I decided to do a book review this time, because I realize that as music teachers, we are contstantly looking for interesting content to teach our students. I have been using Pro Vocal Jazz Standards for Female Singers for a few years now and I wanted to recommend it to the MTH community.
Pro Vocal Jazz Standards for Female Singers features 8 Jazz Standards including Bye Bye Blackbird (Carmen McRae) – Come Rain or Come Shine (Judy Garland) – Fever (Peggy Lee) – The Girl from Ipanema (Astrud Gilberto) – Lullaby of Birdland (Ella Fitzgerald) – My Funny Valentine (Sarah Vaughan) – Stormy Weather (Keeps Rainin’ All the Time) (Lena Horne) – Tenderly (Rosemary Clooney). The arrangements are easy to follow and are in keys that are friendly to most beginner voices. The melodies are also very impressive to those students that say they “don’t like Jazz”. I had a few of those and as soon as I used some of the songs from this book, they realized that they had been wrong all along.
The book also comes with a CD of back up tracks as well as demo tracks. This CD is very different from regular Karaoke CDs because the music is recorded by a real professional Jazz band. The recording makes it feel like you are singing with a real band.
I haven’t tried any other Pro Vocal, but I’m interested in recommendations from the MTH community. If you have tried any other Pro Vocal books, please post and let us know if it’s worth our time and money.
About the Author
When I was just a college Junior, I started teaching private guitar lessons in order to support myself. I was in a rock band, writing songs and performing on a regular basis, and I certainly did not plan on becoming a teacher. My plan was to graduate, get a job in social work, and just continue writing songs. Teaching surprised me. I ended up falling in love with the act of guiding a student from point a to point b. To watch someone go from knowing nothing about a subject, to simply performing in a recital, is such an awesome thing. I ended up scrapping that social work idea. I was doing more good as a teacher, minus the intense stress that most social workers go home with. I currently have a busy program that teaches private guitar, piano, and voice lessons in Los Angeles homes. I am also the creator of the music and service blog 38 Ways to Change the World Through Music.
by roulette game for free — Wed Apr 22, 2009 @ 3:41 am