Ghost In the Key of A: Pythagoras

By T. Katz

Priscilla Villanueva is tired of practicing piano when all her friends are outside playing. Discouraged and bored one autumn day, Priscilla opens her sheet music and begins playing a challenging sonatina. Unfortunately, it is not long before she smashes her fingers against the keys in frustration. But when her fingers suddenly stumble upon a sticky A key, everything changes.

After a beautiful, twirling column of colors rises from the piano keyboard, Priscilla falls off her bench in surprise. As a translucent man dressed in a tuxedo appears before her, the ghostly spirit who calls himself Pythagoras tells a shocked Priscilla that she is a talented musician who has just lost an important element that he can help her find. Soon, he begins to teach Pricilla interesting information she never knew about musical history and theory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483416762

Book preview

GHOST

IN THE KEY OF

A

PYTHAGORAS

T. KATZ

Copyright © 2006, 2008, 2014 T. Katz.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Artistic Imagery By Janet Hinde

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1675-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1676-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014914699

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 9/3/2014

CONTENTS

Introduction

Musical Terms

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

INTRODUCTION

I am primarily a storyteller at heart, but feel that every story deserves a soundtrack of sorts and have always had an undercurrent of rhythm and music in my world. Starting at the age of four I began playing piano, and eventually added flute, violin, guitar and the glockenspiel (but only because the glockenspiel was like a piano and one could march with that in junior high). After, I went on to participate in every possible musical class or choir that my school experiences could offer and then sang professionally for many years. On occasion I still tutor students in piano, voice and music theory, although it seems that the number of keyboard players is dwindling. Playing the piano with any degree of skill takes time, dedication and patience. I’ve seen how students find that to be difficult, so I wrote Ghost in the Key of A out of a desire for more piano students to be inspired during their practice time at home and perhaps find their own magical adventures while playing.

MUSICAL TERMS

Adagio—music played slowly

Allegro—music played fast

Arpeggio—notes from a chord, played one after another quickly

Bar of music—beats of music in a measure

Bass clef—also called the F clef

Beats—unit of rhythm

Cacophony—dissonant sounds, unpleasant

Choir—group of singers

Chord—group of notes (typically three) sounded together in harmony

Composition—written piece of music that is often long and complex

Conductor’s baton—stick used by a conductor to direct musicians

Dissonance—sounds that clash

Dynamic markings—the punctuation marks of music

Fanfare—bold and complex bit of music, often played as an introduction

Fermata—note held longer than the time signature dictates

Guitar—a stringed instrument with six or twelve strings, played by plucking or strumming

Harmony—group of notes played together in a pleasing sound

Key, major—bright-sounding group of notes

Key, minor—dark-sounding group of notes

Legato—smooth and connected

Measure—beats of music between bars

Melody—sequence of notes that make a musical sentence

Metronome—device that makes a repeated sound to indicate how fast or slow notes are to be played

Octave—the distance between the first and eighth note of a musical scale

Orchestra—group of instruments played together, usually strings, woodwind, and brass

Organ—musical instrument consisting of one or more sets of pipes, played by one or more keyboards

Percussion—musical instrument that makes sound by being struck or scraped

Phrase—section of music that is like a sentence, often repeated

Piano—(1) a musical instrument with a keyboard that produces sounds when keys are pressed down and metal strings are struck by hammers, making it both a percussion and string instrument; and (2) a musical term that means to play softly

Pitch—sound of a note

Polyphonic—combination of melodies played at the same time

Polytonality—combination of two or more keys being played at the same time

Pythagoras—Greek philosopher and mathematician, born in 570 BC

Recital—musical performance

Rhythm—regular, repeated pattern

Sixteenth notes—note played for 1/16 of the duration of a whole note

Scale—series of notes that ascend and descend

Sonatina—brief musical composition

Staccato—short, detached notes (the opposite of legato)

Staff—five horizontal, parallel lines and spaces on which musical notes are written

Symphony—orchestral piece of music

Tempo—speed (how fast or slow) of music

Theremin—an unusual, eerie-sounding instrument that is named after its Russian inventor Leon Theremin, and played by waving your hands between two metal antennas

Time signature—numeric symbol that determines the number of beats to a measure

Treble clef—also called the G clef

Trill—rapidly alternating notes

Tune—(1) melody; (2) making small changes to correct pitch

Vibration—short, quick movement, either back and forth or side to side

CHAPTER 1

Hearing the sounds of the other kids playing outside while she practiced piano was painful for Priscilla. She could hear the clickety-clack and scratching noises of the boys playing street hockey as they whooped and whizzed in the cul-de-sac. She listened all during her practice time to the whirring and whooshing of bicycle, tricycle, and scooter wheels. Plus, the constant whomp, whomp, whomp, whack! of basketball practice drove her crazy. She banged at the piano keys with all ten fingers to make as much noise as she could, until her mother came in.

Priscilla Maria Villanueva! You stop that racket right now.

Priscilla lay her head down on the keyboard, sounding one last defiant,