The Leading Note is the perfect place to find gifts for the musicians in your life – including yourself. We’ve expanded our selection this year with dozens of new gift items in stock – from socks to mugs, ornaments, and more, we have many items to fill your holiday home galore!

Here’s a small sampling…

What better way to start the morning with a burst of music (and coffee of course). Check out our extensive collection of music-themed mugs and glasses.

Keep those tootsies warm with these stylish cotton blend women’s socks in a classic keyboard pattern. Be the envy of all of your friends and never get lost in the dark in neon green. Check out our extensive collection of music-themed socks.

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Stop by soon to check out these new Christmas music titles, just received at The Leading Note!  Our entire selection of music for the holidays is now on display.  Here are some old and new favourites to keep your days merry and bright!

New arrangements of Christmas Carols in the setting of classical favourites by Cindy Berry. Also of note are similar classical arrangements by Carolyne Taylor.

Feeling jazzy?  Craig Curry has put together a selection of “spicy” settings of Christmas Jazz for Solo Piano. Other jazzy favourites include arrangements by Christopher Norton and Martha Mier.

For piano duet, we have The Christmas Variations, arrangements of classic carols by one of our favourite arrangers for piano, Phillip Keveren.

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One of the most popular piano methods in French is James Bastien’s Méthode de Piano Bastien. The graded series includes four books at each level: Piano, Theorie, Technique, et Récital. This is an excellent series for preparing students beginner students.

Unfortunately, the French series has always been incomplete compared to its English equivalent. The English series includes two preparatory levels for younger students called Piano for the Young Beginner that were not available in French.

We are pleased to announce that Niveau Preparatoire A and Niveau Preparatoire B are now available in French, each including Piano pour les Tout-Petits and Theorie & Technique pour les Tout-Petits.

This is great news for our community because the options for French piano methods has always been somewhat limited!

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Une des méthodes de piano les plus populaires en français est la Méthode de Piano Bastien de James Bastien. La série graduée comprend quatre livres à chaque niveau: Piano, Théorie, Technique, et Récital. Il s’agit d’une excellente série pour la préparation des étudiants débutants.

Malheureusement, la série française a toujours été incomplète par rapport à son équivalent anglais. La série anglaise comprend deux niveaux préparatoires pour les étudiants plus jeunes appelés Piano for the Young Beginner qui n’étaient pas disponibles en français.

Nous sommes heureux d’annoncer que Niveau Préparatoire A et Niveau Préparatoire B sont maintenant disponibles en français, les deux niveaux y compris Piano pour les Tout-Petits et Theorie & Technique pour les Tout-Petits.

Ce sont des excellentes nouvelles pour notre communauté parce que les options pour les méthodes de piano en français sont toujours plus limitées!

Unfortunately, it will take a few weeks for the changeover to be complete, so for the time being, there will be delays getting new books from Conservatory Canada. We apologize for any inconvenience but will do our best to get these books back in stock as quickly as possible.

Once the books are available again, The Leading Note will continue to keep plenty of Conservatory Canada titles in stock!

Have you always wanted to sing Handel’s Messiah?

Starting September 17, Alcorn Music Studios presents Messiah 101, a 12-week course to help you learn and master the world’s favourite oratorio. Led by choral director Elise Letourneau, this course will help you learn how to keep your place in the score, how to count in your vocal entries, how to listen to the accompaniment or other vocal parts for your note, how to mark up your score and more. Learn about important vocal techniques and choral etiquette to bring you up to speed for CAMMAC’s annual Come Sing Messiah event on December 5th at Dominion-Chalmers United Church.

Don’t forget to bring a copy of the Messiah vocal score, available at The Leading Note for $12.00 +HST.

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The Royal Conservatory of Music and Frederick Harris have released a new series of graded books for clarinet. This new series is similar in design to the recent publications for saxophone and trumpet, featuring graded materials to help the student develop technical and artistic control through the RCM’s respected curriculum. Now clarinetists can enjoy the same benefits that come from an organized, graded series of method books that their flute-playing colleagues have enjoyed for several years!

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Starting today, Save 20% on all titles from Bärenreiter!

From July 21 through August 2, save 20% on all Bärenreiter publications at The Leading Note. Take advantage of this spectacular offer to purchase any title in the Bärenreiter catalogue before their annual price increase later in August. The sale includes all titles currently in stock and any orders made before closing on August 2.

Bärenreiter Verlag is one of the most beloved publishers of Urtext editions in the world. Their definitive, scholarly editions adorned in colourful covers are renowned amongst musicians. (Read more…)

The Leading Note is excited to announce the launch of new website features that we are sure you will find extremely useful for making purchasing decisions. Our homepage now features a series of Leading Note Product Guides, including:

Guides to RCM Graded Materials - An amazing resource for teachers and students alike! - Find graded materials quickly and easily including both the standard publications from Frederick Harris and all supplementary editions listed in the various RCM Syllabi - Includes links to repertoire, studies, popular selections, theory texts, and more - Now available for piano and voice with violin and other instruments coming soon!

Guide to Products on Sale - The Leading Note has hundreds of books on sale for all instruments - Use the guide to easily browse sale titles by instrument - Save 30-50%, while supplies last!

Guide to Choral Music Repertoire - An ever-growing resource for choral directors - Repertoire sorted by voicing and theme to help you filter for appropriate repertoire - Planning a concert? Our Thematic Concert Guides are the perfect place to go for inspiration! - Sacred selections sorted by liturgical season to help church choir directors find thematic repertoire - Read choral-related articles from our blog - Learn about the specialties of various choral music publishers - Lists sorted by popularity, so you’ll know what music has worked well for other choirs

All three guides are an ongoing project for us with the goal of making our website a rich source of information for all of your print music purchasing needs.  We are always open to feedback and suggestions for improvement! Please leave a comment below or contact us here.