The Castle Moon songbook is the companion sheet music book for Joseph Akins’ award-winning 2015 solo piano album by the same name and contains all twelve pieces transcribed note-for-note from the recording. Akins does his own transcriptions and is a real stickler for detail, so these transcriptions are as close to the original recording as is humanly possible. The book is beautiful inside and out, with the full-color front and back cover artwork from the CD (by Matt Strieby), spiral-binding, bright and roomy layout, and easy-to-read print. Chord charts, metronome settings, pedaling and playing suggestions, and dynamics are all included. I should mention that several of the pieces utilize a “slip-note technique,” and all of the songs that include that have a notation/reminder of how to play it. It’s a technique that makes Akins’ music distinctive, so it’s fun to learn how he does it and to be able to add that touch to the sheet music. If you are familiar with the recording, you know that there is a variety of music stylings in the pieces, so that makes the music especially fun to play. Most of the pieces are at an upper-intermediate to early-advanced playing level. I love Joseph’s music and was really looking forward to this book, and I’m not in the least bit disappointed! It’s an excellent songbook and a joy to play! The songbooks are available from www.JosephAkins.com. Very highly recommended!

The song titles, the keys they are in, and the number of pages are:

Castle Moon - Key of D minor (1 flat) /G minor (2 flats) - 6 pages
Night Runner - Key of D C minor (3 flats) - 5 pages
Gypsy Dreams - Key of D minor - 4 pages
Game of Thrones - Key of C minor - 5 pages
Moon Shadows - Key of G minor - 5 1/2 pages
1,001 Nights - Key of C minor - 8 pages
A Nocturnal Waltz - Key of A minor (0 sharps or flats) - 5 pages
Star Dance - Key of C (0 sharps or flats) - 6 pages
A Starry Night - Key of F minor (4 flats) - 5 pages
The Dorian Zone - Key of A minor - 5 1/2 pages
Moonrise Romance - Key of Eb (3 flats) - 4 1/2 pages
Twilight Lullaby - Key of D (2 sharps) - 4 pages