A series of arrangements of standard and popular songs, geared to singers with intermediate piano skills and no improv background.   WHAT IS IT?
• musically and pianistically arranged, and well-edited with the pianist-vocalist specifically in mind
• standard 3-stave piano-vocal system with chord symbols
• piano does not double the melody
• no piano intervals larger than an octave
• no more than 5 piano notes played simultaneously, and fewer while singing
• easy and clean to read
• thoughtfully arranged to support a singer, with good intros, and important or tricky notes well-supported by the piano
• includes written instrumental sections
• selections are offered in a choice of keys, with the vocal range indicated on the cover page
• no more than 4-5 performance pages, with optimized page turns, plus title/lyric page WHO IS IT FOR?
• singers who wish to play the piano for themselves
• pianists who wish to sing and play
• voice instructors who need to accompany their students in lesson and in performance
• singers and pianists who wish to play music together WHY IS IT NEEDED?
• regular piano-vocal-guitar sheet music occupies an important place, but it seems to be intended to be all things for all people
• in The Singer at the Piano series, the vocal line is not doubled in the piano part, so the singer becomes more independent
• the chord symbols and the written accompaniment are unified as much as possible, so that if a pianist favours one over the other, the singer doesn't experience a harmonic shift
• the arrangements reduce the stress on voice teachers who aren’t trained pianists, who find themselves in the position of needing to accompany their students, thereby creating a better lesson experience and boosting the singer’s recital outcome
• regular p-v-g sheet music can sometimes favour larger hands
• sometimes regular p-v-g music puts the music and the lyric on different pages (i.e. "see additional lyrics"), which is inconvenient for a pianist-vocalist doing both parts
• regular p-v-g sheet music often follows an artist’s recorded arrangement, creating road maps that aren't always obvious for less experienced musicians to follow, as well as difficult page turns, and too many pages to comfortably fit on the music stand ABOUT THE ARRANGER
Elise Letourneau is a multiple award-winning composer, and an accomplished songwriter, arranger, producer, vocal & multi-instrumentalist performer, and educator. Her choral works have been performed around the globe. She has decades of performance experience as a pianist-vocalist, and as a piano and voice instructor, and this series is inspired by the questions students have asked her so many times. Elise has worked as a studio vocalist, a solo and ensemble performer, and she has directed traditional, jazz, and rock choirs. She has played the piano for thousands of vocalists, and she loves the collaborative nature of the relationship.