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Songbook Review: East of the Moon
David Lanz
Cover image of the songbook East of the Moon by David Lanz
East of the Moon
David Lanz
2001 / Hal Leonard
Review by Kathy Parsons
East of the Moon is the companion songbook for David Lanz’s Grammy-nominated CD by the same name. Most of that album is very orchestrated, so these transcriptions are not exactly the same as the CD, but they’re fun to play and most are not too difficult. The only thing difficult about “The Green Man” is its length - sixteen pages. I didn’t have any students at all who wanted to tackle that one! “Dancing With Dionysos” is great fun to play with its spirited tempo and flashy glissandos. “Chasing Aphrodite” is one of the easier pieces and most people really like its simple melody. “East of the Moon” is a great piece to play. It has some moderately challenging passages, but nothing particularly difficult that a little practice won’t take care of! “On the Edge of A Dream” was one of the favorites with students. It’s slow and quite easy to master in addition to being a very beautiful piece. “World At Peace” is a six-part suite that is very orchestrated on the CD. I didn’t find most of the transcriptions to be very satisfying. “The Visitor” is one of my favorite of David Lanz’s pieces, and no matter how much I play it, it never fails to transport me to somewhere else. It’s also fairly easy, so the main teaching points with it were expression, expression, and expression. Even though I don’t usually play all of the music in this book, it is one of my favorites for working with students. And of course, it has that wonderful photo on the cover with the hand sign that David Lanz says means "Buy My Album!" Recommended!
August 20, 2008
More reviews of David Lanz songbooks
Cover image of the songbook Silhouettes of Love by David Lanz
(as David Lanz and Kristin Amarie) with Kristin Amarie
2017