A Delicate Joy is the companion songbook to David Nevue's 2011 solo piano album by the same name. Between the title and the wonderful photos of David's very young (then) daughter on the front and back covers as well as the title page, it is easy to see that this is a collection of sheet music that overflows with love and happiness. In fact, there isn't a minor key in any of the fourteen pieces - very unusual! All of these pieces were transcribed and edited note-for-note to match the recording as closely as possible. (Rebecca Oswald did the transcription and I edited!) The sheet music for this album was made available as single downloads when the album was originally released, but these scores have been redone to match the format of David's more recent sheet music as well as to fix any errors from the first time around. David is creating songbooks for all of his albums now - an exciting development that will assure his music is preserved much longer than downloads will.

None of the pieces in this songbook are difficult and a few are quite easy. I would rate the difficulty levels in a range from intermediate to very early-advanced with most of the pieces at an upper-intermediate level. Most of the key signatures are quite easy and I don't think there were any reaches of more than an octave. Some of the rhythms are fairly syncopated, but are easy to count (a great teaching tool!!!). Metronome settings, pedaling suggestions and plenty of dynamics all contribute to the value of this music as teaching and recital repertoire. (I have taught David's music with my students for a very long time, and students of every age love it.) Actually, pianists at any age and even modest piano skills will find a lot to enjoy between the covers of this book! The songs appear in the book in the same order as they do on the recording, and the book also includes a forward that I wrote and a "Fact Sheet" about David.

A Delicate Joy is a great sheet music book and is available as a spiral-bound book and as downloadable single sheets from DavidNevue.com; Amazon has it as a soft-bound book that is not spiral-bound. Personally, I prefer the spiral-bound book (by far!) because it is much easier to keep open on the piano and the paper stock is a little bit heavier than Amazon's, ensuring a longer life for the book. Enjoy!


The titles of the pieces, the key(s) they are in and the number of pages are:

A Delicate Joy - Key of D (2 sharps) - 5 pages
Traveling Light - Key of G (1 sharp) - 4 pages
Down By the Sally Gardens - Key of E (4 sharps) - 4 pages
The Garden Swing - Key of Db (5 flats) - 4 pages
Days Gone By - Key of A (3 sharps) - 3 pages
A Vision in White - Key of D (2 sharps)- 3 1/2 pages
My Happy Dance - Key of E (4 sharps) - 5 pages
A Tiny Heartbeat - Key of D (2 sharps) - 4 pages
Just Because I Love You - Key of D (2 sharps) - 6 pages
Happily Ever After - Key of G (1 sharp) - 7 pages
Hand in Hand - Key of D (2 sharps) - 3 pages
Under the Setting Sun - Key of E (4 sharps) - 5 1/2 pages
Goodnight Sweet Angel - Key of D (2 sharps) - 2 pages
Jesu Joy Canon in D - Key D (2 sharps) - 7 pages