print just this piece, Thanksgiving, from Stanton’s Digital Delivery.

Hallowe’en for Piano

Nearly everybody loves Hallowe’en!  For piano teachers who are planning a Hallowe’en recital, or for those wanting to celebrate the season, we have a varied selection of fun pieces and books to suit players of nearly every level of difficulty.

The Halloween Songbook is a book of easy popular songs such as The Addams Family Theme, Monster Mash, and The Munster’s Theme.

 

Happy Halloween is a collection of  spooky originals by Jane Bastien. The difficulty of the pieces ranges from primer to second grade.  This is a long-time favorite. The pieces are clever, represent different musical styles,  and imitate the various spooky sounds of the season.  Titles include Black Cat Boogie, The Ghosts’ Ball Game, and Witches Rock.  

 From Alfred Publishing comes a list of Halloween pieces written by their talented composers of educational piano music. These include Dennis Alexander’s “Broomstick Capers” and Margaret Goldston’s “Beware of Ghosts!”.

For more information concerning these or other products, visit us at stantons.com or email us at keyboard@stantons.com

POP goes the sheet music!

Stanton’s receives many calls and emails that begin with “I’ve got a great piece of music here that’s pretty old…” and, sadly, that conversation often ends with “I’m sorry to tell you that piece is permanently out of print.” What does that mean for you, the director/musician when something is permanently out of print (POP)? Read on to find some of the most common questions and their answers:

1) Why do things go POP?
When we inform someone that a certain piece is POP, the most common response we receive is “I can’t believe it—that piece is so good!” While it is true that sometimes a piece is taken out of print due to lack of sales, this is not the only reason. Sometimes there are copyright changes, royalty disputes and other business issues that have nothing to do with sales. Even if a piece is taken out of print due to low sales, that’s not necessarily an indicator of quality. A piece that is “good” may also be very difficult, or extremely contemporary or use an unusual voicing/instrumentation, all of which could lead to low sales despite how “good” it is.

2) Why does Stanton’s show POP titles on their website?
When Stanton’s determines that a piece is no longer in print, we indicate that on our website so that you, the customer, can also have that information. If you were looking for a certain piece and simply didn’t see it listed, you may just conclude that it’s not available from Stanton’s, or that you had typed something incorrectly.
Sometimes a piece that is permanently out of print is not yet listed that way on our website. While we make every effort to keep the information on our website up-to-date, we usually don’t learn that a piece has gone POP until we try to order it and the publisher says “sorry, no.” Please call us if you have questions about the status of a particular piece.

3) How do I determine that something is POP?
As stated above, we encourage you to contact Stanton’s whenever you have questions about a piece of music. If you are interested in doing some research yourself, you can check the website of the publisher to see if they have more information. If the music is from a publisher that is no longer in business, their copyrights, or “imprints,” are probably still owned by another publisher; the same arrangement may still be in print from the “new” owner of that imprint. You can find more details about defunct publishers on the Music Publishers Association’s directory of imprints.

4) Do I have any options for obtaining this music?
Once you have determined that something is POP, you may contact the publisher to request permission to photocopy (Stanton’s can give you their contact information) if you have at least one original copy. Especially in the case of churches and schools, the publishers will often grant this request for little or no cost. The publisher will then send you a letter stating that you have permission to make copies. If you do not have an original copy, you might acquire a copy from someone else’s library by sending out a query on the ChoralNet listserv, or a similar forum. IT IS ILLEGAL TO MAKE PHOTOCOPIES WITHOUT THE PUBLISHER’S PERMISSION, EVEN WHEN SOMETHING IS NO LONGER IN PRINT!

5) This music is still in print, so why is it so hard for me to get it?!
In addition to “in print” and “out of print,” there are a few other ways to designate the status of a piece of music. It may be “temporarily out of print” (TOP) or “on backorder” (OBO), which means that the publisher is sold out of the music in their warehouse and will need to print some more. It also may be designated as “print on demand” (POD) or an “archive edition,” meaning that it is not something that the publisher keeps in stock, but they will print special copies on request. A piece of music might be a “special import” that is not kept in stock in the US, but that a publisher can get from their international partners. ALL of these situations may affect how long it will take to get your music and how much it will cost.

6) Is there any chance that it WILL come back into print?
No. There may be other arrangements of the same composition available, but once something goes POP, it will not come back.

Permanent means permanent.

Experience Matters

There is a billboard up near Cleveland for an insurance company that reads in bold letters, EXPERIENCE MATTERS.  That not only applies to insurance companies, but to music stores as well.  Stanton’s Sheet Music will have been in the business for 50 years as of July, 2010.  Staff members have come and gone over the years, but many have stuck around for quite a while and they all contribute to the experience of the whole staff in some way or another.  One of Stanton’s original staff members still works here on a part time basis, several others have been here over 30 years and the knowledge passed down from one employee to the next over the years is invaluable.  As new employees are trained, they learn the way things have worked well for years, and often contribute new ideas to improve the process, which are then adopted and taught to the next generation of workers.
As held true with former employees, several of our current staff are former school music teachers, many are currently teaching music privately and several are active in vocal and instrumental ensembles large and small away from Stanton’s; they bring all that experience to the business.  Also, the whole present sales staff of nearly twenty people consists of college-trained musicians, and several have advanced degrees.  Even the majority of people in our bookkeeping, shipping and receiving departments are musicians.   That’s a lot of experience!

Our way of picking music to recommend to our customers is dependent upon the accumulated experience of the sales staff.  Every year, they read through the hundreds of new titles that the publishers send to the store, and –relying on their musical expertise and experience in knowing what has sold well in the past– they pick the absolute cream of the crop of the choral, handbell, general music, marching band, concert band, jazz band and orchestra titles to recommend to Stanton’s customers.  The experience of our staff is a commodity that our customers can count on.  The music that we recommend will be the best sounding, most highly programmable and most educationally valid sheet music that is available.  That’s something we think you should know.  Yes, EXPERIENCE MATTERS.

Jazz Piano Clinic Recap

An awesome time was had at our clinic this fall.  JAZZ UP YOUR STUDIO was the theme for Stanton’s Piano Teachers’ Clinic in August.   Eric Baumgartner was an outstanding clinician who helped those attending to be inspired to add jazz to their piano student’s repertoire.  Jazz idiom is heard in so much of  today’s music and young musicians should be introduced to it in their private study.  Eric has written two excellent jazz compilations that are titled Jazzabilities and Jazz Connection.  There are three books in each of these collections and they can be bought with or without CD accompaniments.  The book one of each collection was so popular at the clinic that we sold out of them!

Eric has also arranged piano books for the Teaching Little Fingers To Play popular series.  Examples of his contributions include TLF To Play Jazz and Rock and TLF To Play More Jazz and Rock.  He has also arranged piano books called Jazz It Up Christmas and Jazz It Up Familiar Favorites.  Whether you include Eric Baumgartner’s jazz piano books or other excellent Willis publications like the William Gillock New Orleans Jazz Style folios,  just be open to including the jazz style to “round out” your piano student’s musical experience.  You will enjoy it as much as they will.   JAZZ UP YOUR STUDIO!!!   

Please visit Stanton’s Sheet Music or contact the Keyboard staff to learn more about the piano teaching materials that were detailed in this clinic.

How may I direct your call?

We’re always talking about our knowledgeable staff—you’ll find that very phrase on much of our printed advertising, as well as on our website. Stanton’s sales staff is separated into departments to ensure that each staff member is well informed about a specific area of the wide variety of music that we carry. So when you call and ask about music for trumpet, you’ll be speaking with someone who has first-hand knowledge of repertoire, not just a phone operator with no musical experience. Here’s what you’ll find in each department:

CHORAL DEPARTMENT (ex. 1)
Choral Music for School & Church
Elementary General Music
Classical Solo Vocal
Handbell

BAND DEPARTMENT (ex. 2)
Concert Band
Marching Band
Jazz Ensemble
Orchestra
Solos for all concert instruments
Instrumental Method Books
Music Software/Technology

POP/KEYBOARD (ex. 3)
Sacred & Secular Piano
Organ
Piano Method Books
Popular/Broadway Solo Vocal
Contemporary Christian Vocal
Guitar Solos and Methods
Music for Folk Instruments

You can direct emails to the exact department you need by clicking the links above, or press the appropriate extension when you call 1-800-42-MUSIC. If you’re unsure of which department to choose, we’re always happy to direct you to whoever can best address your needs. At Stanton’s, it is important to us that you receive the most educated answers to your questions and the finest music recommendations.

Summertime – and the Livin’ is….Busy??

So you know that the staff here at Stanton’s is very busy throughout the year (especially in the fall and during OMEA contest season), but what goes on at your primary sheet music resource during the summer?

Of course, phone call and order frequency slow down and there are the requisite staff vacations scheduled, but the store remains very active from May through August.  It all begins with doing inventory – counting the 1,000’s of titles Stanton’s has in-stock is quite a big and lengthy job even after selling a lot of music during the school year.  This gives us a chance to clean up and reorganize specific areas and to find any ‘mis-filed’ items and get them back to where they belong.

Completing inventory allows us to place large stock orders for next year with the myriad publishers that we deal with.  Although this is not a big deal with some of the smaller publishers, when it comes to the biggies (i.e. Hal Leonard, Alfred, etc.) these orders usually encompass a couple of skids piled with 100+ boxes filled with music!  Of course, the resulting job is to get all of that music checked in, sorted and filed in its proper place.

Other summer tasks include listening to ALL of the new choral, band, and orchestra titles from the publishers (more on this in a later post) to choose what will be in our yearly school and church promotions, as well as what we want to recommend to our customers.  Once the promotional titles have been selected, we create our own write-ups (words like ‘Stunning’ and ‘Impressive’ from the publisher promotions don’t exactly tell you if your kids can play a piece or not) and do our own layout work before sending the promotion out to be produced and mailed.  We also add all of these titles and their audio files to the Stanton’s Listening Library as well as the ‘Top Choices’ section of our main website.

These tasks along with handling in-house customers, purchase orders, and intermittent phone calls ensure that Stanton’s remains quite busy through the summer months!