Awesome Outside

My Kind of Music Book 2 by Kevin Olson continues his series trying to find the pieces that fit his students. (You can find my post about his first book here.) He includes a comment about how to play this piece, or what he was thinking when he wrote it.  For instance, for the song Too Cool he comments "This bluesy piece should sound lazy and relaxed.  Don't lose the "coolness' by going too fast!"

This book has several fun pieces about the great outdoors.  Inside you'll find:
Somethin' Spicy
Too Cool
Saturday Surfers
A Sudden Storm
Midnight Mist
The Old Carousel
Island Song
Under Starry Skies
Forest Trails

This is labeled Elementary to Late Elementary.  There are fast and peppy staccato pieces like Somethin' Spicy which uses changing meters to keep the music moving, bluesy pieces, quick smooth pieces like A Sudden Storm, Midnight Mist is a mysterious piece using pedal, and the Caribbean can be heard in Island Song. These songs have no words, but the title and Kevin Olson's comment go a long way to help the student to solidify the picture in their mind of the feeling of each piece.
You can look inside here.

You will find these concepts:
4/4, 3/4
whole, dotted half, half, quarter notes and rests
Fast and peppery, driving, mysteriously, relaxed, flowing, with a tropical punch,
p, mp, mf, f, cresc, dim, 
staccato, accidentals, slur, changing meters, accents, tie, hand movement, pedal, 8va, poco a poco, D.C. al Fine, slur ending in staccato, 1st and 2nd endings, molt rit.

Here's Midnight Mist, a mysterious piece.  (Not my student or video.)

This is available at Sheet Music Plus for $5.95