Accent on Achievement will excite your students through colorful and visually appealing pages! The Teacher's Resource Kit includes special assessment materials for student testing, reproducible music theory and composer worksheets, sample letters to parents, rhythm flash cards and more. The Conductor's Score contains a wealth of helpful hints and suggestions, in an easy-to-use format. Some outstanding features include:

• Meets and exceeds the National Standards for Music Education
• Develops theory, aural, compositional, and improvisational skills
• Based on sound pedagogy for developing proper performance technique
• Includes assessment materials for student testing
• Provides a wealth of classical and world music material
• Correlated books such as Accent on Ensembles and Accent on Christmas offer a chance to provide more performance opportunities.
• Each student book one now comes with an accompaniment CD enclosed! Exercises for the first portion of the book use a live recording by professional musicians, followed by high-quality MIDI accompaniments for the remainder of the book. A 2-CD set is also available separately, and contains live recordings for the entire book. These CDs can also be placed in a computer to install Accent on Interactivity, a MIDI accompaniment program that allows students to record themselves playing, adjust the tempo of accompaniments and much more. This method is a solid choice to get any young band student off to a great start!

Basic Library

Learning was never so much fun! If you're looking for a band method that builds solid musicianship while motivating your students to practice throughout the year, then you've found it! This band method is sound in its pedagogy, written by leading young band composers and educators, including Robert W. Smith and Michael Story. The integration of important songs from the band world, that are both familiar and fun to play, is one of the stellar aspects of this method. Throughout the book, students experience music from a veritable "who's who" list of great band composers. They'll discover the musical contributions of Percy Grainger, Gustav Holst, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, John Williams and John Philip Sousa as well as classical composers. Some of the notable features include:

• A wonderful variety of melodies that span various styles and periods, including many popular themes students will know
• A 96-track CD included with each student book spans exercises throughout the lesson book
• Professional accompaniments in diverse styles keep practice fun
• A comprehensive score with related activities and supplementary lesson ideas
• A DVD that complements the content of the lesson and offers short clips that are perfect for recruitment purposes
• Historical notes on some of the most notable composers of band music
• A percussion book that exposes students to performing more than 25 different instruments
• Develop compositional skills, music reading skills, and learn the correlation between art and music
• Includes 9 full band pieces written by Michael Story and Robert W. Smith
• A teacher CD that includes wonderful listening opportunities for the students

Your students will love playing along with the CD accompaniment tracks! And, for the director, a comprehensive score makes lesson planning enjoyable. Related activities, supplementary lesson ideas, curriculum planning information and much, much more are offered to assist and inspire you.

Learning was never so much fun! If you're looking for a revolutionary band curriculum that builds solid musicianship while motivating your students to practice throughout the year, then you've found it! This full band curriculum is sound in its pedagogy, written by leading young band composers and educators, including Robert W. Smith and Michael Story. The integration of important songs from the band world, that are both familiar and fun to play, is one of the stellar aspects of this course. Throughout the book, students experience music from a veritable "who's who" list of great band composers. They'll discover the musical contributions of Henry Fillmore, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Clare Grundman, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Scott Joplin, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Igor Stravinsky. Some of the notable features include ; A wonderful variety of melodies that span various styles and periods, including many popular themes students will know today ; A 78-track CD in each student book with accompaniments for various songs and exercises throughout the lesson book ; Professional recordings in diverse styles keep practice fun ; Four comprehensive score/teacher volumes with guided lessons, related activities and supplementary experience ideas ; Historical notes and biographies on some of the most notable composers of band music ; A percussion book that exposes students to learning and performing on more than 25 different instruments ; Develops composition, arranging, improvisation, and ear training, as well as music reading skills ; Reproducible worksheets and overhead transparencies to enhance classroom and home learning ; Includes 11 full band pieces written by Michael Story and Robert W. Smith, including Star Wars (Main Title) in book 2 ; Teacher CDs that includes accompaniments, ear training, and lesson-related listening activities for the students Your students will love playing along with the CD accompaniment tracks! And, for the director, the Teacher's Curriculum Package provides the four teacher edition volumes, the Teacher Support Pack (worksheets, forms, and transparencies), the Teacher Resource Guide, and the Teacher CD pack, which make lesson planning easy and enjoyable. The related activities, supplementary lesson ideas, curriculum planning information and much, much more are offered to assist and inspire you.

Take your band program to the next level with the comprehensive band method Essential Elements 2000interactive, now hosted with the powerful Charms Office tools! Essential Elements 2000 interactive is the same popular method that integrates history, theory, creativity, and listening skills from the very first page. Now in conjunction with Charms Office, this innovation gives you your own private fully secured website for teaching beyond the classroom. Also upgraded in this this series is the CD rom that's included in every Student Book 1 that features recordings of every exercise in the book, with the solo part played by a professional musician, and accompaniment-only tracks in jazz, rock, folk styles and more. Students will experience playing with top musicians right from the start! (If students can only make use of the CD, once they progress beyond the first CD, CD disks 2 and 3 are available for purchase.) This method makes those important early lessons fun to practice! Special Features:

• Carefully planned first concert
• 12 arrangements for full band
• Rubank scale and arpeggio studies
• Easy-to-use rhythm studies
• Work-outs to establish daily warm-up and practice habits
• Exceeds the National Standards for Arts Education

A wealth of features available with the CD rom included with each student book make this method stand apart! They include:

• Tempo Adjustment software to play CD accompaniment tracks at any desired tempo
• SmartMusic software to practice, record and e-mail a performance
• Finale Notepad software for learning music notation
• All 185 Play-Along Tracks for every exercise in the book
• More Duets and Trios that can be printed on a computer
• A Band Music Listening Library of 15 great pieces with listening guide
• A "start up" segment which helps beginning students learn how to assemble and take care of their instrument

"Measures of Success" was created to ignite musical curiosity, unite conceptual knowledge with performance skills, foster understanding of the many ways people share and interact with music and assess each student's continued musical growth. While there are many differing opinions on starting systems, directors agree that the music itself is the most important component of a method. Creative titles stimulate the imagination, musicianship challenges promote expressive playing, and special attention is paid to important concepts such as phrasing. Students will enjoy the full band arrangements and directors will discover that this performance-based method also introduces students to critical listening, composing, conducting, music history and other elements that bring about a deeper understanding of music.

A revolutionary method with a unique blend of time-tested attributes, advances in modern technology, and insights on how students learn and how teachers want to teach. Available in in two formats: the Standard edition, and the Director's Choice edition which allows teachers to customize the method's pedagogy, music, and enrichment materials. Sound Innovations provides fundamental teaching tools in a clear and organized format that allows directors to incorporate their own style of teaching, and the Director's Choice edition is the first method that allows a director to easily customize the method to fit their unique teaching styles and classroom situations. The method is also available on the popular Smartmusic program and provides free access to the first 100 lines of music for students.

Sound Innovations for Concert Band, Book 2 continues your students' musical journey by teaching with segmented presentation of new concepts and introducing ensemble playing. Isolating concepts and teaching them individually helps facilitate understanding of the more advanced material. Following the unique Sound Innovations organization, the book contains four levels, each of which is divided into several sections that introduce concepts separately and provide plenty of practice and performance opportunities to reinforce each lesson.