Sound in Motion: A Performer's Guide to Greater Musical Expression

If you made it this far and you play an instrument.i would strongly recommend a slow strong read.. quite possibly will shine a light on new thoughts for you

Back in the day, we only had Thurmond's "Note Grouping." It was ok, but due to its writing style (a college thesis), it is written in a highly technical matter.Now we have McGill's "Sound in Motion," a more realistic approach to phrasing, with better examples of how to execute the concept set forth in this book. Another reviewer, Peter Biddlecombe, criticizes this book with many examples, however, I don't agree with any of his criticism. There is a purpose behind every word and illustration that McGill uses and he explains what note grouping is better than anyone so far. My copy of Sound in Motion is falling apart because I've re-read it so many times. I will be buying another copy.

I found this to be an excellent manual on how to play "musically". I grew up in a musical family, started piano at 6 yrs old (from my mom, who later earned a masters degree in organ performance ) and graduated to bassoon at 12. Over the last 40+ years of playing principal bassoonist for many professional and semi-professional orchestras & bands, I have picked a lot of what is in this book. This book systematizes the technique. I have found it very usefull perfecting my own technique & I am recommending it to ALL of my intrumentalist friends. This book should be required reading for every instrumentalist who wants to be a "Musician".

A "must have" for every serious musician. Detailed, well illustrated with many excerpts and a large discography to support the material. I'd like to have a Kindle format to supplement my well annotated paperback.

Every page of this book is a necessity to any musician. I decided to pick it up a week ago and I can't believe I've never been taught any of this basic, enlightened information by any music teacher I've ever had. It's brilliant. It will take an ordinary musician, and make an extraordinary musician out of her. Not reading this would be a serious mistake if you want to be above average in your music. I'm so glad to have discovered it and very happy to be recommending it to other musicians. It's a goldmine!!!!

Whether your venue is Carnegie Hall or the local band shell, McGill's book provides insights about musicianship that will elevate your playing. Superbly written, every page contains wise observations that will improve your ability to reach your audience, bolster your self confidence, and even impress your conductor! Not just a musician who writes well or a writer who happens to play well, McGill is a virtuoso in both realms and this book is ample proof. If I could take only one book to my next audition, "Sound in Motion" would be it!

Of course the book arrived very quickly. David McGill has written a book based on the famous oboe teacher Marcel Tabateau's method of playing. The book has very short chapters consisting of one topic for each chapter that is very important to musicians. This book is highly recommended for new and older musicians, professional or not.

HUGE insight into turning written notation into music. Did you know that everyone plays Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" wrong? He explain how. The book brought me a whole new perspective on phrasing. The examples that illustrate each of the author's points can be used as playing exercises. It answers the question of why conservatory graduates play more musically than even competent self-taught musicians.

I'm sure that Tabuteau, who this book is inspired by, if not about, had useful and influential things to say. But this isn't a book by him. It's his ideas, as understood and described, by someone else. And I'm afraid the someone else has some perverse ways of presenting the case. The first comes up on page 25, in a section on "Professionalism". After telling us that understanding the structure of music is not enough, and saying that the structure must be expressed in performance (which is fair enough), the example used to illustrate this is a stereoscope image, in which photos taken from slightly different perspectives can be viewed to produce a 3D effect. The instructions given by the composer are supposedly analagous to the left hand image, and the interpretation of the performer is compared to the right hand image. This is a hopeless comparison - both images are identical apart from the viewpoint. Neither has anything to do with a composer's ideas, or the performers's interpretation of the score. In the "explanation" of the Tabuteau number system, which tells us that the numbers can mean about 4 different things, there's a mention of Mr T making a recording just before he died, which apparently had a number of examples of usage directly from T's mouth. This somehow justifies a picture of T's "mouth" which is actually a photo of a dental cast of his lower jaw. How anybody could have thought this picture was helpful or appropriate is beyond me.The one that really put me off was the idea (P 36) of representing the question "How are you today?" by putting each letter under a semiquaver/sixteenth-note, with the notes in groups of 4. Who on earth would ever do this? Supposedly, this insanity is resolved by grouping the semiquavers to match the words. But as centuries of vocal scores (and McGill's next example) confirm, musical notes match syllables, not letters. Why describe (and "solve") a problem that doesn't exist outside your book? These are going to sound like petty points, but if you read the book I suspect you will feel the same about the overall result, and find other puzzling material. If the most cogent and useful points had been extracted, to produce a book of 100-150 pages, I might have read all of it. But 357 pages is far too long, and multiple attempts have produced little more than frustration. I honestly think this book needed an editor who could see the printed content for what it is.

Absolutely inspiring...a must read for professional/recreational musician, educator and lifelong learner!!

One of the best books about musical phrasing available. It's a good reminder to everything that David teaches his students.