Toward Freedom in Singing

Dina Soresi Winter
and
Theodora Richards

Softbound Booklet

$7.95

This booklet has been a welcome guide and companion for teachers and others wanting to train their voice for better tone and expression. The authors are both experienced as singers and teachers of singing and write from their hearts to the heart of the reader. This is one of those rare books on singing that is valuable equally for the professional performer and the individual still struggling to achieve reliable pitch.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Spiritual Aspects of Singing - Dina Soresi Winter
• The Singer as Instrument - Theodora Richards
• Toward Freedom and Joy in Singing - Dina Soresi Winter
  • Breathing, Coordination, Tone
  • A Journey
  • Fear of Singing
  • Singing Off Pitch
  • Rudolf Steiner and Singing
  • Singing with Children
  • Is Singing for Everyone?
• Notes

Uncovering the Voice
The Cleansing Power of Song

Valborg Werbeck-Svärdström

Softbound

$26.00

The life and work of this Swedish artist is not so much the introduction of a new method... rather, this is the first adequate description in all music history of the western art of singing in terms of the human being’s true nature. And this could only come about once a spiritual scientific view of the human being had developed, enabling us to grasp singing processes that extend far beyond purely physical laws.—Jürgen Schriefer, Musicologist

This book is pure gold for the singer and singing therapist of today.—Mary Thienes Schunemann, founder, Naturally You Can Sing! Productions

Through experiential exercises and careful reasoning, Uncovering the Voice provides a new, spiritually enlivened interpretation of the processes involved in singing. It develops knowledge of the essential nature of song, and summons us to work for the purity and preservation of true singing.

First published in Germany in 1938, Uncovering the Voice disappeared under the weight of political events and the Second World War and was not republished until the 1970s. The new English edition of this classic work includes a biographical account of the author by Jürgen Schriefer, as well as previously unpublished photographs.

Valborg Werbeck-Svärdström was an accomplished and talented opera singer. Rather than following the singing traditions of her time, however, she sought to work from a new perspective that allowed for a profound spiritual understanding of the human voice. In 1924, Rudolf Steiner, with whom she had collaborated for over twelve years, encouraged her to represent the Schule der Stimmenthullung (School for Uncovering the Voice), the first anthroposophical singing school. This was a pioneering task, and she carried it out energetically and faithfully until her death in 1972 at the age of 92.

Intervals, Scales, Tones and the Concert Pitch c = 128 Hz

Maria Renold

Hardbound

Includes tuning fork

$65.00

Why is it that certain intervals, scales, and tones sound genuine, while others sound false? Is the modern person able to experience a qualitative difference in a tone’s pitch? If so, what are the implications for modern concert pitch and how instruments of fixed tuning are tuned?

Renold tackles these and many other questions and provides a wealth of scientific data. Her pioneering work is the result of a lifetime of research into the Classical Greek origin of Western music and the search for modern developments. She deepens our musical understanding by using Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science as a basis, and she elucidates many of his puzzling statements about music.

The results of her work include the following discoveries:

• The octave has two sizes (a ‘genuine’ sounding octave is bigger than the “perfect octave”).
• There are three sizes of “perfect fifths.”
• An underlying “form principle” for all scales can be found.
• Equal temperament is not the most satisfactory method of tuning a piano.
• She provides a basis for some of Steiner’s statements, such as, “C is always prime,” and “C = 128 Hz = Sun.”

Here is a valuable resource for those who wish to understand the deeper, spiritual aspects of music.

The Harmony of the Human Body
Musical Principles in Human Physiology

Armin Husemann, M.D.

Softbound

$50.00

This is an exploration of the cosmic origins of human beings and the evolutionary laws that govern their development. Husemann applies musical principles as a method of gaining insight into the structure of the human body and the forces that work on it, seeking to use our experience of music to explain the physiological and anatomical relationships in the body and the spiritual influences that determine physical development.

Rests and Repetition in Music

Christoph Peter

Softbound

$19.95

This book provides an introduction to Peter's convition of the power of music as essential to the development of well-rounded, balanced human beings. It is an exact yet sensitive study of the phenomena of rests and repetition in music.

For musicians and eurythmists, the import of the 'rest', the absence of sound, and its position between and relationships to the sounds before and after is fundamental. So, too, is the effect of repetition. For parents and teachers, Peter's shows how theses phenemena are more generally applicable in educaiton and life.

**Having taught at the Hanover Waldorf School for 22 years, Christoph Peter became Director of Music at the Stuttgart Teacher's Seminary. He was composer, promoter, performer and author whose magnum opus, Die Sprache der Musik in Mozarts "Zauberflöte" [The Musical Language of Mozart's "Magic Flute"], was published (in German) by Verlag Freies Geistesleben in 1983. This massive volume explores the intricacies of Mozart's Magic Flute.

Expanding Tonal Awareness
A Musical Exploration of the Evolution of Consciousness Guided by the Monochord

Heiner Ruland

Hardbound

$60.00

Rudolf Steiner believed that an expansion of our tone-system was a necessity . . . In this book of Ruland's we have for the first time an account that is penetrating enough and of sufficiently large scope to enable us to understand why. . .

- Jurgen Schriefer

This book charts a practical path toward a deepened musical understanding. It illuminates the panorama of humanity's musical past and suggests what may happen - and needs to happen - to music in the immediate and more distant future. The implications of this book for composition, musical education, and therapy are immense.

Ruland shows how the fundamental elements of music embody distinctive modes of consciousness. He examines the musical systems of ancient humanity and goes on to draw a vivid picture of our contemporary musical situation.

This is more than a theoretical treatise on the nature of music, however - it is a work to be understood and experienced through musical practice. With the help of the monochord, the reader, with the minimum of technique, is able to explore new and unfamiliar musical realms.

The implications of this books for composition, musical education and therapy are immense.

Quintenlieder
Music for Young Children in the Mood of the Fifth

Julius Knierim

Translated by Peter and Karen Klaveness

Softbound

$15.95

Quintenlieder has been for many years a treasured resource for all who want to share the joy of music with young children.

Julius Knierim has gathered children's rhymes from throughout Europe and, by way of showing us all how to do it, set them to lilting and lovely songs written in the mood of the fifth. He has also taken the time to explain to those of us not well-educated musically just what makes a pentatonic song one that is "in the mood of the fifth" ("Old Man River", for instance, is written in a pentatonic scale, but is hardly in the mood of the fifth).

Further, he shows graphically how to keep the notes of a song you create in the mood of the fifth - I am not at all a musician, yet found myself easily inventing song-like melodies that floated through the air. It was fun, too!

If children ages 9 and under are in your life or your classroom, you'll want to use this book. There are wonderful things to be learned and beautiful songs to sing!