Product Description
by Susan Schuster (Author)
The Shakers composed thousands of songs and created many dances. Their musical styles range from meditative and contemplative to upbeat and joyous. The Shakers considered it important to record musical inspirations as they occurred and many of the songs in this collection were transcribed directly from their original 19th century documents. There are 2 versions of each song. For beginning Native American flute players, the music is in both Nakai tablature and fingering diagrams, making the music accessible to those who cannot read music or who are new to the flute. More advanced players and players of other instruments will want to use the standard notation version which does not contain the fingering diagrams.The melodies have been arranged to stay within the melodic range of the flute and are playable by most treble instruments.
Author Biography
Composer/Arranger, Susan Schuster has been active in music since childhood. Her early years, singing in the Methodist church, and playing clarinet, flute and guitar led her to pursuing an undergraduate degree in Music which she followed with a Masters in Business Administration. When she is not working maintaining information security for New York State, Susan composes, transcribes and annotates works for Native American Flute. She is an active member of the World Flute Society and her original compositions and transcriptions have appeared in several issues of their quarterly journal. Susan has also arranged a variety of traditional and popular music for chamber brass including an arrangement that will appear on a future recording by Genghis Barbie. A native of the Northeast US, Susan and her parrot Squeak live near the three Shaker communities that were the inspiration for this collection. She is currently working on an original suite for Native American Flute, a piece for solo horn and a second collection of Shaker tunes.
