We Are the Music Makers: Volume III: Chamber Music for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano (We Are the Music Makers: A Graded Guide to Chamber Music)

Teachers have for years recognized the benefits and rewards of teaching or encouraging their students to participate in playing chamber music in studio, school, orchestral or summer music programs. Chamber music allows students to develop communication skills and musical sensitivity not otherwise channeled in other forms of music making. Chamber music is in essence the great meeting place between the soloist and ensemble player and those musical and personal qualities developed in chamber music reward the player with a grander sense of purpose and an understanding of their role in the music making process. This third volume analyzes approximately 75 chamber works in varying combinations including clarinet, strings and piano utilizing the Placilla-Law system of chamber music grading developed in the first volume of this multi-volume series of We Are the Music Makers. This grading system and research has been presented at the National American String Teachers Association National Conference and at state conferences in South Carolina and North Carolina. Christina Placilla, Associate Professor of Music at Winston-Salem State University and violist, Kenneth Law, Instructor of Cello at George Mason University, Stephen Buck, Lecturer of Piano at SUNY- Purchase, Myron Brown, Assistant Professor of Music and at Winston-Salem State University and pianist and Winston-Salem State University undergraduate research assistant and clarinetist Kenneth Northcutt have compiled a list of easily accessible clarinet, strings and piano chamber music from the International Score Music Library Project, graded each individual part and movement based upon an updated and improved string rubric that judges the difficulty level of string parts for violin, viola and cello and newly developed piano and clarinet rubrics. In addition to the grading of the various works, Kenneth Northcutt through his collaboration with Placilla and Brown reflects on issues that mixed instrument ensembles deal with in chamber music coachings from the student perspective, such as tuning, balance and communication. Michael Magruder, Professor of Music at Winston-Salem State University and clarinetist provides an insightful preface to this volume.