Review

Brad Edwards
100 Sight-Reading Melodies in Alto Clef:
Trombone

No place, , United States
Publisher: Hornbone Press
Date of Publication: 2020
URL: http://www.hornbonepress.com

Etude book. 106 pages.

Primary Genre: Study Material - etude
Secondary Genre: Jazz Material - method

Edwards holds degrees from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Hartt School of Music. An outstanding performer, pedagogue and composer, he is currently Professor of Trombone at Arizona State University. His solo credits include radio and television broadcasts, premieres of new music, guest recitals at colleges and regional workshops, and concertos with student and professional orchestras and wind ensembles. He was a member of the Air Force Band, Principal Trombonist of the South Carolina Philharmonic, Symphony Orchestra Augusta and the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony. He has also been the bass trombonist of the Cedar Rapids Symphony and the Arlington Symphony in Virginia. He has performed with such ensembles as the Baltimore Symphony, the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra, the brass choir of the National Symphony, Hartford Symphony, the Charleston Symphony, the Charlotte Symphony and the Baltimore Opera Orchestra as well as the Wintergreen and Cabrillo Festival Orchestras. His work as a composer has enriched both the solo and pedagogical repertoire for the trombone.

In the introduction to 100 Sight-Reading Melodies in Alto Clef, the composer writes: One of my first published books is Introductory Studies in Tenor and Alto Clef, “Before Blazhevich.” This new pdf book is meant to complement that physical book. When writing that book, beyond the earliest etudes, I began to intentionally throw in unexpected intervals, forcing the reader to actually ​read​ as opposed to relying on known patterns. As a result, my expectation was that most students would need a week or so to prepare those etudes. These melodies are different. For the most part they are more predictable, written with the expectation that students will use their knowledge of scales, arpeggios and repeating patterns to help them navigate these tunes. My hope is that the two books can complement each other: students prepare an etude over the course of a week and also do some sight-reading in the lesson. The layout of this pdf book is intended for screens, not paper. 

These melodies are all fairly short and progress in difficulty from quite simple to more advanced. Melodies 1-88 are all in alto clef, 89-100 include frequent changes from bass to tenor and alto clef.  They cover a wide variety of traditional, tonal styles, meters, keys, tempi, dynamics and articulations. Printing and score layout are both superb. This is an interesting, fun and musical way for trombonists to become more proficient in clef reading; it is a wonderful, much needed addition to trombone pedagogical materials.