Hello TPIN,

Over the past couple of years I've developed a much needed habit of ending my physical routine sessions with at least a few lyrical studies. I feel like it takes all of the physical stuff and gives it a purpose. I began with Concone and stuck with that for a long time. But then I realized that there's a lot of good lyrical stuff out there and that I shouldn't limit myself to just Concone.

So I got a copy of Phil Collins' "In the Singing Style". It's an excellent book with a bunch of orchestral and operatic themes. Then I started using Phil Snedecor's book called "Lyrical Etudes for Trumpet". I played through that one about five times. After that I went through all of the lyrical stuff in the Arban book. That was a wealth of good music that I never knew was there. I'm refering to the section titled "The Art of Phrasing - 150 Classic and Popular Melodies". Excellent stuff. It took me several months to get through them all (doing only a couple each day) but it was worth it.

Then I began working from a book that I bought only because it was so darn cheap. I only paid about $5 for it, and it's Leduc, which means it probably sells a lot more than that now-a-days. Anyway, I was wondering if you guys could tell me anything about the book or its author.

Henri Busser  -  Douze Études Mèlodiques

It seems to me, from the way the etudes are written, that there may be a missing piano accumpinament. Anything you might know would be appreciated.

Also, this is not a very long book. If you have any suggestions for other lyrical studies that I could get, please let me know. As I mentioned earlier, I really like to end the physical portion of my practice day with sight reading a lyrical etude. Not  much use in sight reading something you've already played before.

Eddie Lewis
TigerLewis@aol.com
Houston, TX