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The music is wonderful, but the many errors in the transcription are frustrating. Are any of you willing to share a list of the errors/corrections you've made. I'd greatly appreciate it.
"Thanksgiving" has always been a favorite, and it's interesting to see Winston's versions of "Carol of the Bells" and "Variations On the Kanon By Pachelbel" in print even if I was dumbfounded that he put the Kanon into the key of C. With all of the albums of primarily original music that Winston has released over the years, eleven of the twenty selections are his arrangements of other composers' music rather than his own compositions.
Apparently, Tom Bockhold did the transcriptions, and then Winston went through them with the recordings, fine-tuning them to his exacting standards. For years, piano icon George Winston refused to allow his music to appear in sheet music form, claiming that the music was too personal, so I was surprised when this collection of Winston's music was made available.
My disappointment with the book is in the selection of songs. The transcriptions are clean and spacious, and include the chord charts.
Most of the twenty pieces are quite easy to play, although some contain stretches of a tenth. I was happy, however, that Winston included his arrangement of "Walking In the Air" from The Snowman.
George Winston's many piano-playing fans will more than likely thoroughly enjoy this collection as long as they aren't expecting the entire book to be Winston's original compositions.
Obviously, even transcriptionists make mistakes (they are human after all), but I find more and more as I play through this book. I love George Winston's music. Usually these are easy to figure out what was meant, but occasionally I have gone back to a Winston recording to double-check.Another word of warning to the consumer -- This music ranges from very easy for intermediate players to plunk out, all the way up to very difficult, requiring specific practice from even an advanced player. Love it, love it, love it. This book is fast becoming one of my favourite collections of music to just sit down at the piano and enjoy making music.That being said, I am very disappointed in the transcription. I would suggest trying to play this out in a local music store to see if it works for you. I quite like the variety, as I can both relax and challenge myself at the piano with the same book.Despite its limitations, if you're a half-decent piano player (like me), and you like George Winston's style of music, I think you will love this book.
Hopefully, more of his music becomes available. "Thanksgiving," for example, I have performed publicly; but an acceptable performance would not have been possible from the printed score alone.
I have long been a fan of George Winston and have long wanted to see his music available in print. I was very happy to see this item for sale.
But these transcriptions go well beyond that. However, this is a collection of poor transcriptions.
In transcriptions of this type, I would expect a wrong note here or there, a missed accidental now and then, and not the most accurate of rhythms. I needed to listen to the recording several times while following along with the score and making corrections--not all the corrections, this is somewhat improvisatory music, after all, but the major ones (and there were quite a number of big bloopers needing correction).Needless to say, even knowing what I know now, I would still buy this collection to have the outlines of these pieces available since I am a fan of George Winston's music.
but more carefully edited.
His artistic style really makes the music and these transcriptions are perfect to add your own or duplicate his exact style. Although, the music was pretty good off the shelf, I did make a few minor modifications and will probably make a few more once I master the pieces.
If you're a pianist and like George Winston's work, this is a no brainer bargain. I'm not a professional but I've played the piano for over 30 years and have spent a lot of time in music stores reading sheet music and putting it back on the shelf 99.99% of the time out of disappointment.
You defintely have to map out some fingerings. The transcriptions are not perfect but they're a fantastic foundation to start.
If you know the songs, the errors are immediately obvious and correctable. But that's normal and I"m talking minor stuff - if you have a good ear, can read lead sheets or know chords - it's easy.
I'd rank this at the same level as some of the earlier Elton John transcriptions or perhaps the Emmerson Lake and Palmer book that came out in the late 70s - both of which are not perfect but high quality transcribed material for the most part.
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