Written by a composer and a musician, The Contemporary Violin offers a unique menu of avant-garde musical possibilities that both performers and composers will enjoy exploring. Allen and Patricia Strange's comprehensive study critically examines extended performance techniques found in the violin literature of the latter half of the twentieth century. Drawing from both published and private manuscripts, the authors present extended performance options for the acoustic, modified, electric, and MIDI violin, with signal processing and computer-related techniques, and include more than 400 notated examples. The authors begin with bowing techniques and proceed systematically through other aspects of string playing, including MIDI technologies. Their correspondence and research with many performers and composers, the book's extensive score and text bibliography, and the discography of more than 130 recordings make The Contemporary Violin a valuable contemporary music reference and guide. An additional benefit is its listing of Internet resources that will keep the reader up to date with recent developments in contemporary performance and composition. First published by UC Press, 2001.

In his book on left-hand violin technique, Maestro Ruggiero Ricci addresses common problems in shifting by advocating the study of the glissando technique. He asserts that re-incorporating this technique will not only aid violinists in developing a better-trained ear, but also provide them with "shortcuts" to playing some of Paganini's most difficult passages. Ricci introduces and compares old and new systems of playing to provide a context for the glissando system. He outlines a series of glissando scales that provides the student with a blueprint for developing additional glissando scales in other keys. He offers exercises designed to increase flexibility, ear training, coordination, and crawling technique and has included a DVD in which he demonstrates various bowing techniques.

In this comprehensive and definitive survey of current notation procedures, Kurt Stone has brought order to a field traditionally fraught with confusion and idiosyncrasy. He not only describes and recommends new methods for notating modern music, thereby establishing standard procedures for the present and future, but integrates them with traditional practices still in use. The result is a guide to all forms of notation used in serious music today.

(Book). Making music at any level is a powerful gift. While musicians have endless resources for learning the basics of their instruments and the theory of music, few books have explored the other subtleties and complexities that musicians face in their quest to play with ease and skill. The demands of solitary practice, hectic rehearsal schedules, challenging repertoire, performance pressures, awkward postures, and other physical strains have left a trail of injured, hearing-impaired, and frustrated musicians who have had few resources to guide them. Playing Less Hurt addresses this need with specific tools to avoid and alleviate injury. Impressively researched, the book is invaluable not only to musicians, but also to the coaches and medical professionals who work with them. Everyone from dentists to orthopedists, audiologists to neurologists, massage therapists and trainers will benefit from Janet Horvath's coherent account of the physiology and psyche of a practicing musician. Writing with knowledge, sympathetic insight, humor, and aplomb, Horvath has created an essential resource for all musicians who want to play better and feel better.